The Catholic Historical
Review
VOL. LXXXVII

OCTOBER, 2001

No. 4

COURT AND PIETY IN LATE ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND
BY

MARY FRANCES SMITH, ROBIN FLEMING, AND PATRICIA HALPIN*

Introduction

Already, by the early twelfth century, the kind of piety practiced by
Anglo-Scandinavian elites in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries
was considered old-fashioned, even vulgar. The almost complete annihilation of the upper reaches of this aristocracy, both lay and ecclesiastical, in the decade following the Battle of Hastings left this group open
to a set of wide-ranging critiques by the Norman victors; and AngloNorman churchmen, kings, and historians were quick to point out preConquest earls’ and bishops’ impious behavior, their lack of generosity
toward the Church, and their worldliness. To further complicate matters, from the middle decades of the eleventh century on, Gregorian
and other reform efforts were radically altering contemporary assumptions about proper pious behavior, and an unprecedented flurry of literary activity in the twelfth century both reinforced the new piety and
denigrated the old.Beyond this,historians’(both modern and medieval)
enthusiasm for tenth-century spirituality, in particular reformed Benedictine monasticism, and their disinterest in, even hostility toward,
other forms of religious life have led them to view many great men and
*This article is the result of the long discussions and collaborative research of the three
authors, and the idea for the article, its themes, and its conclusions are the product of all
three.The section on bishops, however, was written by Dr. Smith, an assistant professor of
history in Ohio University, the section on earls by Dr. Fleming, a professor of history in
Boston College, and the section on women by Dr. Halpin, an assistant professor of history
in Assumption College.

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wealthy women of the late Anglo-Saxon period as irreligious at best.
What follows is an attempt to take a fresh look at the religious practices
and interests exhibited by three groups found in and around the AngloScandinavian court in the first half of the eleventh century—the bishops,
the earls, and aristocratic women. It sets out to describe the religious
enthusiasms and pious practices of the late Anglo-Saxon aristocracy, lay
and ecclesiastical, and to reconsider its piety and its liberality toward
the Church.

Episcopal Piety

More than thirty years ago, Dorothy Bethurum argued that the great
wealth of Anglo-Saxon bishops was interpreted by contemporaries as a
reflection of God’s majesty on earth.1 Bethurum’s article, boldly entitled
“Episcopal Magnificence in the Eleventh Century,” was somewhat revolutionary in its approach to the topic of episcopal piety. While the majority of historians tended to view piety through a monastic filter,
Bethurum offered a much more balanced and nuanced approach to
contemporary norms and expectations as they related to ecclesiastical
wealth, power, and piety..2 Despite the even-handedness of her approach, however, Bethurum’s article did not alter the course of AngloSaxon ecclesiastical historiography. With very few exceptions, historians
have continued to privilege the cloistered church of monks and abbots
over the worldly church of canons and secular bishops.3 That this imbalance persists is even more surprising given the publication of
Stephen Jaeger’s two masterful studies of continental courtier bish1
Dorothy Bethurum, “Episcopal magnificence in the eleventh century,” in Studies in
Old English Literature in Honor of Arthur G. Brodeur, ed. Stanley Greenfield (Eugene,
1963), pp. 162–170.
2
The only major study of the late Anglo-Saxon Church, for instance, is heavily dependent on post-Conquest narratives, largely the products of reformed Benedictine communities (Frank Barlow, The English Church, 1000–1066 [London, 1963; 2ndedn. 1979]).
3
Exceptions include Patrick Conner, Anglo-Saxon Exeter: A Tenth-Century Cultural
History (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1992), which examines Bishop Leofric in some detail but is
focused on the library at Exeter; Simon Keynes,“Giso, Bishop of Wells, 1061–1088,”AngloNorman Studies, 19 (1997), 203–271; Mary Frances Smith,“Archbishop Stigand and the
Eye of the Needle,” Anglo-Norman Studies, 16 (1994), 199–219. See, however, the many
volumes dedicated to monastic bishops, including Emma Mason, St Wulfstan of Worcester, c. 1008–1095 (Oxford, 1990); Bishop Æthelwold: His Career and Influence, ed. Barbara Yorke (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1988); St Dunstan: His Life, Times and Cult, edd. Nigel
Ramsay, Margaret Sparks, and Tim Tatton-Brown (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1992); St Oswald
of Worcester: Life and Influence, edd. Nicholas Brooks and Catherine Cubitt (London,
1996).

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571

ops and eleventh-century cathedral culture.4 What is missing from the
modern historiography of the English Church, then, is an appreciation
for the kind of piety practiced by bishops in the late Anglo-Saxon period, a piety as out of vogue in the twelfth century as it is in the twentieth.5
As Jaeger and others have demonstrated, however, piety is of tremendous significance to social as well as ecclesiastical historians since it
was a defining characteristic of nobility in the early Middle Ages.6 Piety
in this period was characterized by active devotion rather than introspection, and it was made visible through public acts. Entrance into
confraternity with an ecclesiastical community, for example, almost always entailed a reciprocal gift symbolizing the establishment of a spiritual relationship, a relationship that was often proclaimed publicly
through the laying of a bit of sod or a gospel book on the altar.7 Because
of their participation in the king’s witan, their broad-ranging economic
and judicial powers in their dioceses, and their pastoral mission centered on ordination and visitation, bishops were public figures of unrivaled magnitude. But they were also models of aristocratic behavior in
their generosity to religious communities both monastic and secular.
Hagiography, charters, libri vitae, and chronicles all demonstrate that
good bishops gave at the office, and that they encouraged and assisted
others to do the same. While a fair amount of scholarship has already
concentrated on gifts of land to churches, there has been much less interest in material objects as expressions of piety, despite the rather surprising amount of evidence.8 This section takes a fresh look at the
evidence for late Anglo-Saxon episcopal piety and argues that the intense traffic in objects suggested therein reflects not greed or vanity,but
one of the qualities that made a great man or woman great—generosity.
4
C. Stephen Jaeger, The Origins of Courtliness: Civilizing Trends and the Formation
of Courtly Ideals, 939–1210 (Philadelphia, 1985); The Envy of Angels: Cathedral Schools
and Social Ideals in Medieval Europe (Philadelphia, 1994).
5
For a discussion of twelfth-century attitudes toward the Anglo-Saxon Church, see
Mary Frances Smith, Episcopal Landholding, Lordship and Culture in Late Anglo-Saxon
England (Ph.D. dissertation, Boston College, 1997), particularly chapter 1.
6
Barbara Rosenwein,To Be the Neighbor of Saint Peter:The Social Meaning of Cluny’s
Property, 909–1049 (Ithaca, New York, 1989); Stephen White, Custom, Kinship and
Gifts to the Saints: The Laudatio Parentum in Western France, 1050-1150 (Chapel Hill,
North Carolina, 1988); Property and Power in the Early Middle Ages, edd. Wendy Davies
and Paul Fouracre (Cambridge, 1995).
7
Robin Fleming,Domesday Book and the Law (Cambridge,1999),nos.1683 and 1684.
8
Notable exceptions are C. R. Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art (Manchester, 1982), and T. A.
Heslop, “The Production of de luxe Manuscripts and the Patronage of King Cnut and
Queen Emma,” Anglo-Saxon England, 19 (1990), 151–195.

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COURT AND PIETY IN LATE ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

It is impossible to describe adequately the rich material culture of
Anglo-Saxon England depicted in the sources.Local histories,chronicles,
wills, and hagiography all depict a high-status world brimming with
large, bright, and glittering objects, many of which reflected the generosity of Anglo-Saxon bishops to their communities, their royal lords,
and their friends lay and ecclesiastical.The sheer number and variety of
episcopal gifts is extraordinary. Not surprisingly, bishops gave their
friends and colleagues crosses of all sizes,from small pectoral crosses to
life-size ones. But they also gave portable altars, reliquaries, carpets, wall
hangings, candlesticks, bowls, banners, and even bear-skins and a military wagon and chest. Added to this list of mixed ecclesiastical and secular objects were lavishly illuminated manuscripts and hard-to-find
relics, some of the most precious objects in the early medieval world.
Although the majority of bishops probably gave on a small scale befitting the incomes of their sees, some bishops were very wealthy and
thus staggeringly generous. In the list of gifts of just two bishops, Æthelwold of Winchester and Leofric of Exeter, at least ten silver chalices,
twenty albs, forty bells of all sizes, and more than seventy-five books
were recorded as benefactions to the communities of Peterborough
and Exeter, respectively.9 Thus a very large and lucrative traffic in objects emerges from the sources as a normal, indeed expected, practice
associated with episcopal office.
The origins of these objects were as diffuse as the sources that record
them.It was a convention of late Anglo-Saxon episcopal hagiography that
bishops were skilled artists and craftsmen.10 The best witness to a hint of
truth in this topos is the famous St.Dunstan Classbook,which depicts the
saint at the foot of the magnificent linedrawing of Christ that Dunstan
may himself have created.11 Indeed, Osbert would later claim that Dunstan could “make whatever he liked from gold, silver, bronze, and iron.”12
Likewise, the Abingdon chronicler would have us believe that Bishop
Æthelwold fabricated gold and silver crosses for his community, as well
as a revolving wheel with bells and lamps, and even an organ, although

Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. and trans. A. J. Robertson (Cambridge, 1939), nos. 39 and 1.
Archbishop Wulfstan advised the secular clergy to acquire a manual skill for the
health of their souls as well as their bodies (Wulfstan’s Canons of Edgar, ed. Roger
Fowler, EETS 266 (Oxford, 1972), p. 5. See also Memorials of St Dunstan, Archbishop of
Canterbury, ed. William Stubbs, RS (London, 1874), pp. 20–21, and Dodwell, op. cit., pp.
47–50.
11
Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Auct. F.iv.32, fol. 1; Dodwell, op. cit., p. 53.
12
Memorials of St Dunstan, p. 79.
9

10

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573

these skills are not mentioned in either of his two biographies.13 Still,
the most famous artisan-bishop was Spearhavoc, King Edward the Confessor’s goldsmith, who was promoted to the see of London but who
never actually took office.14 Most bishops were probably not as talented
or well trained as Spearhavoc, but it is likely that a great many of the objects they bought, sold, or traded came from the workshops of the
larger cathedral communities such as Winchester, Canterbury, and
Worcester.15 Workshops at the Old Minster, Winchester, certainly produced a wide variety of religious and secular objects, including the
drinking horn that the Atheling Athelstan had once purchased there
and subsequently bequeathed back to the minster in his will.16 The existence of a thriving workshop at Winchester is corroborated by archaeological excavations, which have revealed a variety of religious and
secular objects bearing close stylistic relationships to local manuscript
illumination.17 Durham, too, was probably a center for the production
of high-status objects. A later inventory records that Earl Tosti and his
wife Judith ordered a figure of Christ on the cross, ornamented with
gold and silver, from the community at Durham.18 Anglo-Saxon bishops
thus had access to a variety of deluxe art objects made right in their
own workshops and scriptoria, even if they did not make them themselves, and these workshops must also have served the needs of bishDodwell, op. cit., pp. 49–50.
Spearhavoc’s candidacy was rejected by Archbishop Robert as an abomination. According to the Abingdon Chronicle, when denied consecration, he stuffed his coffers full
and absconded with everything (Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon, ed. Joseph Stevenson, RS, 2 vols. [London, 1858], I, 462–463).
15
A scribe held land of Worcester on the condition that he copy books for the
monastery (Robertson, Anglo-Saxon Charters, no. 61). Likewise, Bishop Ælfwold of Crediton bequeathed to the scribe Ælfgar a pound of pennies (The Crawford Collection of
Early Charters and Documents, edd. Arthur S. Napier and William H. Stevenson [Oxford,
1895], p. 23), and Archbishop Oswald leased land to two craftsmen (Anglo-Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and Bibliography, ed. Peter H. Sawyer [London, 1968], nos. 1344
and 1365 [hereafter S]). A hagiographical source also records that there was a smith attached to Old Minster, Winchester (Lantfred, Translatio et Miracula de S. Swithuni, ed. E.
Sauvage, Analecta Bollandiana, 4 [1985], 378).
16
Athelstan also bequeathed a sword with a silver hilt to the Old Minster (Anglo-Saxon
Wills, ed. Dorothy Whitelock [Cambridge, 1930], no. 20).
17
Dodwell, op. cit., p. 22.
18
Symeon of Durham,Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia,ed.Thomas Arnold,RS (2 vols.;
London, 1882–1885), I, 95 and 245; Robertson, Anglo-Saxon Charters, p. 250. Perhaps the
embroideries commissioned by King Athelstan for St. Cuthbert and the Lady Ælfflæd for
Bishop Frithestan were also made at Durham (Symeon, Opera Omnia, I, 211; C. F. Battiscombe,“Historical Introduction,” in The Relics of Saint Cuthbert: Studies by Various Authors, ed. C. F. Battiscombe (Oxford, 1956), pp. 13, 375 and pl. xxxiii).
13

14

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COURT AND PIETY IN LATE ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

ops whose communities were less industrious either by choice or by
necessity.
While a great many luxury items were made and acquired at English
communities, there was also a large and thriving international marketplace in which English bishops shopped while on pilgrimage or embassy abroad. Not every English bishop was a world traveler, but more
than a few went to Rome to participate in synods or to receive their
pallia from the Pope.19 Some apparently combined ecclesiastical business with diplomatic missions on behalf of English kings.20 Surviving evidence for both kinds of episcopal journeys, although slight, is certainly
suggestive. Bishops Ealdred of Worcester and Herman of Ramsbury, for
instance, attended a papal council in Rome in 1050, while Bishops Giso
of Wells and Walter of Hereford made the trip to Rome in 1061 to get
their pallia in the company of Tosti Godwineson and a large retinue.21
The notice of Ealdred’s trip to Jerusalem and the Holy Land via Hungary
in 1058 is perhaps the most enlightening since it was recorded that “he
went to Jerusalem in such state as no-one had done before him, and
there he committed himself to God, and also offered a worthy gift for
our Lord’s tomb. It was a golden chalice worth five marks, of very wonderful workmanship.”22 Although Ealdred’s trip was undertaken to secure the return of the English æthelings in exile, the pilgrimage to
Jerusalem gave him an opportunity to give and to receive; it was probably on this trip that he acquired many of the relics he would later broker to Harold Godwineson for the earl’s foundation at Waltham Holy
Cross.23 Although there is no English evidence, Archbishop Stigand also
appears to have made a pilgrimage abroad.24 In the Vita Willibrordi,

19
Archbishops of Canterbury and York who went to Rome to collect their pallia include Dunstan, Sigeric, Ælfric, Æthelnoth, Robert, Cynsige, and Ealdred (Memorials of St
Dunstan, p. 38; The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Revised Translation, edd. Dorothy Whitelock, David C. Douglas, and Susie I. Tucker [London, 1961] [hereafter ASC], s.a. 989 [recte
990] [F], s.a. 997 [F], s.a. 1022 [D,E], s.a. 1048 [recte 1051] [E], s.a. 1055 [D] and s.a. 1061
[D], respectively).
20
Bishop Ealdred was sent abroad in 1054 on “b
p
bæs kynges ærende” to the court of the
emperor (ASC, s.a. 1054 [D]).
21
ASC, s.a. 1051 [recte 1050] (D); The Chronicle of John of Worcester, edd. and trans.
R. R. Darlington, Jennifer Bray, and P. McGurk (3 vols.; Oxford, 1995–), II, 587–589.
22
ASC, s.a. 1058 (D).
23
See below, note 103. Ealdred also received gifts from the patriarch of Jerusalem (ASC,
s.a. 1058 [D]).
24
I am grateful to M. C. Ferrari for this reference (M.C. Ferrari,“Book Culture and Monastic Continuity: The Echternach Scriptorium in the Middle Ages,” unpublished paper delivered at Leeds, July 14, 1997).

BY MARY FRANCES SMITH, ROBIN FLEMING, AND PATRICIA HALPIN

575

written by a monk at Echternach in the early twelfth century, it is
recorded that “to this place also came Stigand, the eminent archbishop
of the English, [who] decorated the church and furnished it with outstandingly precious relics, whose encasings surpassed all precious metals and gems.”25 Not only is this the only evidence we have of Stigand’s
journey abroad, but it also suggests that he was carrying astonishing
gifts, and one wonders if he was equally generous to each of the shrines
he visited.26 Pilgrimages and other trips abroad were also excellent opportunities to bring back luxury items, such as silks from Byzantium
and manuscripts incorporating the latest innovations in imperial
iconography and liturgy.27 But the pilgrimage routes were also rich in
relics, and we know that some Anglo-Saxon bishops had private collections of relics that they plundered on occasion for gifts. Archbishop
Æthelnoth, for instance, brought back the arm of St. Augustine from
Pavia, which he purchased for one hundred talents of silver and one talent of gold, and which he subsequently gave to Coventry Abbey.28
All of this giving and receiving on the part of bishops benefited clergymen and communities across England, although bishops obviously
kept and enjoyed some of these items for themselves. The mideleventh-century walrus ivory crozier which depicts the life of St. John
Vita Willibrordi, ed. Albert Poncelet, AASS, November 4 (1916), cap. 29.
That high-status pilgrims were expected to bring gifts to continental saints is corroborated by letters from Flemish abbots to English archbishops of Canterbury, asking for
nice gifts (Memorials of St Dunstan, pp. 380–381; James Campbell, Essays in AngloSaxon History [London, 1986], pp. 203–204). For a discussion of Bishop Cenwald’s tour
of German monasteries in 929, during which he distributed gifts, see Simon Keynes,“King
Athelstan’s Books,” in Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England, edd. Helmut
Gneuss and Michael Lapidge (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 198–201.
27
The will of Bishop Theodred refers to two chasubles he had bought in Pavia (Whitelock,Anglo-Saxon Wills,no.1),while Byzantine seals and coins found at Winchester probably made their way there via pilgrimages (Dodwell, op. cit., pp. 150–154).The acquisitive
Archbishop Ealdred gave Wulfstan of Worcester two lavish liturgical manuscripts given to
him by Emperor Henry III, both Anglo-Saxon books originally given to the emperor by
King Cnut (William of Malmesbury, The Vita Wulfstani of William of Malmesbury, ed.
R. R. Darlington, Camden 3rd Series, 40 [London, 1929], pp. 5 and 16). Ealdred also gave St.
Augustine’s a collection of songs perhaps compiled at Cologne (Cambridge, University Library, MS Gg.5.35; Michael Lapidge, “Ealdred of York and MS. Cotton Vitellius E.XII,” in
Anglo-Latin Literature, 900–1100 [London, 1993], 464).
28
Willelmi Malmesbiriensis de Gestis Pontificum Anglorum Libri Quinque, ed.
N.E.S.A. Hamilton, RS (London, 1870), p. 311. Other examples include Bishop Theodred’s
gift of “alle mine reliquias pe ic best habbe” to St. Paul’s (Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Wills,
no. 1) and Archbishop Plegmund’s gift to Canterbury of the relics of St. Blaise, which he
brought back from Rome in 909 (Gervase, The Historical Works of Gervase of Canterbury, ed. William Stubbs, RS, 2 vols. [London, 1870], II, 350–351).
25

26

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COURT AND PIETY IN LATE ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

of Beverley was probably owned and used by Archbishop Ealdred.29
Bishops also gave valuable objects as gifts to their lords and friends,
such as the pectoral cross, ring, and psalter bequeathed by Archbishop
Ælfric to Archbishop Wulfstan.30 But the bulk of the evidence depicts
the patronage—sometimes quite lavish—of bishops to English religious
communities. Both Ely and Glastonbury recorded the generosity of local bishops of Elmham and Wells.31 Archbishop Ælfric bequeathed to
Peterborough, where he was buried, fine vestments, a portable altar,
two silver candlesticks, and even his pastoral staff, while Archbishop
Cynsige gave the same community land and gold-ornamented Gospels
and other precious objects worth £300.32 Bishop Siweard gave his own
community at Rochester a dazzling white chasuble decorated with gold
as well as a large gold and silver chalice.33 Not surprisingly, the illustrious archbishops Stigand and Ealdred also appear in the records of English
communities as considerable benefactors. Despite his unsavory postConquest reputation, Stigand was a bona fide philanthropist, donating
large gold and silver crosses to his see at Winchester, as well as to the
monastic communities at St. Augustine’s Canterbury, Bury St. Edmund’s,
and Ely.34 Archbishop Ealdred’s patronage of the newly-renovated Beverley minster was legendary, and included an elaborate German-style
pulpit and arches of gold, silver, and bronze.35 These are just a few of the
29
John Beckwith, Ivory Carvings in Early Medieval England (London, 1972), no. 44.
The Benedictional of St. Æthelwold contains a portrait of the saint at Winchester wearing
a chasuble with a gold border, with another purple one next to him, while a York source
describes a silk chasuble belonging to St. Oswald as glittering with gold and gems (Dodwell, op. cit., p. 180).
30
Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Wills, no. 18.
31
Liber Eliensis, ed. E. O. Blake, Camden Society 3rd Series, 92 (1962), II, 65 and 98; III,
50.Bishop Brihtwold of Ramsbury’s generosity to Glastonbury,which included more than
twenty-five crosses, vestments adorned with gold and gems, and illuminated gospel
books, was exceptional (William of Malmesbury, De Antiquitate Glastonie Ecclesiae, ed.
and trans. John Scott [Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1981], cap. 68).
32
The Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, a Monk of Peterborough, ed. W. T. Mellows (Oxford, 1949), p. 36.
33
Chron.Abingdon, I, 462.
34
Annales Monastici, ed. Henry Richards Luard, RS (5 vols.; London, 1864–1869), II, 25;
Dodwell, op.cit., p. 319 n. 232; Jocelin of Brakelond, Chronicle of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, ed. Diana Greenway and Jane Sayres (Oxford, 1993), p. 5; Liber Eliensis, II, 98. For
Stigand’s negative press, see Smith,“Archbishop Stigand and the Eye of the Needle,” pp.
199–219.
35
Historians of the Church of York, ed. James Raine, RS (3 vols.; London, 1879), II, 353–
354; Barlow, op. cit., pp. 89–90. Moreover, according to a Winchester tradition, Ealdred
made a donation to the Old Minster, Winchester, which was used to embellish a statue of
St. Swithun, in whom he may have had a special interest (Lapidge, op. cit., p. 461).

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577

many instances of recorded gifts from bishops to religious communities, some of which were their own sees, but many of which were not.
The evidence clearly shows that generosity was a primary element of
episcopal piety.36 In short,bishops who were in a position to do so were
expected to give lavishly and probably frequently.
Episcopal piety in late Anglo-Saxon England also manifested itself in
the intercessory role bishops played between God and the laity as brokers of objects, manuscripts, and relics. Like their Ottonian and Salian
counterparts, English bishops had created a royal ideology based to a
large extent on parallels with episcopal sacrality,which included liturgy
and the patronage of relics, art, and ecclesiastical buildings.37 Although
an intimate connection between religious and secular power can be
discerned in the material record as early as the late seventh century, it
was not until the tenth and eleventh centuries that kings and aristocrats
appear to have perceived the tremendous significance and power attached to the elements of ecclesiastical piety, including artistic patronage.38 Anglo-Saxon bishops supported the pious giving of royal and
aristocratic men and women by providing access to episcopal scriptoria and workshops, as well as items collected abroad. Christ Church,
Canterbury, for instance, appears in the eleventh century to have been
a place of production for gospel books destined to be the pious gifts of
wealthy patrons.39 As mentioned above, the Waltham Chronicle records
that of the eighty-five relics Earl Harold gave his new foundation,at least
twenty-five the earl acquired from Archbishop Ealdred, who “gave them
as a token of friendship.”40 These relics included, among others, part of
the body of St. Burchard of Wurzburg, one of the English followers of St.
Boniface, the head of St. Maternus, and the bones of St. Laurence, all of
36
Other examples include Archbishop Dunstan’s gift of an organ to Malmesbury
(Memorials of St Dunstan, pp. 301–302); Archbishop Oswald’s bequest to Ramsey of
horns of gold and silver (Vita S. Oswaldi Auctore Anonymo, in HCY, I, 465); all of his
books and a tent by Archbishop Ælfric to St. Alban’s (Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Wills, no.
18); two gospel books adorned with gold and silver by the last bishop of Rochester to
Abingdon (Chron.Abingdon, I, 461–462).
37
Victoria Ortenberg, The English Church and the Continent in the Tenth and
Eleventh Centuries: Cultural, Spiritual, and Artistic Exchanges (Oxford, 1992), p. 53.
38
See Heslop, op. cit., pp. 151–195.
39
The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art, edd. Janet Backhouse, D. H. Turner, and Leslie
Webster (Bloomington, 1984), nos. 47–49, 51–56, 58.
40
The Waltham Chronicle: An Account of the Discovery of Our Holy Cross at Montacute and Its Conveyance to Waltham,edd.and trans.Leslie Watkiss and Marjorie Chibnall
(Oxford, 1994), cap. 17; Nicholas Rogers,“The Waltham Abbey Relic-List,” in England in
the Eleventh Century, ed. Carola Hicks (Stamford, 1993), p. 163.

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which were probably acquired in 1054, when Ealdred spent the year at
the court of Emperor Henry III.41 Despite the dearth of evidence related
to the procurement of objects for kings and aristocrats, bishops were
better placed than most to supply those in need, particularly with
relics, which were required not just for the veneration of local cults but
also for the swearing of oaths and the administration of the ordeal.
I would like to conclude by addressing why this aspect of late AngloSaxon episcopal culture has not been systemically explored before
now, and what its broader implications might be for understanding preConquest ecclesiastical culture. It is clear that the generosity of bishops
in contemporary sources,particularly local histories,is a virtue befitting
the office, and doubtless had been throughout the Anglo-Saxon period.42 In its list of the objects Bishop Æthelwold gave to the community at Abingdon, it is recorded that his gifts were “appropriate both for
the monks’ rites about the altar and for the comeliness of the church.”43
Thus the adornment of ecclesiastical figures and church buildings was
seen to reflect the glory of God,not the vanity of the donor.Indeed,generous bishops were a godsend, particularly in times of trouble. Archbishop Ælfric was revered for forgiving the debts that the people of
Kent, Middlesex, and Surrey owed him for paying off the Vikings on
their behalf.44 Episcopal piety expressed through generosity permeates
late Anglo-Saxon sources, but because of the dearth of contemporary
narrative sources, the references are scattered and piecemeal. In the
end,the Normans certainly did their best to suppress discussions of English episcopal piety after the Conquest, partly because their tastes were
not the same and partly because English decadence was a prerequisite
to the promotion of the Conquest as a pious act.45

41
Also included are the relics of SS. Marcellinus and Peter from Seligenstadt, SS. Nabor
and Nazarius from Sankt-Avold or Lorsch, and part of the rod of Moses (Rogers, op. cit., p.
166).
42
A Winchester text notes with approval that Queen Emma and a pre-Conquest bishop
vied with each other to adorn the church of St.Swithun (Annales Monastici,II,25).Abbot
Leofric of Peterborough was similarly remembered when he died in 1066 because he
gave more gold and silver, vestments, and land to the monastery than any other donor
(ASC, s.a. 1066 [E]).
43
Chron. Abingdon, I, 344.
44
Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Wills, no. 18.
45
William of Poitiers ridiculed the Anglo-Saxons for their interest in shiny objects
(William of Poitiers, Histoire de Guillaume le Conquérant, ed. and trans. Raymonde Foreville [Paris, 1952], p. 224).

BY MARY FRANCES SMITH, ROBIN FLEMING, AND PATRICIA HALPIN

579

It is perhaps more significant, however, that the very nature of piety
and what constituted pious behavior changed radically over the course
of the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. The Conquest notwithstanding, the cultural divide was not so much Anglo-Saxon versus Norman, but charismatic versus intellectual. As Jaeger has recently argued,
the culture of the first half of the eleventh century was essentially
charismatic; physical appearance and bearing, and external gestures
such as generosity, all reflected the character and internal state of the
person.46 Just as the charisma of a saint was transmitted through miracles, the physical presence, manners, and generosity of a bishop “made
his charisma communicable.”47 In a world where the court was the center of political, social, and even intellectual life, these values were as
much royal and aristocratic as ecclesiastical, which is why the piety of
earls and noble women looks so very like that of the bishops.

The Piety of the Earls

The eleventh-century Anglo-Scandinavian aristocracy is notable for
many things, none having to do with pious benefaction or religiosity.48
First, there was the matter of the earls’ personal and political deportment. Harold Godwineson lived with his concubine for twenty years,
and even one of his admirers criticized him for being “too free with
oaths.”49 Earl Ælfgar allied himself with Welshmen who destroyed Hereford cathedral and slaughtered its bishop.50 Earl Swein killed his cousin,
abducted an abbess,and “ruined himself among the Danes.”51 And at one
time or another,most of the earls rebelled against the saintly,if impolitic
Edward the Confessor.52 Then there was the matter of the earls’ tightJaeger, Envy of Angels, p. 9.
Ibid., p. 190.
48
Frank Barlow, for example, writes:“the piety of the royal court did not set a pattern
for the higher nobility, and the lack of a royal ecclesiastical policy was not supplied by a
drive in any of the earldoms. . . . The devout pampered, the profane hindered the fashionable expressions of religion” (Barlow, op. cit., p. 61).
49
On Harold’s concubine, see Edward Augustus Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest (6 vols.; Oxford, 1867–1879), III, Appendix NN; Frank Barlow, Edward the Confessor (Berkeley, 1970) p. 192; Vita Aedwardi Regis. Life of King Edward, ed. Frank Barlow
(London, 1962; 2nd edn. Oxford, 1992), pp. 80–81. The comments of the author of the VER
on Tosti’s chastity in marriage may be an oblique criticism of Harold’s lack thereof (VER,
pp. 50–51, and n. 119).
50
ASC, s.a. 1055 (C); John of Worcester, II, 576–579.
51
John of Worcester, II, 550–551; ASC, s.a. 1049 (D).
52
Robin Fleming,Kings and Lords in Conquest England (Cambridge,1991),pp.51–52.
46

47

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COURT AND PIETY IN LATE ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

fistedness. The comital families who dominated the political life of the
kingdom in the half-century before the Conquest were very, very rich.
The wealthiest among them, the sons of Earl Godwine, had something
like ten times the landed resources of the most famous of England’s
tenth-century ealdormen and their families.53 Yet, it is the ealdormen
under Edgar the Peaceable and Æthelred the Unready who are remembered for their generosity toward the Church. It was men like Æthelwine “friend of God” and Ælfhere of Mercia who gave away large
portions of their patrimony to the newly founded or refounded monasteries of England.54 The eleventh-century earls, on the other hand, gave
very little land to England’s great Benedictine houses. It is true that Earl
Leofric and his wife Godgifu founded a Benedictine monastery at
Coventry,but none of Cnut’s or Edward’s other new men bothered.55 Indeed many were notorious despoilers of monastic communities. Earl
Godwine and his family, for example, were accused, after the Norman
Conquest, of appropriating the lands of almost a dozen religious
houses.56 When these men did give the occasional pious gift, it was
done on a small scale; and none of their offerings matched the extravagant generosity of the godly ealdormen who preceded them.57
This is a somewhat crude caricature of the historiography, but an accurate one. It is also wrong. The piety of great men and their families in
the eleventh century and the support they gave to the Church was
great, but it is all but invisible because of our biases and those of the
sources. The piety practiced by the greatest men in Edward’s court was
not, for the most part, the old-fashioned, reformed Benedictine piety of
the tenth century, a kind of piety mistakenly thought to typify the religiosity of England for the whole of the late Anglo-Saxon period. Their
good works, moreover, and the gifts they gave were not, for the most
part, the kinds recorded in charters, the place where historians search
for evidence of religious patronage. And the lands they did give went,
for the most part, to communities whose muniments did not survive
the Conquest. Finally, because of the stunning defeat at Hastings, the
good deeds of the Confessor’s earls were not always commemorated by
Ibid., pp. 53–103.
C.R.Hart,“Æthelstan ‘Half-King’and His Family,”Anglo Saxon England,2 (1973),115–
144; Ann Williams,“Princeps Merciorum Gentis: The Family, Career, and Connections of
Ælfhere, Ealdorman of Mercia 956–83,” ibid., 10 (1982), 143–172.
55
For Coventry, see S 1098 and John of Worcester, II, 582–583. For the Godwinesons’ relations with specific churchmen and ecclesiastical communities, see Fleming, King and
Lords, pp. 79–83.
56
Fleming, Kings and Lords, pp. 84–86.
57
Barlow, English Church, pp. 57–62.
53

54

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581

religious houses after 1066. At Durham and Christ Church, Canterbury,
for example, it looks as if the Godwinesons were stricken from the two
communities’ libri vitae and their commemorative liturgies.58 What follows is an attempt to map the contours of the new piety practiced by
Edward’s greatest men and to argue that the religious practices in
which they engaged were not only deep-rooted and ubiquitous, but
were indeed more extravagantly expensive than those of their tenthcentury progenitors.
The focus of benefaction for many eleventh-century earls and their
families was communities of canons,and this is one of the reasons there
is so little evidence for comital liberality. Many of the great men of
Cnut’s and Edward’s court favored the more worldly and pragmatic
piety of secular canons over that of Benedictine monks.59 Earl Siward of
Northumbria, for example, built himself a mortuary church dedicated
to St. Olaf, in York, which would have been staffed by clerks.60 Gytha,
Earl Godwine’s wife, founded a community of canons in Exeter similarly dedicated to St. Olaf;61 and Earl Leofric and his wife helped to refound a community of clerks at Stow in Lincolnshire.62 Nothing is left of
the two St. Olafs’, and their pre-Conquest archives, like those of nearly
every other non-Benedictine house in pre-Conquest England, do not
survive.63 But a charter commemorating Stow’s refoundation, as well as
parts of the church itself, do, and they give us some indication of the
scale and magnificence of these communities. Rebuilt by Bishop Eadnoth of Dorchester and lavishly endowed by Earl Leofric, the church
was constructed on a grand scale. The transept, which dates from this
58
Robin Fleming,“History and Liturgy at Pre-Conquest Christ Church,” Haskins Society
Journal, 6 (1996), 76.
59
Richard Gameson, The Role of Art in the Late Anglo-Saxon Church (Oxford, 1995)
pp. 244–245.
60
VER, pp. 48–49; ASC, s.a. 1055 (C, D).
61
Great Domesday: Facsimile, ed. R. Erskine,Alecto Historical Editions (London, 1986),
I, 100v, 104r; S 1236; William Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, rev. edn., John Caley,
Henry Ellis, and Bulkeley Bandinel (6 vols. in 8 parts; London, 1817–1830), III, p. 377;
Bruce Dickins,“The Cult of S. Olafe in the British Isles,” Saga Book of the Viking Society,
12 (1937–1938), 56–57.
62
Robertson, Anglo-Saxon Charters, no. 115.
63
On the site of Earl Siward’s St. Olaf’s there is now a late medieval church, which still
bears the original dedication. For this church, see Alfred P. Smyth, Scandinavian York and
Dublin: The History and Archaeology of Two Related Viking Kingdoms (Dublin, 1975–
1979), II, 230–231, 235. For Gytha’s St. Olaf’s, see John Allen, Christopher Henderson, and
Robert Higham,“Saxon Exeter,” in Anglo-Saxon Towns in Southern England, ed. Jeremy
Haslam (Chichester, 1984), p. 402; J. E. B. Gover, A. Mawer, and F. M. Stenton, Place-Names
of Devon (Cambridge, 1931–1932), pt. 1, p. 22.

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COURT AND PIETY IN LATE ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

period, is eighty-five feet long and the arches of the central crossing are
thirty-three feet tall: this is a church built on the scale of an Anglo-Saxon
cathedral.64 The community that staffed Stow after Leofric’s refoundation, given the size of the church, must have been substantial, and the
canons there were admonished by Leofric to live their lives under the
same set of regulations that governed St. Paul’s, London, and they were
to use the same elaborate liturgy,65 which suggests that the earl was well
acquainted with the cathedral canons of the bishopric of London; indeed, his wife was remembered as a patron there.66
Earl Harold also sponsored a community of canons—at Waltham
Holy Cross, in Essex—and the lion’s share of his benefactions went to
rebuild and support the church there. Harold’s activities at Waltham,
which are well attested, allow us to see most clearly the kinds of support given to communities of clerks by comital families in the eleventh
century and provide us with some of the reasons for their enthusiasm.67
When Harold refounded Waltham, he made it into a college of secular
canons, with a dean, a master, and an apostolic twelve canons.68 Harold
had come of age in the royal household, a familia full of clerks, and a
number of his friends and allies, including Archbishops Stigand and Ealdred, were either clerks themselves or were the sponsors of reformed
communities of canons.69 Harold, moreover, like many English noblemen, was well acquainted with a number of reformed communities of
canons on the Continent. There is good evidence that Harold, on his
continental travels, visited communities of canons at Rheims, Metz,
Cologne, and Worms.70 These communities that Harold visited were not

64
H. M. Taylor and Joan Taylor, Anglo-Saxon Architecture (2 vols.; Cambridge, 1965), I,
584–593. The size of the church at Stow is on the order of a number of late Anglo-Saxon
episcopal churches. For an indication of the size and shape of Christ Church, Canterbury,
on the eve of the Norman Conquest,see T.A.Heslop,“The Conventual Seals of Canterbury
Cathedral, 1066–1232,” in Medieval Art and Architecture at Canterbury (London, 1982),
pp. 94–100, and plates 27a–27e. For the late Anglo-Saxon church at North Elmham, see S.
Heywood,“The Ruined Church at North Elmham,” Journal of the British Archaeological
Association, 135 (1982), 1–10; S. E. Rigold,“The Anglian Cathedral of North Elmham, Norfolk,” Medieval Archaeology, 6–7 (1962–3), 67–108.
65
S 1478.
66
“Descriptio . . . Thesauraria Ecclesiae S. Pauli London,” ed. W. Sparrow Simpson, Archaeologia, 50 (1887), 482. This is a thirteenth-century inventory of St. Paul’s, in which
Godgifu “of Coventry” is commemorated for her gift of a bejeweled chasuble.
67
See Waltham Chronicle.
68
Ibid., cap. 15.
69
Barlow,English Church;Smith,Episcopal Landholding, Lordship and Culture, chap.3.
70
Rogers, op. cit., pp. 165–166.

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583

simply models of Chrodegangian spirituality, but were vibrant centers
of the new learning, an educational program that trained clerks for public service and administration and championed imperial power and the
authority of the state.71 The kind of sophisticated and cosmopolitan
piety these schools sponsored must have appealed to Harold: We know,
for example, that Harold himself was the collector of manuscripts, and
at least one of his books, a volume on falconry, was still extant in the
twelfth century.72
It was not, however, simply the learning of the canons that would
have appealed to Harold, but their utility. If Harold’s own household
was molded on the royal household, which seems likely (as Earl of Wessex he had awesome administrative responsibilities; and the machinery
of the late Anglo-Saxon state was heavily dependent on written administration), he would have needed trained clerks for his own chapel and
for his writing office.73 And indeed one of the reasons for Harold’s refoundation at Waltham seems to have been his interest in creating just
such a school. After his refoundation,he appointed Adelard—a native of
Liège and a physician who had studied at Utrecht—as magister of the
school at Waltham.74 Adelard, after organizing Harold’s school, composed a little poem, commemorating the earl’s gift of relics to the community.75 At this time the cathedral schools in Germany and France, of
which Adelard was a product, emphasized the importance of poetry in
their curriculum as one of the pillars of clerical education, and this
poem may have been written as an example for his pupils. Perhaps like
the school at Rheims, Waltham, under Adelard, was meant to be a place
where boys would be taught not only letters and the intricacies of the
canonical rule, but could go on to administrative careers.76 Stow, the
community of canons supported by Earl Leofric and the bishop of
Dorchester,was likely the site of a similar school.Stow was the northernmost administrative center for the large diocese of Dorchester, and it
would not be at all surprising to find a school for clerks there, not only
to train men for the work of the diocese, but for the earl of Mercia’s
household.
Jaeger, Envy of Angels, pp. 43–48.
Charles Homer Haskins,“King Harold’s Books,” English Historical Review, 37 (1922),
398–400.
73
For the royal household and its administrative machinery, see Simon Keynes, The
Diplomas of Athelred ‘the Unready,’ 978–1016 (Cambridge, 1980).
74
Waltham Chronicle, cap. 15.
75
Ibid., cap 17. The poem is printed in Rogers, op. cit., pp. 170–175.
76
Jaeger, Envy of Angels, pp. 56–62.
71

72

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COURT AND PIETY IN LATE ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

Harold gave lavishly to Waltham, and the gifts he offered are the same
types of gifts given by other earls and their families during this period.
The rich and the famous in the eleventh century did give land to communities they patronized,but more often they gave chattel.77 One of the
most important categories of gifts given by Harold to Waltham was
books. He gave three large gospel books bound in gold covers along
with five other books bound in gilt silver.78 In the late twelfth century
the community angrily recalled how William Rufus had despoiled the
abbey of four of the books Harold had given.79 Two of Harold’s books,
however, both gospels, remained at Waltham in spite of their elaborate
decorations and valuable covers because they had been written in Old
English, and were, therefore, of little utility to Norman monks. Both
were still at Waltham in the sixteenth century when the community
was dissolved. One, according to an inventory made by Henry VIII’s
henchmen,had a silver cover with an image of Christ and the other a silver gilt cover with a crucifix, St. Mary, and St. John.80 The large number
of beautiful books at Waltham suggests that Harold, like his sister-in-law
Judith and a number of other late Anglo-Saxon nobles, was a connoisseur of deluxe manuscripts.81 Such lavishly illustrated and elaborately
77
A number of narrative sources have asides concerning such gifts, but most offer little
in the way of detail. John of Worcester, for example, tells us that Earl Leofric and his wife
made Coventry “so rich in various ornaments that in no monastery in England might be
found the abundance of gold, silver, gems, and precious stones that was at that time in its
possession.” He also tells us that they gave similar precious objects to Leominster, Wenlock, Chester, St. Werburg’s, Stow, and Evesham ( John of Worcester, II, 582–583). The author of the VER alludes to Earl Godwine’s gift to Old Minster, Winchester, of similar
“ornaments,” but he does not provide any description of them (VER, pp. 46–47).
78
Waltham Chronicle, cap. 16.
79
Ibid., cap. 22.
80
W. Winters,“Inventory of Church Goods, A.D. 1540,” printed in The History of the Ancient Parish of Waltham Abbey or Holy Cross (Waltham Abbey, Essex, 1888), p. 138.
81
P. McGurk,“The Anglo-Saxon Gospel Books of Judith of Flanders: Their Text, Make up
and Function,” Anglo Saxon England, 24 (1994), 251–308; Heslop,“The Production of de
luxe Manuscripts,” pp. 151–195. Late Anglo-Saxon thegns are also known to have given
gospel books.The thegn Thoræd, for example, gave two to Christ Church (London, BL, MS
Cotton Galba E.iii.2, fols. 32r–34r, under 15 Kalends August, printed in Robin Fleming,
“Christchurch’s Sisters and Brothers: An Edition and Discussion of Canterbury Obituary
Lists,” in The Culture of Christendom: Studies in Medieval History in Memory of Denis
L. T. Bethell, ed. Marc A. Meyer [London, 1993], pp. 126–130). Only a fraction of one of
these manuscripts survives, but a dedication in it makes it clear that it was one of the
books Thoræd had given to Christ Church (Robertson, Anglo-Saxon Charters, no. 88 and
p. 421). The manuscript is catalogued in N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing
Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1977), no. 185. The thegn Æthelric Bigga also gave two gospel
books to Christ Church (Fleming,“Christchurch’s Sisters and Brothers,” p. 123). Cnut and
Emma similarly gave a gospel book to Christ Church (Heslop,“The Production of de luxe

BY MARY FRANCES SMITH, ROBIN FLEMING, AND PATRICIA HALPIN

585

bound codices given by Harold, his kinfolk, and his political rivals were
considerably more valuable than estates and appear to have been an
important and conspicuous form of pious giving in eleventh-century
England.
Harold, like other earls, also gave large amounts of precious-metal
artwork—vessels for the altar—silver for regular services and gold for
feast days—and gold and silver reliquaries and candlesticks, all “the
work of wonderfully skilled craftsmen.”82 Many of Harold’s gifts to
Waltham were apparently the work of Theodric, goldsmith to Edward
the Confessor and William the Conqueror.83 Among the precious objects Harold gave are two interesting and apparently popular classes of
gifts. The first was a collection of gold and silver crosses. We have evidence from half a dozen religious communities that groups of mansized crosses were found cluttering the interiors of eleventh-century
English churches. We know that they were not only given by Harold,84
but by Earl Tosti and his wife,85 by Tovi the Proud,86 by Earl Leofric and
his wife,87 by Archbishop Stigand and others,88 indicating the central importance of the cult of the cross in Anglo-Scandinavian court circles
across the eleventh century, and the prevalence of collections of large,
precious metal crosses in the eleventh century as overt symbols of pious giving.89 Another amazing set of gifts given by Harold to Waltham
was a collection of life-size statues of the twelve apostles and two lifesize lions, all covered in or cast from gold.90 The apostles were hauled
Manuscripts,” p. 184). Æthelflæd, the daughter of an ealdorman, gave a gospel book to
Abingdon (Chron. Abingdon, p. 429).
82
Waltham Chronicle, cap. 16.
83
Ibid., cap. 24; DB, I, 36, 63; Barlow, English Church, p. 123, n. 4.
84
Waltham Chronicle, cap. 16
85
Symeon, Opera Omnia, I, 95.
86
Waltham Chronicle, caps. 6–13.
87
Chronicon Abbatiae de Evesham, ed. W. Dunn Macray, RS (London, 1863), p. 89.
88
For Stigand’s gift of crosses, see above, note 34; Registrum Roffense, ed. J. Thorpe
(1769), p. 119. For Countess Gode’s gift of a cross, see Registrum Roffense, p. 119. A number of extremely elaborate crosses and crucifixes, dating from the eleventh-century and
of Anglo-Saxon workmanship, are still extant. Although most cannot be ascribed to an
owner or community, many are deluxe productions. See for example, Backhouse, op. cit.,
nos. 75, 18, 125; Beckwith, op. cit., p. 578; Gameson, op. cit., p. 251, n. 103. One of these
crosses is associated with Cnut the Great’s daughter and another carries the inscription
“Æthelmær and Æthelwold his brother ordered this cross to be made for the glory of
Christ and for the soul of Ælfric their brother.” For a discussion of the large size of these
objects, see Dodwell, op. cit., p. 211.
89
Barbara Raw, Anglo-Saxon Crucifixion Iconography and the Art of the Monastic Revival (Cambridge, 1990); Dodwell, op. cit., pp. 210–213.
90
Waltham Chronicle, cap. 16.

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COURT AND PIETY IN LATE ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

off to Caen in the twelfth-century, but the lions must have remained behind: they appear, flanking the cross, on Waltham’s thirteenth-century
conventual seal.91 We know that Earl Tosti gave similar figures to
Durham—in his case huge figures of Christ on the cross, Mary, and John
the Evangelist.92 Similarly, Earl Leofric and his wife gave Evesham a large
gold and silver crucifix, accompanied by figures of the Virgin Mary and
John “of no ordinary size.”93 The life-size crosses and figures of saints
were apparently one of the great forms of benefaction in the eleventh
century and are described in churches across England during this period.94 They must have been wildly expensive, and their commissioning
seems to have been de rigueur for comital families.
Another class of gift was textiles. Great quantities of elaborately embroidered cloth and material woven with gold thread were given to
Waltham by Harold and to many other houses by other of the Confessor’s most powerful families.95 One chasuble at Waltham, charmingly
named “The Lord Spake unto me,”was decorated with twenty-six marks
worth of gold.96 Vestments such as this were often the most valuable objects within religious communities’ treasuries, and they were frequently
given by the Confessor’s great men. Indeed, when inventoried in 1081,
Ely was found to have eighty-one valuable textiles.97 In the fourteenth
century, a cope and two chasubles of Anglo-Saxon workmanship belonging to Christ Church, Canterbury, were burned to recover their
gold. The harvest was over £250.98 The amount of precious metal artwork at Waltham alone in the form of figures, crosses, church plate, and
vestments, some the gifts of Earl Harold and the rest given by one of
Cnut’s stallers, was staggering. We know from an eleventh-century inventory,no longer extant,that when William Rufus stripped Waltham of
many of its Anglo-Saxon treasures, over £6,000 worth were removed to
Caen.99 This is about twice the annual value of Earl Leofric’s and his fam91
Ibid., cap. 22; The Victoria History of the County of Essex, ed. William Page and J. H.
Round (London, 1907), II, 172–173.
92
Symeon, Opera Omnia, I, 95.
93
Chron. Evesham, p. 84.
94
Dodwell, op. cit., pp. 210–215.
95
Harold’s mother Gytha,for example,gave a vestment to Ely (Liber Eliensis,III,50).For
a discussion of textiles and religious patronage, see Patricia Halpin, The Religious Experience of Women in Anglo-Saxon England (Ph.D. dissertation, Boston College, 2000).
96
Waltham Chronicle, cap. 16, 22.
97
Liber Eliensis, II, 114 . Liber Eliensis, III, 50, is a later inventory, but many of the objects noted in it are ascribed to specific pre-Conquest donors.
98
Dodwell, op. cit., p. 181.
99
Waltham Chronicle, cap. 22.

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587

ily’s estates in 1065.100 This is gift-giving on a staggering scale. Descriptions of giant golden statues and crosses, vestments thick with gold
thread and pearls, codices bound in extraordinary jeweled covers are
prevalent in eleventh-century written sources, but virtually all of these
works have disappeared.101 Thus, this important, perhaps dominant,
form of high-status benefaction has been forgotten.
Harold’s chief gift to Waltham was his large collection of relics—
eighty-five in all. Of these, Harold himself had collected fifty-nine. The
remaining twenty-six had been given to Harold by Archbishop Ealdred
of York to mark their friendship.102 This collection, particularly Harold’s
own relics, is an extraordinary assemblage—a life’s work, and proof of
Harold’s dedicated interest in relic collection and of his devotion to the
cult of relics. Many in the Confessor’s court can similarly be seen stealing, buying, collecting, and giving relics. And like Harold, many went on
expensive pilgrimages in search of fingers, heads, and torsos.103 A number of Harold’s relics were of English provenance, and they had either
been taken from monastic communities, or more likely given by them
to Harold as payment for support or to ensure his favor.104 Ely, Shaftesbury, Cerne, Winchester, and Christ Church, Canterbury, all appear to
have contributed to Harold’s collection.105 Harold had also been to
Rome, and a number of Waltham’s relics—a piece of St. Peter’s chain
and hair from his beard—were probably acquired there.106 Other relics
were probably collected during his trip to Flanders and Germany; they
came from Rheims, Noyon, St-Riquier, St. Amand, Metz, and Cologne.107
Harold’s taste in relics was cosmopolitan and eclectic and exhibits a
fondness both for English saints and for saints whose churches Harold
had visited on his travels.And some,like the relic of St.Nicholas,suggest
that Harold shared a passion for the same eastern saint that so many of
100
Fleming, Kings and Lords, p. 63. Or to put it another way, the gross valuation of
Waltham Abbey at the Dissolution, four centuries and much inflation later, was £1,079 2s.
1d. (VCH, Essex, II, 170).
101
Dodwell, op. cit., pp. 4–12.
102
Rogers, op. cit., p. 163.
103
For Earl Harold’s trips to the Continent and to Rome, see VER, pp. 52–53; Vita
Haroldi, ed. W. de Gray Birch (London, 1885) c. 7; P. Grierson,“A Visit of Earl Harold to
Flanders in 1056,” English Historical Review, 51 (1936), 90–97; Rogers, op. cit., pp. 165–
167. For Earl Tosti’s and Earl Gyrth’s pilgrimage, see Vita Wulfstani, 16–17, and ASC, s.a.
1061 (D). For Earl Swein’s pilgrimage, see ASC, s.a. 1052 (C).
104
Rogers, op. cit., pp. 163–164; Fleming, Kings and Lords, pp. 82–83.
105
Rogers, op. cit., p. 163.
106
Ibid., p. 164
107
Ibid., pp. 165–167.

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his Norman contemporaries did. It also looks as if Harold traveled with
at least part of his relic collection on diplomatic missions. If Chris Lewis
is correct, Harold swore his famous oath to the Duke of Normandy on
his own piece of St. Pancras.108 Relics, however, like the charters of communities of canons, and like the giant gold crosses and figures, and like
the elaborately embroidered vestments, disappeared long ago. Here is
another class of comital gifts—not simply valuable, but priceless—that
we historians of the late Anglo-Saxon aristocracy have tended to forget
when we think about the piety of the earls.

Women and Piety

A study of women’s patronage of the Anglo-Saxon Church could include a broad survey of goods and services offered by women—their
contributions as endowers of land, as nuns, as allies and patrons to
churchmen,or as material and spiritual lifelines for the early missions to
the Continent. The roles women played in the English Church were
manifold and complex. Here, however, I will focus on women as
providers of material goods or chattel. Past studies of material patronage have tended to focus on men, particularly kings, earls, and influential clerics. Men as well as women donated property to the Church, but
there were some significant distinctions between male and female
benefaction. Men from a variety of social levels had greater freedom
than women to express their piety through gifts of land. Furthermore,
women,because of their skills as weavers and embroideresses,could actively produce their gifts. Women’s contributions, in all their forms,
have often been overlooked but were essential to the success of Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England and the rich spiritual atmosphere within
its churches. The scope of women’s patronage ranges from the foundation of private churches and the weaving of albs for religious communities to the donation of a chicken or bucket of lard to a priest. The
churches and chapels women built provided a spiritual space essential
to establishing a sense of community among believers.But all the “stuff”
women offered to the Church in wills, charters, and casual donations
strengthened Christianity in England on two levels. On a practical, material level certain objects and bequests were necessary for the day-today functioning of ecclesiastical life. On a deeper level, women’s
108
C.P. Lewis,“The Cult of St Pancras in Anglo-Saxon England,” unpublished paper delivered at the International Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1997; David M. Wilson, The Bayeux Tapestry, Introduction, Description and Commentary (New York,
1985), plates 25–26.

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589

religious gifts fostered an often-overlooked private spirituality—that is,
the objects adorning churches generated a religious enthusiasm by providing channels for personal devotion.
The true picture of Anglo-Saxon material culture is distorted, however, by the great loss and dispersion of art and its records; the evidence
for women is equally obscure.109 The nature of the surviving evidence
regarding land donations further complicates our understanding of
women’s patronage. Eric Hemming suggests that women’s wills, for instance, may in fact underrepresent or misrepresent the character of
their benefactions.110 It is clear, for example, that they do not represent
a comprehensive listing of a donor’s possessions and subsequent donations. Hemming also suggests that women’s wills may represent especially contested moments when the donor felt that her spoken wishes
might be overruled or ignored and thus demanded clarification through
documentation.111 Beyond this, it is difficult to determine if women
were merely “containers” for their husbands’ benefactions—that is, passive shadows behind male benefaction decisions. The familial and traditional constraints upon women regarding the disposal of land,however,
make their gifts of chattel that much more significant. In this sphere of
patronage, women were free of the fetters normally associated with
landed property exchange.And more importantly,all women,secular and
religious, rich and poor, could participate in the bestowal of gifts and
thus contribute to the creation of a holy space to nurture their own
and others’ spirituality.
Gifts of foodstuffs and building material were critical to the health
and perpetuation of communities of monks and canons. Obituary lists
and wills record the names of benefactors who wished to be commemorated by yearly, weekly, or even daily prayers by religious communities in return for their donations. These donations included malt,
livestock, wood, cheese, bread, lard, honey, and valuable wax for candles. Some donations were given jointly by couples such as Oswulf and
Beornthryth, and Eahlburg and Eadweald, with a command for heirs to
Dodwell, op. cit., pp. 216–234.
Marc A. Meyer, “Women and the Tenth-Century English Monastic Reform,” Revue
Bénédictine, 87 (1977), 34–62; E. Hemming, Anglo-Saxon Wills and Inheritance in Late
Anglo-Saxon England, 871–1066 (Ph.D. dissertation, London, 1991), pp. 228, 229, 232,
255.
111
Wulfgifu, the widow of an ealdorman, disposes of a single estate, and it is unlikely
that this benefaction represents the extent of this wealthy woman’s holdings and bequests (Chronicon Abbatiae Rameseiensis, ed. W. Dunn Macray, RS [London, 1886], p. 57;
S 1820; Hemming, op. cit., p. 235).
109
110

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COURT AND PIETY IN LATE ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

honor these pious promises.112 Noblewomen, including the aforementioned Eahlburg, along with abbesses and nuns, also established personal relationships with communities through their annual renders.113
And some of their offerings were quite extensive.114
Women’s bequests of portable wealth, particularly money, jewelry,
and various gold and silver pieces likewise allowed churches more flexibility than gifts of land.115 Such gifts could be bartered,melted down,refashioned, or reminted. According to the Liber Eliensis, much of what
Bishop Æthelwold received from donors seems not to have been land,
but rather gold and silver with which he bought land.116 Sometimes a
gift of money was accompanied by specific directions for its use.
Ælfgifu’s will, for instance, mentions that £5 was to be given to each abbot in Winchester for the repair of the minsters.117 Horrified at the condition of the roof above the tomb of St. Wulfsige at Sherborne, King
Cnut’s wife, Ælfgifu Emma, contributed twenty pounds of silver for its
repair.118 Queen Emma and Countess Goda commanded vast stores of
gold or silver to be melted down and reworked into reliquaries, book
covers, images of saints, crosses, or other ecclesiastical ornaments for
Abingdon and Coventry.119
Numerous references survive describing women’s gifts of jewelry to
churches, but the value of the gifts may be underestimated by historians. In her joint will with her husband Beorhtric, the noblewoman Ælfswith left Christ Church, St. Augustine’s, and Rochester not only gold
plate and money but sumptuous jewelry, in particular headbands and
necklaces, which were worth much more than the other donations.120 A
certain Scheldwara left Ramsey a gold brooch embellished with precious
stones, while Ælfflæd left Ely a gold torque.121 These items of jewelry—
S 1189, 1195; Fleming,“History and Liturgy,” pp. 70–74.
S 123, 125, 1197, 1198.
114
S 1809. In addition to her gift of a new mill, the noblewoman Æthelgifu promised
Ramsey a variety of gifts and foodstuffs.
115
Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Wills, no. 32.
116
Liber Eliensis, II, caps. 4, 8, 10, 11, 11a, 12; James Campbell,“The Church in AngloSaxon Towns,” in The Church in Town and Countryside, ed. Derek Baker (Oxford, 1979),
pp. 123–124.
117
Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Wills, no. 8.
118
“The Life of St Wulfsin of Sherborne by Goscelin,” ed. C. H. Talbot, Revue Bénédictine, 69 (1959), 81.
119
Chron. Abingdon, pp. 433–434; The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ed. Marjorie Chibnall (6 vols.; Oxford, 1969–1980), II, 217.
120
Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Wills, no. 11.
121
Chron. Rameseiensis, p. 194; Liber Eliensis, II, 63.
112
113

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591

headbands, necklaces, bracelets, and brooches—are often described in
contemporary sources as works of art in themselves. But women’s jewelry also represented transferable wealth for churches, which like
coins, might be bartered or transformed. There are numerous references to the dismantling of such pieces, particularly women’s headbands, suggesting their use as a form of currency.122 Jewelry was,
however, only a small part of a pious gift exchange system that included
gold plate, relics, textiles, and books.
A whole corpus of women’s benefactions served as channels for the
divine, allowing worshipers to transcend space and time spiritually
while remaining in their own churches. Gospel books, particularly if illustrated, were status symbols as well as ceremonial and devotional
aids.123 As receptacles of the Word of God, gospel books were an essential element of Christianity.Placed atop altars or within shrines and treasuries, these gifts had both a practical and a symbolic value. Women
commissioned books specifically as gifts for foundations, and they bequeathed their personal books as well. The prohibitive cost of these
books, however, restricted such gifts to women of noble rank, such as
Queen Ælfthryth, who, according to the Liber Eliensis, was concerned
that the nuns should have a copy of the Rule of Saint Benedict for their
use,and thus commissioned Abbot Æthelwold to translate the Rule into
Old English for them.124 At Barking the nuns commissioned Ældhelm to
write his De Virginitate for the benefit of the community, and some of
these seventh-century patrons’ names are included in the text.125 In the
late ninth century, Werburgh joined her husband in presenting to Christ
Church, Canterbury, the richly ornamented Codex Aureus, which they
had ransomed from the Vikings.126 While Emma and Cnut are similarly
credited with joint book gifts, Canterbury specifically remembered
Emma for the gift of a golden gospel book.127 Along with land, gold
plate, and an assortment of farm animals, St. Alban’s received a book
from a certain Æthelgifu.128 And Queen Margaret’s gift to Durham is one
of the few surviving gospel books from Anglo-Saxon England. AccordWhitelock, Anglo-Saxon Wills, no. 11.
Gameson, op. cit., p. 58.
124
Liber Eliensis, II, cap. 37.
125
Elzbieta Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900–1066:A Survey of Manuscript Illumination in the British Isles II (London, 1976), no. 39.
126
Select English Historical Documents of the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, ed. and
trans. Florence Harmer (Cambridge, 1914), no. 9.
127
Gervase, Historical Works, II, 56; Heslop,“The Production of de luxe Manuscripts,” p.
184.
128
S 1497.
122

123

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ing to her vita,Margaret,the granddaughter of Edmund Ironside,was responsible for toting this silver-bound codex, lined with linen and illuminated with silver letters, to Scotland.129 Her biographer,Turgot, points
to the silk linen slips within the book to stress both Margaret’s veneration for the codex as a Christian totem and as an indication of her own
piety, a piety further expressed by her presentation of the book to the
shrine of St. Cuthbert.130 Finally, Judith of Flanders’ eleventh-century
Weingarten Gospel Book, though ultimately donated to a continental
foundation, is an example of the meditative function of these inherently
sacred objects. Bound in a jeweled and gold cover and decorated with
raised figures of Christ in Majesty and Crucified, this prestigious book
contained an illumination portraying Judith in the company of Christ,
Mary, and John at the Crucifixion.131 The patron’s inclusion of herself in
the biblical scene allowed her to imagine herself actually in Jerusalem
at the crucifixion while remaining in her own church. The books donated by Margaret, Werburgh, Judith, and the rest show how together
word and decoration functioned as visual symbols of the divine, elevating their patrons, their recipients—all viewers—to a higher spiritual
plane.
While pious gifts of books were restricted to the very wealthy, all
women could weave, and clerics repeatedly encouraged women—both
secular and religious—to offer such skills for the adornment of churches
and churchmen. Anglo-Saxon women were famous for their skill in textile work, which would later be celebrated throughout Europe as opus
Anglicarum.132 Textile gifts ranged from the simplest altar and table
covers to splendid pieces such as the Cuthbert embroideries commissioned by Queen Ælfflæd for a Winchester bishop to one of the most
prized possessions of Ely, a luxurious vestment covered with gold em129
Turgot, “The Life of Queen Margaret,” in Early Sources of Scottish History,
500–1286, ed.A. O.Anderson, Surtees Society Publications 51 (1922, repr. 1990), pp. 234–
254; Richard Gameson,“Ælfric and the Perception of Script and Picture in Anglo-Saxon
England,” Anglo-Saxon Studies in Architecture and History, 5 (1992), 86, 88, 90; Temple,
Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, no. 91; Gameson, Role of Art, p. 252.
130
Gameson,“Ælfric and the Perception of Script,” p. 90.
131
Weingarten Gospel Book, New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS 709, fol. 105v; Temple, op. cit., p. 142, ills. 285, 289.
132
Matthew of Paris, Chronica Major, ed. Henry Richards Luard, RS (7 vols.; London,
1872–1873), s.a. 1246; Mary Eirwin Jones, A History of Western Embroidery (New York,
1969), p. 27. It was, however, a term used in the late eleventh century as well. See William
of Malmesbury, Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi Historia Novella, ed. and trans. K. R.
Potter (London, 1955), pp. 107–108.

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593

broidery, and given by a certain Leofwaru.133 The monks at Croyland,
Ely, Ramsey, and Canterbury and bishops at Worcester and Winchester
are among clerics who praised the woven goods women donated to
their churches.134 It is often difficult to determine whether women
donors commissioned these luxurious objects or actually labored on the
finer pieces themselves. The vita of the late eleventh-century Margaret,
however, presents the ideal—a woman who both commissioned pieces
and wove and embroidered herself—all for the benefit of the Church.
Turgot describes the queen’s royal chamber as a “workshop . . . of altarcloths, other priestly vestments, and decorations for the church. . . .”135
Queen Emma, a particularly well-documented patron, was remembered
at Canterbury for her gift of two dorsals and two copes with gold tassels.136 But as a very active and generous queen, she stands out in the
surviving records. The majority of ecclesiastical inventories omit benefactors’ names, particularly those women of humble status and their
equally modest gifts. If, however, the wealth of evidence for Emma’s
generosity and for that of other noble women is any indication of the
patronage practices of Anglo-Saxon women in general, then it is clear
133
Liber Eliensis, II, cap. 88; Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Wills, pp. 40–41. See also Mildred
Budny,“The Byrhtnoth Tapestry or Embroidery,” in The Battle of Maldon A.D. 991, ed.
Donald Scragg (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 263–264; The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon
Art and Culture AD 600–900, edd. Leslie Webster and Janet Backhouse (London, 1991),
pp.42–43,185.Edward the Elder’s queen,Ælfflæd,commissioned a stole and maniple subsequently donated to St. Cuthbert’s community at Chester-le-Street. The reverse end of
the maniple bears the legends “Ælfflæd Fieri recepit—Pio Fridestano Episcopo.” It was
probably commissioned by Ælfflæd c. 909–916 and donated to Frithestan, Bishop of Winchester (Battiscombe, “Historical Introduction,” pp. 13, 375, and pl. xxxiii; G. Crowfoot,
“The Braids,” in The Relics of Saint Cuthbert, pp. 460–461).
134
Æthelswith exchanged an estate, Stretchworth, for Coveney, where she retired with
her maidens. Some of Æthelswith’s work survives in Ely’s twelfth-century inventory
(Liber Eliensis, II, cap. 88; III, cap. 50); Cyril Hart, The Early Charters of Eastern England
(Leicester, 1966), p. 48. The Victoria History of the County of Cambridgeshire and the
Isle of Ely, ed. R. B. Pugh (London, 1953), IV, 136, notes the acquisition by Æthelswith of
an estate at Coveney in return for her gift to Ely of her life interest in Stretchworth. See
also M. A. L. Locherbie-Cameron,“Byrhtnoth and His Family,” in The Battle of Maldon, p.
256; De Gestis Regum Anglorum, ed. William Stubbs, RS (London, 1887), p. 247; VER, pp.
14–15; The Lives of Edward the Confessor, ed. and trans. Henry Richards Luard, RS (3
vols.; London, 1858), III, 58; S 1261; Vita S. Dunstani auctore B, in Memorials of St Dunstan, pp. 20–21; DB, I, 40r, 42v; Chron. Rameseiensis, p. 199; C. R. Dodwell, The Pictorial
Arts of the West, 800–1200 (New Haven, 1993), p. 31.
135
Turgot, op. cit., pp. 234–254. See also Lois L. Huneycutt, “The Idea of the Perfect
Princess: The Life of St. Margaret in the Reign of Matilda II (1100–1118),” Anglo-Norman
Studies, 12 (1989), 81–97.
136
Gervase, Historical Works, p. 56

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that women were essential to the material culture of churches, particularly decoration with textiles.
While women such as Wynflæd, Wulfwaru, and Thurgunda bequeathed actual religious garments—clerical vestments and offering
cloths—the distinction between the secular and ecclesiastical use of
these woven goods is sometimes unclear.137 Bath and St. Alban’s, for instance, received linens, curtains, bedclothes, and a woolen gown from
women.138 Even more worldly is the famous Battle of Maldon wall hanging given to Ely by Ælfflæd.139 This tapestry was likely part of a corpus
of heroic and secular hangings made by women, which were simply
transferred from their own residences to church sanctuaries, where
they served both to decorate and to preserve the memory of their benefactors.140 Many of the same women remembered for the marvelously
woven and embroidered ecclesiastical copes, palls, and tomb covers
also conferred smaller or simpler pieces—such as golden tassels, dorsals, altar cloths, and table covers—both to wealthy communities and to
humbler private churches. The altar cloths and vestments crafted by
women and used to decorate the communion altar and celebrant created a visible intimacy between patron and the heart of the community’s worship, the Eucharist.141 Such a personal identification between
sanctified objects and the patron was often made explicit—as seen in
the Codex Aureus,the Cuthbert embroideries,and Edith of Wilton’s alb:
in each of these cases the donors’ name or likeness was embroidered or
engraved on the gift. The embroidered seat covers, bejeweled copes,
and gold-threaded hangings all brought color and warmth to the stone
and timber structures. Secular and religious writings recognize the visual effect of such pieces. The description of the gold banner in Beowulf, for example, points to the gold thread as a radiant source that
illuminated the dragon’s dark den. But in addition to beautifying dark
churches, the fine designs on certain pieces could also relate key religious themes, and thus served both as didactic and meditative aids.
Some textile work, like Ælfflæd’s Cuthbert embroideries, became
relics themselves. Other woven works, like those Queen Emma presented to the saints’ tombs at Ely, served to protect, beautify, and honor
Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Wills, nos. 3 and 21; Chron. Rameseiensis, p. 199.
Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Wills, no. 21.
139
Liber Eliensis, II, caps. 63, 136; Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art, pp. 134–136.
140
Whitelock,Anglo-Saxon Wills,no.21;Dorothy Whitelock,The Will of Æthelgifu (Oxford, 1968), p. 7; Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art, p. 136.
141
Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars:Traditional Religion in England, c. 1400–
c. 1580 (New Haven, 1992), p. 129.
137

138

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595

the saints relics around which they were wrapped or draped.142 In addition to decorating the saints’ tombs, Emma vigorously participated in
the spread of relics throughout England. Emma not only gave Abingdon
a shrine for St. Vincent which itself held a collection of relics, but she
also gave the head of St. Valentine to New Minster, Winchester, and the
trunk of St. Ouen to Christ Church, Canterbury.143 Other women of noble or thegnly status were also remembered for the gold and gem-covered
reliquaries taken from their personal collections and chapels and donated to religious communities.144 And upon her marriage to King Malcolm III, Margaret is said to have brought a miraculous reliquary with
her to Scotland.145 The palm-length, cross-shaped shrine was made of
gold, which, when opened, revealed a fragment of the True Cross and
an ivory carving of Christ. In addition to being an example of female pious giving, Margaret’s reliquary is representative of the popularity of
the cult of the True Cross that flourished in Anglo-Saxon England. From
the earliest days of the Church, the cross had been the object of veneration, and pieces of it desired as relics. Its power lay in the belief, as set
out in The Dream of the Rood, that devotion to the cross or crucifix
would ensure entry to heaven.146
As active participants in the cult of the cross, women may have had a
particular attraction to the devotion, since they could imagine themselves—as is suggested by the Judith of Flanders’ gospel book illumination—in the role of either the Virgin Mary or Mary Magdalene, both of
whom had strong cults in Anglo-Saxon England.147 Chronicles and wills
mention gifts of gold and silver crosses by women to various religious
communities. Countess Godgifu, for example, bestowed all her treasures on Coventry with the order that goldsmiths were to rework the
gold and silver into religious objects including crucifixes.148 Margaret’s
142
Liber Eliensis, III, cap. 122; Pauline Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith: Queenship and Women’s Power in Eleventh-Century England (Oxford, 1997), p. 147.
143
Chron. Abingdon, I, 433; Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art, p. 25; Historia Novella, pp. 107–
110; ASC, s.a. 1041 (F); Gesta Pontificum, p. 419.
144
Registrum Roffense, p. 199; Chron. Rameseiensis, p. 194; Chron. Abingdon, I, 429;
Chron. Evesham, p. 46; Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art, pp. 23, 197
145
Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art, p. 197 n. 106.
146
Raw, op. cit., p. 62.
147
For the cult of the Virgin Mary in Anglo-Saxon England, see Mary Clayton, The Cult
of the Virgin Mary in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge,1990).For the cult of Mary Magdalen, see Michael Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Litanies of the Saints (London, 1991); J. E. Cross,
“Mary Magdalen in the Old English Martyrology:The Earliest Extant ‘Narrat Josephus’Variant of Her Legend,” Speculum, 33 (1978), 16–25.
148
Chron. Rameseiensis, p. 199; Registrum Roffense, p. 119; Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon
Wills, nos. 21 and 32; Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art, pp. 23, 66.

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hagiographer describes the jewel-encrusted cross she presented to the
abbey church at Dunfermline and the giant cross St. Andrew’s received
from her, which was so large that thieves were unable to steal it.149 The
gifts of crucifixes by Countess Judith and her husband Tosti to Durham
and Gytha and her husband Tovi the Proud to Waltham are particularly
interesting because with these gifts two forms of benefaction—life-size
crucifixes and jewelry—merge, humanizing the object of devotion. At
Durham, Judith and Tosti ordered a figure of Christ on the Cross to be
made accompanied by figures of Mary and John. All the figures were
then lavishly clothed with gold and silver.150 The Waltham Cross, which
bore a dedication, was likewise described as a masterpiece of gems,
gold, and silver. Gytha is credited with commissioning the decoration of
the black stone figure of Christ on the Waltham Cross with jewelry—an
act reminiscent of Helen’s decoration of the holy rood in Cynewulf’s
Elene.151 The Waltham Chronicle records how Gytha placed upon the
head of Christ a crown of pure gold and precious stones, and how she
draped around his waist a girdle of purest gold,“the kind women of the
highest rank wore in those days.”152 Finally, from her own necklaces and
bracelets she commissioned a footstool for the Christ figure complete
with a gemstone to provide a light for the night sacristan. Countess
Goda’s bequest of necklaces of gems for the effigy of the Virgin at
Coventry suggests a similar use of patrons’ personal jewelry to adorn
devotional icons.153 Women’s gifts of their jewelry, which they then
used to dress religious images, established a personal association between patron and icon.
The crucifixes donated by Judith,Gytha,and numerous other women,
were magnificent objects, which played instructional, liturgical, and
devotional roles. Individually or in great clusters (such as the group Judith and Tosti presented to Durham) these crosses, joined by the existing devotional clutter decorating these churches, must have presented
an awesome spectacle to worshipers.154 As Ælfric reminded his audience in one of his homilies, these crosses were more than just instru149
David McRoberts,“The Glorious House of St. Andrews,” in The Scottish Tradition: Essays in Honor of Ronald Gordon Cant, ed. G. S. Barrow (London, 1974), p. 104.
150
Symeon, Opera Omnia, p. 95; Dodwell Anglo-Saxon Art, p. 119.
151
Waltham Chronicle, cap. 22; Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art, p. 119; Mary-Catherine Bodden, The Old English Finding of the True Cross (Cambridge, 1987), p. 92; Judith N. Garde,
Old English Poetry in Medieval Christian Perspective: A Doctrinal Approach (Cambridge, 1991), p. 177.
152
Waltham Chronicle, p. 23; Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art, p. 119.
153
Gesta Pontificum, p. 311; Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art, pp. 188–189.
154
Gameson, Role of Art, p. 129.

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597

ments of Christ’s suffering; they were memorials to his victory over
death and man’s sin.155
Large or small, and composed of precious materials, these crucifixes,
like the textiles and wall paintings, were visual homilies for their beholders. An ornate Anglo-Saxon crucifix decorated with elaborate Crucifixion and Last Judgment scenes was carved,according to its inscription,
for and upon the request of a woman named Gunhild.156 Gunhild’s personalized devotional crucifix is intriguing for its incorporation of both
inscribed meditative texts on the True Cross and iconography that includes female figures among the blessed and damned in its Last Judgment depiction.Through both text and image, Judith of Flanders’gospel
book and Gunhild’s cross furnished personal links between Christ’s
death in Jerusalem and their female beholders.
All these religious objects ornamented churches and chapels, many
of which were established by women. In the tradition of St. Helena,
women created sacred spaces for the celebration of Mass, the veneration of relics, and personal contemplation.157 We know noble women,
sometimes with their husbands, but also by themselves, energetically
participated in church building—an avenue of patronage that allowed
women control over their private priests and consequently their religious lives.158 In towns such as Lincoln, London, Winchester, and Norwich, the extent of church building far exceeded the need.159 Lincoln
had thirty-five parish churches in 1086, including one that had been
owned by a woman named Garwine before the Conquest. Winchester,
too, was blanketed by very small personal churches, as was Norwich.
C. N. L. Brooke has drawn our attention to the minute scale of most preConquest parish churches, both rural and urban; the majority measured
155

Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies, 2nd Series, ed. Malcolm Godden (London, 1979), pp. 175–

176.
156
“May those who believe in the crucified Christ be mindful in prayer of Liutger, who
carved me at the request of Helen, who is also called Gunhild” (Beckwith, op. cit., pp. 57–
58, 127); Gameson, Role of Art, p. 251 n. 103. For another view on the identity of this Gunhild, see ASC, s.a. 1044 [recte 1045] (D). I would like to thank Ann Williams for directing
my attention to this source.
157
E. D. Hunt, Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Later Roman Empire, AD 312–460 (Oxford, 1982), pp. 36–38.
158
S 860, 1234, 1380, 1521, 1525; Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Wills, no. 29; Chron. Rameseiensis, pp. 63–64; Robertson, Anglo-Saxon Charters, p. 217; Taylor and Taylor, op. cit., I,
20–21.
159
C. N. L. Brooke,“The Missionary at Home: The Church in the Towns, 1000–1250,” in
Studies in Church History,Vol. 6: The Mission of the Church and the Propagation of the
Faith, ed. G. J. Cuming (1970), pp. 59–73.

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about 13' x 16'.160 The church at Raunds, Northamptonshire, St. Olaf’s in
York, and Odda’s chapel at Deerhurst were box-like structures with
shallow apses,which provided no space for the celebrant of the Mass to
be separate from the people.161 Most contemporary texts discussing
gifts and their visual impact describe the larger monastic churches and
cathedrals. But over time, even the interiors of these larger buildings,
became compartmentalized as crypts, oratories, side chapels, and altars
were added. These partitions further demarcated intimate areas for private meditation, all of which could be lavishly embellished by patrons.162 These small private spaces fostered a religious intimacy
between laity and priest or patron and chaplain. And the hundreds of
churches cluttering London and Winchester suggest a high degree of
popular religious devotion, a devotion that could be concentrated on
the veneration of a particular relic or cross held dear to a patron and
donor.163
In our age of stripped-down, unadorned churches we tend to forget
the impact that shimmering, gilded, and bejeweled art must have had
on worshipers. Through their gifts, women responded to the calls by
churchmen to beautify church interiors so that worshipers might see
something of the “Paradise of God.”164 The churches women established
were not merely structures to hold the faithful waiting to hear the Word
of God, but by their very adornment and ornamentation, they became
vessels for devotional art, which facilitated the laity’s approach to the
divine. Unfortunately, descriptions of the decorations and gifts found in
tiny parish churches and private manorial chapels are rare, and the interiors of the thousands of such churches remain largely mysterious.
Gytha’s church at Waltham and St. Edith’s chapel at Wilton, however,
provide a glimpse of what such churches patronized by women may
have contained. Edith’s chapel, Goscelin claimed, had been built to vie
with the sumptuous Temple of Solomon in ornamentation and splen-

DB, I, 336r; Brooke, op. cit., p. 66; Campbell, op. cit., p. 127.
DB, I, 280r; Taylor and Taylor, op. cit., pp. 209–211; Elizabeth Okasha, Handlist of
Anglo-Saxon Non-Runic Inscriptions (Cambridge, 1971), no. 28; Robertson, Anglo-Saxon
Charters, pp. 456–458; Gameson, Role of Art, p. 244.
162
Nicholas Brooks,“The Anglo-Saxon Cathedral Community,” in A History of Canterbury Cathedral, edd. Patrick Collinson, Nigel Ramsay, and Margaret Sparks (Oxford,
1995), p. 36.
163
Brooke, op. cit., p. 83.
164
Wulfstan’s Canons of Edgar, 4–5; Chron. Abingdon, I, 344; The Blickling Homilies,
ed. R. Morris, EETS 16 (London, 1967), p. 195; Theophilus, The Various Arts, ed. C. R. Dodwell (London 1961), pp. 62–63; Gameson, Role of Art, pp. 261–263.
160

161

BY MARY FRANCES SMITH, ROBIN FLEMING, AND PATRICIA HALPIN

599

dor.165 Such decorative comparisons of Solomon’s Temple and Moses’s
Tabernacle with contemporary churches were popular in Anglo-Saxon
ecclesiastical writings. The decorative paintings in both structures, for
instance, like those described within the Wearmouth-Jarrow church
and the much grander tower of New Minster, Winchester, served both
as didactic tools and to foster spiritual meditation. Gytha, Earl Godwine’s wife, is credited with the establishment of the eleventh-century
church at Nether Wallop, which still contains the remains of a contemporary wall painting above the chancel, which depicts the Risen Christ.
The power of both the personal meditative pieces and the giant collections of crucifixes was also expressed by the paintings decorating Edith
of Wilton’s chapel, which Goscelin described as portraying scenes of
Christ’s Passion that Edith herself had pictured in her heart.166 The layout and decoration of Edith’s chapel, with its cruciform plan, cycle of
paintings, and relic of one of the Holy Nails, were intended to make the
Wilton nuns and other worshipers aware that the way to the Holy Land
was through the cross, which was both an instrument of Christ’s death
and a bringer of eternal life.167 All of these images, along with the numerous talking, bleeding, and writhing crucifixes recorded at churches
like Gytha’s at Waltham, directly interacted with worshipers and served
as paths of divine power for those who venerated them.
As a result of the great loss of devotional art, there has been a tendency to underestimate the mnemonic, emotive, and didactic power of
images and objects on their beholders. Poorly illuminated by natural
light and often crammed against neighboring buildings in urban areas,
the interiors of Anglo-Saxon churches were dark and austere.The glowing gems and gold of Gytha’s crucifix, Judith’s gospel book cover, and
Ælfflæd’s woven hangings set church interiors ablaze. But the fact is
that few written records regarding Anglo-Saxon women survive. We
know from the limited charter evidence that women donated land to
churches. These benefactions were restricted to a small group of noble
women and often such propertied decisions were encumbered by familial demands. Women—both secular and religious—did, however,
own houses full of possessions,and we see how they used them to their
advantage and in the same manner as their male relatives used land.
Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art, p. 33.
“La légende de Ste Édith en prose et vers par le moine Goscelin,” ed. A. Wilmart,
Analecta Bollandiana, 56 (1938), 86–87; Richard Gem, “Documentary References to
Anglo-Saxon Painted Architecture,” in Early Medieval Wall Painting and Painted Sculpture in England,edd.Sharon Cather,David Park,and Paul Williamson,BAR,216 (1990),7,8.
167
Raw, op. cit., p. 16.
165

166

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COURT AND PIETY IN LATE ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

Through their gifts women—all women—could express their piety and
strengthen their ties with particular churches and their fellow community of worshipers.

Conclusion

We have tried to outline the culture of pious giving prevalent in
Anglo-Scandinavian court circles in the last sixty or seventy years of
Anglo-Saxon England. We hope, from our brief surveys, that it is clear
that the religious activities of great earls, ambitious prelates, and highstatus women are hard to separate because all three groups seem to
have participated in a constellation of activities that defined high-status
piety during this period. So what are the hallmarks of eleventh-century,
Anglo-Scandinavian elite piety? One of its most obvious markers is
the importance of conspicuous and public expenditure.The great were
not satisfied with simply giving estates for the victualling of monks,
nuns, or canons, but instead were focused on cramming the churches
they endowed full of gaudy, outsized, priceless objects. Another mark
of benefaction in eleventh-century England was the notion of art
connoisseurship. The people we have been discussing—Countess Judith, Archbishop Ealdred, Earl Harold—did not simply give things, but
they self-consciously gave great works of art—deluxe manuscripts, textiles of breath-taking intricacy, and elaborate gold and silver objects that
were cherished for their beauty as much as for their value.Indeed,some
churchmen and many women actually produced the great art pieces
they gave. Another characteristic of the benefactions of the period relates, in some way, to pilgrimage. The collection of relics and the broad
networks of gift exchange in operation during the period and the urge
by the great to go and visit sacred sites spread similar types of objects
and cults across Europe and into England. The result was the rise of a
kind of internationalist and eclectic taste in objects deemed suitable for
giving to the Church, and this, in turn, helped place England in the religious mainstream well before 1066. A final mark of the period’s pattern
of pious giving seems to have been the deep commitment of the AngloScandinavian elite to support communities of canons.
Various things within eleventh-century English culture help to explain the rise of this particular manifestation of piety. The emphasis on
chattel gifts can be explained by a number of factors.The first has to do
with the charismatic culture of eleventh-century England and the nature of power in such a society. Power and charisma in the period were
tactile, and they were projected through extravagant and generous dis-

BY MARY FRANCES SMITH, ROBIN FLEMING, AND PATRICIA HALPIN

601

plays of giving, which were better suited to objects than to land. Second, for those who were denied access to the most sacred parts of the
liturgy and church sanctuaries—as most laymen and all women were
during this period—the inscribed objects, the things decorated with
representations of donors or the written names of the givers allowed
laypeople to place themselves within the liturgy and on the altar. Beyond this, women’s rights to chattel were not restricted in the same
way as their rights to land, and it may have been not only culturally
preferable, but easier for pious Englishwomen to give elaborately decorated objects than estates. Finally, the Anglo-Scandinavian elite’s emphasis on canons rather than monks has to do with the new and interesting
learning canons sponsored on the Continent and its modern, cuttingedge attraction for England’s nouveau aristocracy, and with the ideologies of rulership canons sponsored and their utility as administrators.
Why is this pious activity not recognized in the historiography of
eleventh-century England? It has remained barely visible in large part
because of evidentiary problems. The pre-Conquest archives of communities of canons (which included many important cathedrals) do
not, for the most part, survive, which means that the land given to these
communities by the rich and the famous cannot be recovered. Moreover, the few charters that do survive do not include gifts of chattel,
which may have been the most prevalent and extravagant form of benefaction during this period. Historians, like the sources, tend, moreover,
to be biased toward monks, and canons and their sponsors are often
seen as second-rate,worldly,and inconsequential.To further complicate
matters, after the Conquest a number of late Anglo-Saxon figures—
Archbishop Stigand, Earl Godwine, Earl Harold, and Earl Tosti—were expunged from the libri vitae and commemorative liturgies of the
religious communities they had once supported; so, it is not always
clear just who it was who sponsored particular communities in the
final decades before the Battle of Hastings. Finally, between the Conquest, and William Rufus, and King Stephen, and the Protestant Reformation, the material culture of eleventh-century high-status spirituality
has vanished, the same way that the charters of canons have vanished.
And, if women were focusing their benefaction on women’s communities, we shall never know what they gave, since the archives and treasuries of nunneries are even less well represented than those of
communities of canons.
This culture of piety that we have found is not only different from
tenth-century religiosity, which we have already commented on, but it
was also different from that of the twelfth century. And as historians of

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COURT AND PIETY IN LATE ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

the eleventh century we are interested in knowing how and why the
world we have just described was not only different from what came after it, but why, in the twelfth century, it was not so much disapproved
of,as erased.Indeed,it is not just twentieth-century historians who have
had trouble recognizing the flamboyant piety of the eleventh-century
elite, but twelfth-century historians as well. We moderns have a good
excuse—all that shiny, glittering, glowing stuff has long since disappeared. But in the twelfth century, when people like William of Malmesbury were writing their histories, many of the extravagantly rococo
donations of the Old English elite must have still been present in most
churches and treasuries in England.168 But few in the twelfth century
praised the good works and wondrous treasures members of the AngloScandinavian elite had showered upon the Church.

168
For an example of a twelfth-century inventory detailing still extant pre-Conquest
chattel gifts, see Liber Eliensis, III, cap. 50. For the continuation of art patronage after the
Conquest,see Brian Golding,“Wealth and Artistic Patronage at Twelfth-Century St Albans,”
in Art and Patronage in the English Romanesque, ed. Sarah Macready and F. H. Thompson (London, 1986), pp. 107–117. For a summary of the evidence for the looting of AngloSaxon art treasures after the Conquest for the benefit of Continental churches, see
Dodwell,Anglo-Saxon Art,pp.216–222.Some lesser works of religious art,found in lesser
churches, may have been destroyed by Normans. This may be the implication of the broken “founders’” grave covers excavated at Raunds, Northants. (Andy Boddington,“Raunds
Furnells: The Anglo-Saxon Church and Churchyard,” English Heritage Archaeological Report, 7 (London, 1996), 10, 70, 106–112).

THE FIRST WOMEN RELIGIOUS IN JAPAN:
MOTHER SAINT MATHILDE RACLOT
AND THE FRENCH CONNECTION
BY

ANN M. HARRINGTON, B.V.M.*

The nineteenth century was a heady time for Roman Catholicism as
Western Christianity insinuated itself into Asian countries populated by
millions of potential converts, souls that Catholic missionaries believed
needed to be brought into the light of the Catholic faith. Japan was seen
as especially attractive because of the aborted efforts toward conversion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. When the military government of Japan, the Tokugawa Bakufu, decided in 1614 to ban this
foreign religion, Christians had the option of camouflage, apostasy, or
death, as Japan’s doors closed in 1639 until the mid-nineteenth century.
Many Japanese died for their faith, creating a zeal in the missionaries
once again to bring Catholicism to Japan. Their enthusiasm grew with
the re-emergence of Christianity after its long underground period,
when a group of Christian descendants made themselves known in
1865 to Bernard Petitjean (1829–1884), a Paris Foreign Mission priest.1
A part of the story that is not so well known is the work of Roman
Catholic women religious who went to Japan initially in 1872 (Soeurs
de l’Enfant-Jésus,also known as the Dames de Saint-Maur),1877 (Soeurs
de l’Enfant-Jésus de Chauffailles), and 1878 (Soeurs de Saint-Paul de
Chartres). All three of these French congregations sent sisters to Japan
*Sister Harrington is an associate professor of history in Loyola University Chicago.
1
The Société des Missions-Étrangères de Paris (M.E.P.), or the Paris Foreign Mission Society, was founded in 1660 for the exclusive purpose of training priests for missionary
work. The permission for exclusive proselytizing rights was granted to the Paris Foreign
Mission priests by the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith; thus they
were the only Roman Catholic priests in Japan in the nineteenth century. See Jean Guennou, Les Missions-Étrangères (Paris, 1963), p. 270. Also, Adrien Launay, Histoire générale
de la Société des Missions-Étrangères (Paris, 1894). For the story of the Hidden Christians, see Ann M. Harrington, Japan’s Hidden Christians (Chicago, 1993). For more information on Bernard Petitjean, see G. Anderson (ed.), Biographical Dictionary of the
Christian Missions (New York, 1998), pp. 530–531.

603

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THE FIRST WOMEN RELIGIOUS IN JAPAN: MOTHER SAINT MATHILDE RACLOT

at the request of the Paris Foreign Mission Society priests, who had argued for exclusive proselytizing rights in Japan;they wanted to avoid repeating the conflicts which had erupted among the Jesuits,Franciscans,
Dominicans, and Augustinians in the first Christian period (1549–
1639). Paris Foreign Mission priests arrived in 1859 but had to confine
their services to the foreign Catholics residing in Japan. Once the Japanese government stopped the persecutions, the priests invited women
religious to Japan.
English sources examining the life and work of these first women religious in Japan are nonexistent. This study begins to remedy that situation and seeks to answer several questions: How did it happen that
these women went to Japan? Who were they? What did they do in the
early years of their life in Japan? How did they view Japan and the
Japanese? How can we account for their immediate usefulness in early
Meiji Japan despite the small numbers of converts to Roman Catholicism? An examination of the historical context reveals an unusual set of
circumstances which made ripe the time for the introduction of French
women religious into Japan.The life and work of Mother Saint Mathilde
Raclot, whose time in Japan spanned almost the entire Meiji era (1868–
1912), provides the focus for this study. We learn what women working
in the mission field were able to bring to the Japan mission, despite
coming from a patriarchal France; we investigate how their works
proved especially beneficial to Japanese women and children who experienced hardships in the last quarter of the nineteenth century; and
we are left with questions about the over-all impact of the sisters in relation to cultural imperialism. But first, the story.
Mother Saint Mathilde led the first group of sisters to Japan from
France via Singapore in 1872, even though she herself did not take up
permanent residence in Japan until 1876. During the intervening years,
she made at least twelve trips to Japan.2 Unlike most foreigners in Japan
in the late nineteenth century, Mother Saint Mathilde was neither sojourner nor settler; she was neither politician nor business woman. She
was in Japan at the request of the priests of the Paris Foreign Mission
Society to help them as they preached Christianity to the Japanese. Being a Roman Catholic sister in the nineteenth century, Mother Saint
Mathilde was not, strictly speaking, a missionary. That term, according
2
See the manuscript “Vie de la Révérende Mère Sainte Mathilde,”p.562,by Marie-Louise
Flachaire de Roustan (1858–1921), Paris, Archives of the Soeurs de l’Enfant-Jésus, Nicolas
Barré, Yokohama Collection. Hereafter cited as “Vie,” SEJ, YC. At this time, the trip from
Yokohama to Singapore ordinarily took from fifteen to seventeen days.

BY ANN M. HARRINGTON, B.V.M.

605

to the canon law at the time, referred exclusively to clerics subject to
the jurisdiction of the Sacred Congregation of the Propagation of the
Faith.3 The best term one can come up with is that she and the French
sisters who went to Japan in the nineteenth century were “assistants”to
the priests.
Mother Saint Mathilde was born in France on February 9, 1814, in the
town of Suriauville,situated between Domremy and Matlaincourt in the
province of Lorraine. She was baptized on February 10 as Marie-Justine
Raclot. Her grandfather was a longtime mayor of Suriauville.
Marie-Justine was a typical child, mischievous and curious. In 1826
she was sent to study at Saint Maur in Langres, which was run by the
Dames de Saint Maur, also known as the Soeurs de l’Enfant-Jésus, a religious order of women founded in the seventeenth century by Nicolas
Barré (1621–1686).4 The Institute began as part of a movement toward
an intermediate state of religious life, one not cloistered (enclosed), but
active. Barré, as part of this trend, invited groups of women to teach the
poor, without involving the women in the legal and canonical issues of
the religious life of the day.Their numbers expanded rapidly as did their
schools. Louis XIV asked for sisters in the Midi, and Mme de Maintenon
wanted them at Saint-Cyr in Paris. When invited to become a monastic
community, the Saint Maur sisters refused and withdrew from SaintCyr. Mme de Maintenon nonetheless remained a lifelong supporter of
the group. By the end of the seventeenth century, this style of religious
life became acceptable, and the nun-educator in the Catholic church
was born.5 Marie-Justine herself entered this congregation of sisters on
October 15, 1832, and donned the garb of the sisters February 2, 1834,
receiving the religious name “Sainte Mathilde.”She pronounced her first
vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience on March 19, 1835.
3
The word “missionary”applied to women religious became somewhat common usage
by the 1880’s but the canon itself did not change until 1983. Canon 784 now says that
missionaries “may be secular clerics, members of institutes of consecrated life or of societies of apostolic life, or other lay members of the Christian faithful.”See James A. Coriden
et al. (eds.), The Code of Canon Law:A Text and Commentary (New York, 1983), p. 561.
4
The official name of the order is Congrégation des Soeurs de l’Instruction Charitable
du Saint Enfant-Jésus. For more information on Nicholas Barré, see New Catholic Encyclopedia, II, 123.
5
Elizabeth Rapley, The Dévotes: Women and Church in Seventeenth-Century France
(Montreal, 1990), pp. 126–130; 195–196. Their informal beginnings in 1667 saw them
teaching children of the working poor and assisting the clergy as auxiliaries in their work
of Christianization. It was not until 1871 that they began living in community.“The years
of Louis XIV’s personal rule (1660–1715) saw the creation [of ] at least seventeen female
teaching congregations” ( p. 113).

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THE FIRST WOMEN RELIGIOUS IN JAPAN: MOTHER SAINT MATHILDE RACLOT

Sister Saint Mathilde began her apostolate in southern France, in Bagnols, Beziers, and Sète in the region of Languedoc. While in Sète, the
major superior at the Paris motherhouse called her to “leave all and
come.”This was on September 14, 1852. She left for Paris that same day
and was told on arrival that she would be going to Penyang, Malaysia, as
the mother superior because the sister sent as superior, Mother Saint
Paulin Rodot (1821–1852), had died en route of a rapidly advancing
case of pulmonary tuberculosis.6 So with two days to prepare, on September 17, Mother Saint Mathilde and three other sisters left for
Southampton and on September 18, for Singapore and Malaysia. They
arrived at their final destination on October 28.
The departure for Japan was also very quick, and again the sisters received little advance notice. But in this case, Mother Saint Mathilde was
predisposed to go. She apparently had had a strong desire to labor for
Japan after hearing about the work of the Jesuit, St. Francis Xavier. In
1860 the Paris Foreign Mission priest, Prudence S. Girard (1821–1867),
who was superior of the newly established Japan mission, stopped in
Singapore and told the sisters about Japan, where his priests had just arrived the year before. He asked whether any of their sisters might be
willing to leave their establishment in Malaysia and, when religious liberty was achieved, to go to Japan to live in a poor, small Japanese house.
The sisters were filled with excitement by the idea and would not let
him leave until he promised that they would be called on just as soon
as it was possible to go to Japan. But Girard died on December 9, 1867;
so it would not be his decision.7
Meanwhile, Mother Saint Mathilde’s fervor was kept alive when she
heard of the discovery of the ancient Christians in 1865 and when she
met a young missionary, Simon-Marie-Antoine-Just Ranfer de Bretenières
(1838–1866), on his way to Korea in that same year. The news of his
martyrdom in Korea in 1866 made her burn “with desire to walk in his
footsteps, to go to Japan, another land of martyrs.”8

6
“Vie,” pp. 245; 199–200, SEJ, YC. Mother St. Paulin Rodot was buried at sea. She was
part of the first group of sisters sent to Malaysia. In those days, the congregation used the
term “mère” for the sister who was named superior of a mission. Mathilde Raclot held the
title because she was superior of the Malaysia mission. An account by Mother Mathilde of
the beginnings of the Malaysian mission,“Débuts de la mission en Malaisie,”is found in the
Penang Registry 1851–1878, pp. 3–28, SEJ.
7
“Vie,” p. 499, SEJ, YC. For more information on Girard, see R. Streit et al., Bibliotheca
Missionum (Aachen, 1938), X, 40–41.
8
“Vie,” p. 502. See Streit op. cit., X, 438–439, for details on Ranfer de Bretenières.

BY ANN M. HARRINGTON, B.V.M.

607

In 1867 she planted the idea of such a venture in the head of her order in Paris, the Reverend Mother François de Sales de Faudoas (1799–
1877).9 While it would still be another five years before the opportunity
to go to Japan arose, events as early as 1870 were moving to make this
possible. In that year, another Paris Foreign Mission priest, Bishop Ferdinand Dupond (1809–1872), asked for sisters to establish a school in
Bangkok, but Dupond died before realizing his dream.10 Four sisters,
however, had been sent to Singapore for that purpose and were awaiting reassignment. The sisters’ presence there was setting the stage for
the beginning of the Japanese mission, as will become clear.11
The Japan that these women were about to enter had been forced to
open its doors in 1854 by the United States envoy,Commodore Matthew
C. Perry. The Japanese reasoned that they had no choice but to accept
the unequal treaties offered by the West, beginning with that negotiated by Townsend Harris for the United States ( July 28, 1858). Britain,
France,Holland,and Russia followed within weeks to achieve their own
similar unequal treaties, through which Japan had to accept semi-colonial status until it could make itself strong enough to negotiate as an
equal with Western powers. This meant Japan agreed to open for foreign trade the ports of Kanagawa (Yokohama), Edo (Tokyo), Kobe, Nagasaki, and Niigata; to allow international control over their tariffs; and
to grant extraterritoriality.
The Meiji Restoration of 1868 overthrew the Tokugawa Bakufu, the
same government that had banned Christianity, and ushered in an era of
political, economic, and social change aimed at strengthening Japan.
One statement from the Charter Oath of 1868 augured well for allowing the import of Western religion and education:“Knowledge shall be
sought throughout the world so as to broaden and strengthen the foundations of imperial rule.”The new government also agreed to honor the
treaties signed by the old government. However, what did not augur
well was the continuation of the policy which forbade Christianity.
The last wave of persecutions against Christians broke out in April of
1867, and lasted until 1872, precisely because the new government endorsed the old policy. The persecutions were sparked by the emergence of Christian descendants in the Nagasaki area who openly allied
themselves with the French priests. Because Christianity was still for9
The title “Reverend Mother” was used for the superior general of the congregation, residing at the mother house in Paris.
10
See Streit, op. cit., XI, 168.
11
Ibid., p. 502, 3. Dupond’s full given name was Ferdinand-Aimé-Augustin-Joseph.

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THE FIRST WOMEN RELIGIOUS IN JAPAN: MOTHER SAINT MATHILDE RACLOT

bidden by Bakufu law, thousands of Christians were arrested, relocated,
some tortured, and asked to apostatize. Western governments represented in Japan began to complain as early as 1870, their protests becoming more indignant as time passed. It became increasingly difficult
for the Japanese government to condone attacks on Japanese Christians. Also, members of the Iwakura Mission (1871–1873), a government sponsored attempt to equalize relations with the United States
and Europe, heard complaints about the persecutions from more than a
dozen of the countries they visited.
As a consequence of what was learned abroad, and the disfavor on
the part of foreign envoys, Soejima Taneomi, minister of foreign affairs
in the new Meiji government, announced in 1873 that exiled Christians
would be freed and the sign boards banning Christianity would be
taken down. The proclamation of religious freedom did not occur until
the Meiji Constitution became effective (1889).
Religious persecutions had ceased for all intents and purposes in
1872, prompting Bernard Petitjean, who had been named Japan’s first
bishop of the restored Catholic mission in 1866, to invite religious sisters to Japan. He first asked the Sisters of Charity and Christian Instruction of Nevers, in France, who had apparently made some earlier
commitment to go to Japan. In a letter dated December 14, 1871, from
Japan, he asked for four sisters in good health, with three of the four between twenty-five and thirty years of age because, if they were older,
learning Japanese would be too hard, perhaps impossible. The fourth
sister, the superior, could be older. And he asked that they leave in
March for Yokohama, Japan. The sisters were to be given a trousseau
double what they would be given in France, because even though one
could purchase anything one needed in Japan, he explained that the
prices were terribly high. Finally, he asked that they write fifteen days
before the departure of the sisters so that he could rent a dwelling for
“the dear children you are confiding to me.”12 Perhaps that phrase best
indicates the status of women religious in the eyes of the clergy or at
least in the estimation of Petitjean. The Sisters of Nevers refused the request because the majority of the Chapter (governing body) felt that
the needs of the French houses, in full expansion, would not permit
such an undertaking at that time.13
12
Letter of M. Petitjean, copy sent to author from the Archives of the Soeurs de la Charité et l’Instruction Chrétienne de Nevers, Nevers, France.
13
François Veuillot, Dom de Laveyne et la congrégation des Soeurs de la Charité et de
l’Instruction chrétienne de Nevers (Paris, 1948), p. 213. The Sisters of Nevers sent sisters
to Japan for the first time in 1921.

BY ANN M. HARRINGTON, B.V.M.

609

In a letter dated April 23 Petitjean made his request to Mother Saint
Mathilde, who was still superior in Malaysia. He invited the sisters to
Japan to instruct and educate the young daughters born of European
parents or of a European father and a Japanese mother. Petitjean also
suggested they might possibly direct a general hospital. He was aware
of the four sisters in Malaysia who were to have gone to Bangkok, and,
since Dupond’s death, had not yet been reassigned. Petitjean indicated
that the Japan mission could not afford to pay their passage or housing
in Japan, but he assured them that the tuition of the students would
quickly reimburse them for their expenses.
It appears that the refusal of the sisters of Nevers came as a surprise,
because Petitjean wrote to Mother Saint Mathilde,
It is necessary upon the receipt of this letter that you are able to respond
‘we accept’ and fifteen days later your holy band take passage for Yokohama. In the event you are obliged before accepting to ask for authorization from your Paris motherhouse, regard my request as never made. For
very special reasons, I have to have your response immediately, if it is favorable.14

Petitjean’s urgency stemmed from the fact that he had immediate plans
for an educational center in Yokohama. When he learned that the Sisters of Nevers were unable to send sisters, he quickly invited the Saint
Maur sisters already in Singapore. If Mother Saint Mathilde had had to
write for permission and await the reply, it would have taken too long.
It seems entirely possible that Petitjean had also made promises to the
French citizens in the Tokyo-Yokohama area in terms of schooling for
their children and he wanted to keep them.
Mother Saint Mathilde received the letter on May 19, 1872, the Saturday before Pentecost. Realizing that she could not make such a decision
without consulting Paris, she called on Bishop Michel-Esther Leturdu,
vicar-apostolic in charge of their Singapore mission. He suggested contacting the superior general by telegram. A note in the Paris archives
suggests that the telegraph line between Singapore and Europe had
opened just the previous day, and that this may have been its first use.
Mother Saint Mathilde’s telegram read:“Japan asks for sisters immediately. Can we send. Siam not ready. Msgr. approves. Telegraph response.
Mathilde.” At eight o’clock on Monday morning, May 21, the return
telegram arrived from Paris giving the permission.15
14
Copy of the letter, SEJ, YC. See also Shibukawa Hisako and Shimada Tsuneko, San
Moru shudokai tokyo hyakunen no ayumi (Tokyo, 1981).
15
“Vie,” p. 506, SEJ, YC.

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THE FIRST WOMEN RELIGIOUS IN JAPAN: MOTHER SAINT MATHILDE RACLOT

The small band of sisters,Mother Saint Mathilde,Mother Saint Norbert
Levèsque (1834–1875), Sister Saint Gélase Crespin (1843–1903), Sister
Saint Ferdinand Constantin (1847–1872), and an Irish sister, Sister Saint
Grégoire Conolly (1829–1885), left on June 10, 1872. They traveled
from Singapore to Hong Kong without incident, and there transferred
to a smaller ship, both vessels belonging to the French company Messageries Maritimes. Between Hong Kong and Japan they encountered a
typhoon which buffeted them for two days. The fear of the other passengers amused them when they realized they had nothing to fear from
death in a storm when they were voluntarily traveling to the land of the
martyrs.16
Mother Saint Mathilde describes her first view of Japan’s coastline:
“So uneven, its numerous and verdant hills, its bays, the lighthouses, the
small villages, its thousands of fishing boats going in all directions. We
saw Fujiyama, the highest and most famous mountain in Japan.”17 They
arrived in Yokohama, Japan, at five o’clock in the morning on June 28,
1872. Yokohama is a port city about twenty miles southwest of Tokyo
and at the time it was designated as a foreign trade city open to the
West. Originally, it was divided into two sections: kan nai (inside the
barrier, where the foreigners lived), and kan gai (outside the barrier).
In 1859 it was only a small fishing village. By 1889, it was a city with a
population of 121,000.
Bishop Petitjean sent two missionaries to welcome the sisters. They
escorted the five sisters off the ship, and walked with them, in silence,
to the church where Petitjean was waiting for them on the porch,
dressed in his liturgical vestments. He blessed each of them and then
proceeded to celebrate Mass.18
As the sisters were being led to their lodgings, Mother Saint Mathilde
reported the initial Japanese reaction, writing:“Our dress excited great
curiosity. The Japanese came out of their homes to look at us and asked
one another what sex we could be and why we were in their country.
Many followed us right to the top of the hill where our house was located.”19 Their initial housing was too small for their needs, lacking
space for an oratory, sufficient area to carry out their works, and distance enough from their charges to provide some area of quiet. How“Ibid.,” p. 511, SEJ, YC.
“Relation de Mère Sainte Mathilde” (Account of the Japan mission by Mother Saint
Mathilde), p. 17, SEJ, YC. Hereafter cited as “Relation.”
18
Ibid.
19
Ibid., p. 18.
16

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611

ever, they remained there until their newly built Yokohama convent
was ready two years later in September of 1874.
It is instructive to follow the progress of the building,because it gives
insights into the lines of authority. The Paris Foreign Mission priests
were directly under the jurisdiction of the Sacred Congregation for the
Propagation of the Faith (Propaganda Fide), and so Petitjean as a
bishop, reported to this congregation. He and his priests were in charge
of the mission and funded the buildings used for charitable works. The
sisters, as noted in the bishop’s letter, had to pay their own living expenses. The leasing of land for their new lodgings was carried out
through a letter of request made to the French Consul in Japan,who did
the negotiating with the Japanese government. Communication was
then conveyed by him to the sisters, through the Paris Foreign priests.20
What also becomes clear is that the sisters were totally in charge of the
construction plans and their execution.21 The long delay in the sisters’
relocation was caused by a request for a larger tract of land than the
Japanese government initially allocated,by the necessity to cut costs because the sisters could not afford what they originally deemed necessary, and the need for Mother Saint Mathilde to be on site to see the
plans through.22 As noted above, Mother Saint Mathilde was still stationed in Singapore as the superior of the Asia mission, but she made
numerous trips to Japan between 1872 and the time of her final move
to Japan in 1876.
How did Mother Saint Mathilde view Japan and the Japanese, a country and people so newly opened to the Western world? There are many
comments about learning the language. Mother Saint Mathilde talks
about the language lesson given them by Petitjean on the morning of
their arrival. He dictated phrases and Mother Saint Mathilde reflects,
“How to understand this unknown language? How even to understand
these words so strange to the European ear? Where do they begin?
Where do they end? It is a mystery. Writing is another complication [in
learning the language].”23 In a letter written June 30, 1872, just days af20
See letter from Henri Armbruster (1842–1896), a Paris Foreign Mission priest who,
from 1870 to 1874, was in charge of the material or temporal aspects of the mission (procure de la mission). See Compte Rendu des Missions-Étrangères de Paris, 1896, p.
344. He wrote this letter from Yokohama in the absence of Petitjean, November 28, 1872,
SEJ, YC.
21
Letter from Petitjean to Mère Sainte Mathilde, January 8, 1873, SEJ, YC.
22
Letters from Mère St. Norbert to Paris mother house, November 10, 1872; January 5,
1873; January 18,1874, SEJ, YC.
23
“Vie,” pp. 513–514, SEJ, YC.

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THE FIRST WOMEN RELIGIOUS IN JAPAN: MOTHER SAINT MATHILDE RACLOT

ter their arrival, she said,“We are into the study of Japanese. This is no
small thing.” Five years later, January 14, 1877, she mentioned the difficulty of the language, how they were all studying but still did not know
enough to teach by themselves.24
Her remarks concerning the Japanese are generally favorable. She described them as sweet, docile, and polite but also very easily offended
(February 25, 1876).25 Another of the sisters, Mother Saint Norbert
Levèsque, in a letter of May 18, 1874, wrote that almost all the Japanese
could read and write.26 Clearly,this was not true,but it is interesting that
this was her observation. Japan at this time is estimated to have had a
male literacy rate of about 40%.
On the negative side, Mother Saint Mathilde remarked that the Japanese love music but she found their music horrible (affreux),which did
not hinder them from singing wherever they were.27 Regarding their
food, she quipped, “I do not know of a people who eat more poorly
than the Japanese. Never meat, never fat or oil, or butter in the preparation of their fish or their vegetables. Their fruits are without taste, and
they don’t ripen.”28 On a more serious note, she related that some Japanese, instead of destroying the child they could not feed, brought the
baby to the sisters.29 And at another time she spoke of the costs of
Japan’s modernization. A young girl of six was brought to them.“This
child is one of a number of victims of the profound misery of the Japanese; they are already poor because they are out of work, and in addition, the Japanese government imposes on them a number of taxes in
order to establish railroads, telegraphs, etc.; they think of everything except the unfortunates.”30 One of the priests explained to Mother Saint
Mathilde that in doing business with the Japanese,“they are long on affairs (or business) and it is in their nature to make people wait.”31 Finally,
reference was made by Mother Saint Mathilde to houses of prostitution,
described as “bad houses which are numerous here.”32
Since the primary aim of the sisters’ work was to aid the priests in
their attempt to win souls over to the Catholic religion, Japanese reliLetters from Mother Mathilde to Reverend Mother de Faudoas, SEJ, YC.
Letter to Reverend Mother de Faudoas, SEJ, YC.
26
Letter to Reverend Mother de Faudoas, SEJ, YC.
27
Letter to Reverend Mother de Faudoas, July 17, 1872, SEJ, YC.
28
Letter to Reverend Mother de Faudoas, July 7, 1877, SEJ, YC.
29
“Relation,” p. 43, SEJ, YC.
30
Ibid.
31
Letter from Petitjean to Mère Sainte Mathilde in Singapore, January 8, 1873, SEJ, YC.
32
Letter, March 10, 1877, SEJ, Tokyo Collection, hereafter cited as TC.
24

25

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613

gious beliefs were spoken of generally in pejorative terms. On December 3, 1873, Mother Saint Mathilde wrote after having visited a shrine in
Chiba:“monstrous statues of dragons, terrible serpents, the worst ones
in the best places, the most respected.” She went on to explain that the
Japanese had remorse. They feared these kami (Shinto gods) a great
deal because it was the kami that seized people and caused all sorts of
mental agony.33
In a letter of January 14, 1877, Mother Saint Mathilde described what
she says was rather common in those days, the practices of a devotee of
Amida Buddha who was fulfilling his vows, running through the streets,
gesticulating, screaming, and singing. He was scarcely clothed. Apparently even the little he had on was due to the complaints of the Europeans. Her recounting ends with the words,“My God, when then will
the divine light enlighten with its sweet rays the hearts of these foolish
(insensés) people. Why can we bring the light [of faith] to only a small
number? Why so few fathers of families?”34
In answering her own questions,she suggested two reasons.First,she
lamented the fact that the representatives of France and England lacked
faith. Instead,“they have a lot of prudence, of worldly wisdom, and do
not aim for anything higher than those virtues.” She believed that, if the
missionaries could have gotten into the interior of the country where
the people were more docile, they would have had more converts.35
Second, she felt that they got bad example from the Christian Westerners involved in commerce. She elaborated on this last point, saying how
sad it was to see the traders able to go anywhere, even to the palace of
the princes,“in order to fool them and steal their gold.”36
Letter to Reverend Mother de Faudoas, SEJ, YC.
Letter to Reverend Mother de Faudoas, SEJ, YC.
35
Letters from Mère Sainte Mathilde to the Reverend Mother de Faudoas, July 17, 1872,
SEJ, YC.
36
Ibid., January 14, 1877. This same idea is expressed by Grace Fox in Britain and
Japan 1858–1883 (Oxford, 1969):“Japanese and missionaries alike realized that the most
exasperating obstacles to Japan’s acceptance of Christianity was the bad examples set by
nominal Christians at the treaty ports. Their arrogant, predatory behavior and dishonesty
in business, their drunken brawls, and profanity, and their brutality to natives showed a
wide divergence between the profession and practice of the Christian faith. If they represented Christian ethics, the teachings of Confucius, Buddha, and those of the Imperial
Ancestors appeared to the Japanese far superior. To prove otherwise, a scattering of missionaries in the great cities of Japan had a lonely and often unrewarding struggle. The
merchant community held them in contempt and delighted in gossip over usually unfounded scandals about them.‘Men of business and leisure,’ dedicated to diametrically opposite goals, were utterly unable to understand a missionary’s work or purpose” ( p. 517).
33
34

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THE FIRST WOMEN RELIGIOUS IN JAPAN: MOTHER SAINT MATHILDE RACLOT

A third reason for the lack of conversions to Catholicism is sprinkled
throughout her letters: the seemingly enormous sums that the Protestant missionaries had to further their work. In a letter to the SaintEnfance,a fundraising group in Paris,she wrote in 1875,“The Protestants
are profiting from our poverty, from our powerlessness, to establish
themselves throughout Japan. They already have more than fifty ministers with their wives and children, in the capital, where they spend considerable sums of money building churches, opening schools in all the
big centers; almost every trunk from England and America brings them
aid. To counter-balance all that, the missionaries and the sisters have
only weeping (gemissements) and tears.”37 She remarked,“The Japanese
feel the absurdity of their [the Protestants’] religion and desire to know
the truth. It is painful to see here apostles of lies and errors more numerous than the envoys of the Holy Church. It is true that the former
make more noise than work, but they are not the less an obstacle to
good.”38
Several social needs in the rapidly changing Japan matched the talents of the newly arrived sisters. One of the works that the sisters
moved into almost immediately was the care of children who had been
orphaned or abandoned or one of whose parents asked the sisters to
take the child and care for her. The sisters began their work by opening
orphanages for four reasons. First, they could care for infants without
knowing Japanese. Second, working with the very young could lead to
conversions to Catholicism, not only for the child but for the parents.
Third, the Sainte-Enfance, a fundraising group managed from Paris, donated money for the running of orphanages in Asia.39 Finally, there was
a need in Japan. The historian Mikiso Hane mentions that “in the city of
Tokyo alone, hundreds of babies were abandoned in public places. . . .”40
The sisters took in children who had lost their parents in natural disas37
Letter to the Saint-Enfance from Singapore,September 9,1875,SEJ,TC.The author has
no notion of whether this is just a perception on the part of Mother Saint Mathilde or
really a fact. Since her letter is to a fundraising group, she may be exaggerating the
poverty. While one could get some notion of the finances of the Catholic mission at this
time, it would be difficult to ascertain the resources of the Protestant missions since there
were a number of different groups. On another point, note how Mother Saint Mathilde
distinguishes the sisters from the missionaries. Clearly, the sisters at that time did not see
themselves as missionaries.
38
Letter, March 19, 1876, SEJ, YC.
39
This group grew out of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith with priority
given to works serving Asian Children. See Annales de l’Oeuvre de la Sainte-Enfance,
Vol. 1, no. 1 (1846), 27. Hereafter cited as Annales.
40
Peasants, Rebels, & Outcasts: The Underside of Modern Japan (New York, 1982), p.
209.

BY ANN M. HARRINGTON, B.V.M.

615

ters or internal conflicts, who were abused, abandoned, or whose parents were too poor to care for them. In a letter dated February 23, 1877,
Mother Saint Mathilde referred to the war between the north and
the south in Japan (the Satsuma Rebellion) as causing yet more orphans.41
As early as 1873, Petitjean reported that the girls’ school in Yokohama
had fifteen European boarders and thirty-six orphans.42 Eventually, after
opening a school and orphanage in Tokyo, their establishments in both
cities filled to capacity.By 1877,there were eighty young girls under the
care of the sisters, twenty small boys, and fifty children, a portion of
them living in the surrounding areas with families that agreed to tend
them for the sisters.43 When one considers that there were orphanages
being run by the Protestants as well, we can see that this was a social
problem being given much aid by the Europeans and Americans.
A recounting of the mission written in 1889 by Father Alfred
François-Désiré Ligneul (1847–1922), a Paris Foreign Mission priest, explained that the words “orphan” and “orphanage” were no longer acceptable because the Japanese found them odious.
All Japanese, male or female, in order to be considered human persons
must have a family, either their own or another, it makes little difference,
to which they belong, and have a name, and a residence recorded in the
town hall. That is why, in the interests of the children raised by the sisters,
before admitting them, when they do not have parents, one searches for
some, has them adopted by someone of good will, who will speak for
them before the civil law, and who is assumed to be caring for them.44

One can see sensitivity here on both sides. The sisters were responding to the Japanese request by attempting to find some kind of family
for the children under their care. At the same time, the Japanese were
allowing the sisters to continue their work. They saw that the sisters
were caring for children who might otherwise have been neglected.
Another common practice in Japan at this time was the sale of young
girls to brothels. The sisters interceded in such cases when sought. For
41
Letter to Reverend Mother de Faudoas, February 23, 1877, SEJ, YC. She reiterates this
statement in another letter of April 8, 1877, as the war continues, ibid.
42
Compte Rendu des Missions Étrangères de Paris, 1873, p. 43, SEJ, YC.
43
J. B. Piolet, Les Missions Catholiques françaises au XIXe Siècle, vol. 3: Chine et Japon
(Paris, 1902), p. 458.
44
July 27, 1902, SEJ, TC. This report was submitted to the Paris mother house of the sisters; the Paris Foreign Mission Society Archives do not appear to have a copy. See Streit,
op. cit., X, 101, for more information on Ligneul.

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THE FIRST WOMEN RELIGIOUS IN JAPAN: MOTHER SAINT MATHILDE RACLOT

example, Mother Saint Mathilde writes of the mother of a poor family
with numerous children who asked Mother Saint Mathilde to take three
of her daughters, aged 8, 12, and 14, who were going to be sold into
prostitution. Mother Saint Mathilde agreed on the condition that the
children stay with the sisters until the age of 20, and that they be allowed to become Catholics. There is nothing in the records to indicate
that students were ever forced to convert to Catholicism; the choice
was always theirs. For some time, all went well. Then one day, the girls’
mother came to the sisters and told them that the girls’ grandmother
was very sick and wanted to see at least the oldest child. Instead of going to see the grandmother, however, she was sold to a “disreputable
American.” Mathilde was so incensed when she learned of this that she
wrote to the American and eventually got the girl back.45 Japan at this
time was in the throes of industrialization and modernization in order
to be able to compete with the Western powers. The selling of daughters to brothels increased with industrialization as the cities grew in
size and men increasingly outnumbered women.46
How does one assess the work of the sisters? The tasks the sisters engaged in initially, namely, the running of orphanages, schools, and clinics
for those Japanese hit hardest by the changing times in Japan, had to
benefit Japan. For example, in the four orphanages run by the sisters
which existed in 1902 in the Tokyo area (which includes Yokohama),
there were 868 children47 In the letters of the sisters concerning their
schools and orphanages, one gets the impression that they were always
filled to capacity. The same can be said for their clinics. Certainly Christianity and Western values were being imparted with education and
medication, but meeting some of the needs of Japan’s less fortunate
classes could not but have helped.48 In addition, it must be remembered
that conversion was not a condition for receiving service from the sisters.
Japan’s history of helping the destitute (orphans, the severely ill or
disabled, and the aged) during the Tokugawa Bakufu (1603–1868), re-

Letter of Mère Sainte Mathilde, March 10, 1877, SEJ, TC.
Hane, op. cit., p. 210.
47
Piolet, op. cit., p. 501.
48
These sisters also ran schools for the Japanese students who could pay. Perhaps their
most famous is the Futaba school in the Kojimachi area of Tokyo, where the current empress studied for three years; and Futaba Denencho-fu school, where the wife of the
crown prince was educated. The sisters also have schools in Yokohama, Fukuyama, Nagasaki, Shizuoka, and Okinawa.
45

46

BY ANN M. HARRINGTON, B.V.M.

617

lied heavily on the assistance of the surrounding local family and community. When these avenues failed, the local magistrate might investigate and grant assistance. In Edo (Tokyo) by the late 1700’s, relief
operations were handled by the newly established machi-kaisho (town
office). But as the numbers of needy grew, so did the struggle between
the central bureaucracy and the local self-government regarding who
would exert control over the burgeoning population.“Alarmed by the
huge expenditures and by the competition for influence, the Tokyo prefectural government abolished the machi-kaisho in 1872. This action
severely curtailed the provision for poor relief in Tokyo.”49 The sisters’arrival at this time appears fortuitous.
An important element introduced by the sisters’ example is the concept of Christian religious life lived in community, with vows of
poverty, chastity, and obedience. Although the Paris Foreign Mission
priests had organized groups of pious women, some of whom took the
same vows privately, women who chose to join established, official religious congregations began doing so only after the sisters arrived. In a
society where marriage was de rigueur, the sisters’ life style provided
an option for Christian women.
By December of 1878, the Saint Maur sisters had two young women
who desired to join their ranks. The first, choosing the name of Maria at
her conversion to the Catholic faith, was a married woman. On the day
of her baptism, she and her husband expressed the desire to separate,
and Maria entered the Sisters of Saint Maur and her husband entered
the seminary. Another woman was a Christian by birth, and she had suffered during the Japanese government’s persecution of Christians in
early Meiji. A third, Lucia, defied her parents’ wishes in joining the sisters. When, shortly after her decision, her grandfather died and a new
nephew was born, she chose not to attend the funeral or birth ceremonies because of the religious associations in both cases.50 Becoming
Christian in those days was culturally extremely difficult, to say nothing
of the cultural costs and isolation that might come to Japanese women
49
Sheldon Garon, Molding Japanese Minds: The State in Everyday Life (Princeton,
1997), p. 35. Garon also notes that “in 1868, the town office or machi-kaisho gave temporary assistance to a staggering 941,686 people (18.7 percent of the population), and
granted ongoing assistance to 16,568 people (0.3 percent) the following year. Given the
scale of this assistance program, prefectural authorities complained that they could not
hope to compete for the ‘loyalty’ of the people ‘if wealthy merchants of the city’ continued to oversee the provision of poor relief” (ibid.). Earlier, Garon indicated “Japan did not
have anything approaching a comprehensive public assistance law until 1929” ( p. 32).
50
Annales, no. 189 (August, 1879), 267–269.

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THE FIRST WOMEN RELIGIOUS IN JAPAN: MOTHER SAINT MATHILDE RACLOT

joining a religious order. Nevertheless, as early as 1879, there were five
women interested in joining the sisters of Saint Maur.51
Given this work in Japan, what can we learn about Mother Saint
Mathilde herself as a French woman religious in Japan? First, in Mother
Saint Mathilde’s letters, there is never any hint of self-doubt, no wavering in her commitment to Japan and the Japanese people. She went to
Japan under her vow of obedience; yet it is clear that she worked
toward this through her prayers, and in her conversations with and letters to the mother superior in France. She was definitely actively engaged in the directions her life took. One catches some of her intense
commitment and her awareness of the limits placed on her as a woman
in a letter to the motherhouse dated June 30, 1872. Awaiting the possible visit of two officials from the emperor’s court, she wrote,“Do not be
surprised if you hear the Mikado himself (the emperor) visits us. If I
wore pants, I think that I would not wait until he summoned me.”52 On
another occasion, she refused to accept boys in her orphanage, which
she said made many people angry. “We cannot do everything so it is
better to concentrate on the young girls. I take only the smallest, completely abandoned [boys]. I leave the others to the care of the missionaries. It would be good if they took care of them. I’ve encouraged
them with vigor to get some good teachers for them [the boys].”53 Again
in 1877 she says if the priests saw as she did, they would start schools
for the boys.54 She accepted the limitations imposed upon her by her
gender and place in the mission, but she also recognized that were she
allowed to do so, she would act.
A striking contrast is found in the sister who was sent as the first superior of the Japan mission, Mother Saint Norbert Levèsque. Even
though Mother Saint Mathilde led the group to Japan, Mother Saint Norbert was named the first local superior in Japan,while Saint Mathilde retained her position as superior of the Malaysia mission and her
jurisdiction over the Asia mission. Mother Saint Norbert’s letters are
filled with her sense of inadequacy. She talks about the sisters’ isolation
in Japan; about how the difficulties in Japan are over her head. She
pleads often with the mother superior in Paris to send Mother Saint
Mathilde to take over. She says that God permitted her illness so that
Mother Saint Mathilde had to come and to finish the details of the founToday, virtually all of the Soeurs de l’Enfant-Jésus in Japan are Japanese.
Letter to Reverend Mother de Faudoas, SEJ, YC.
53
June 13,1876, SEJ, YC.
54
January 15, 1877, SEJ, YC.
51

52

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619

dation that they were beginning in Tokyo.55 Mother Saint Norbert died
in 1875 at the age of 41; Mother Saint Mathilde then left Malaysia for
good and began her full-time efforts in Japan in January of 1876. She
was 62 years old and she spent the remainder of her life in Japan, dying
in 1911 at the age of 97.
In order to live somewhat as they were accustomed and to provide
living space for their boarders and the children with whom they
worked, the sisters needed buildings. As we saw above, it is clear that
the Paris Foreign Mission priests worked through the French consul,
who requested land from the Japanese. Mother Saint Mathilde, in overseeing the construction, evidently did not hesitate to get involved. Not
too impressed with the Japanese wood-and-paper style of buildings,
Mother Saint Mathilde took it upon herself to show the Japanese workmen how to make good mortar. It is interesting to note that Mother
Saint Mathilde hired a Chinese entrepreneur to complete the work.56 By
1875 the Chinese constituted the single largest group of the five thousand foreigners in Japan, numbering more than half.57
A Japanese entrepreneur impressed Mother Saint Mathilde when she
pursued enlarging a building in Tokyo where they had expanded their
mission in 1875, but there was not enough room between the existing
buildings for the addition. To take the building down and rebuild it
would have been too costly; so the Japanese entrepreneur proposed
moving the whole building.To Mother Saint Mathilde’s astonishment,in
two days he put it on wheels and moved it where she wanted it. There
was even an elderly sick woman lying on her mat inside the building
who was left undisturbed under her covers throughout the process.
Mother Saint Mathilde indicated that this was not a rare phenomenon
in Japan.58 Her ability to appreciate the ingenuity of the Japanese shows
her openness to the culture and the people.
Also winning Mother Saint Mathilde’s admiration were the Japanese
police. In a letter written in 1890 (the month is not clear), Mother Saint
Mathilde talks of a cholera epidemic that hit their area. She says it began
around midnight when an elderly person of 87 died, then a child of 8,
55
Letters from Mother St. Norbert, February 16, 1873; March 31, 1873; January 18, 1874;
February, May, and July, 1875, to the superior general in Paris, SEJ, YC.
56
“Vie,” p. 528, SEJ, YC.
57
J. E. Hoare, The Japan’s Treaty Ports and Foreign Settlements: The Uninvited Guests
1858–1899 (Kent, Connecticut, 1994), p. 21.
58
“Vie,” pp. 542–543, SEJ, YC. See also Michael Cooper, S.J. (ed.), They Came to Japan:
An Anthology of European Reports on Japan (Berkeley, California, 1965), p. 217, where
the same observation is made by the Jesuit João Rodrigues (1561–1634).

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THE FIRST WOMEN RELIGIOUS IN JAPAN: MOTHER SAINT MATHILDE RACLOT

then another child. Shortly, three more children died. By 6 A.M., when
the doctor arrived, he confirmed it was indeed cholera and that they
had to inform the police, who arrived around eleven o’clock. Any sick
children were sent to a hospital for cholera victims, and ultimately, sixteen died. Between forty and fifty men arrived, as many helpers as officers,to remove anything that could be burned.Those who did not leave
that first day had to stay; the door was guarded by the police, commissioned and non-commissioned officers, day and night for one week.The
letter indicates that all the officers, without exception, were most kind.
And the letter mentions that the newspapers, in reporting the epidemic, said nothing against the sisters.
That the sisters were accepted in these early days is evident from several examples given in their correspondence. In 1878, there was a fire
in their area on the Bluff in Yokohama. The Japanese living nearby ran
to help them save their furniture. A neighbor woman even took the
chickens the sisters were raising, kept them and fed them for several
days until the sisters could take them back.59 On another occasion, an
artisan named Take, who helped the sisters on various occasions, risked
his life during a typhoon. He climbed up on the roof to secure it at the
height of the damaging winds. When asked why he would do such a
thing, he said, “For the reverend Mother, for all of you who love my
country,I would do anything.”60 After the earthquake of 1894,when dormitory buildings had been damaged and some children had no lodgings, people from the countryside came, some from great distances,
who had cared for the children when they were infants, and offered to
take the children in until the houses were reconstructed. They refused
money saying that the sisters were already doing enough good for the
children of “our country” so that they would now do their part when
the sisters suffered misfortune. Finally, a group of Japanese women who
associated themselves with the Yokohama establishment as “helpers”
witnessed to the fact that Mother Saint Mathilde kept in touch with
those who finished school. She was likened to a grandmother, and once
a year she brought them back for a reunion. One woman said, “She
never spoke of us as ‘the orphans,’ but as ‘our children.’”61
Mother Saint Mathilde came from a country that had seen a marked
restriction on women’s rights imposed by the Napoleonic Civil Code of
1804, which made women legally subordinate to men. The historian
“Relation,” p. 26, SEJ, YC.
“Vie,” p. 656, SEJ, YC.
61
Ibid., p. 573.
59
60

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621

Ralph Gibson saw a direct connection between the curtailment of
women’s rights and the phenomenal growth in religious orders of
women in nineteenth-century France. In them women could find a “satisfactory form of female sociability . . . and collective action.”62 In addition, they were “about the only institutions in nineteenth-century
France to offer women a real vocation in life” apart from motherhood,
and “they appealed to young women with a desire to serve their fellow
beings.”63 So it was that in nineteenth-century France congregations of
women religious were providing social services that the state, as yet,
was unwilling to provide,such as primary and secondary education and
“a wide array of paramedical” services.64 It makes eminent sense that
the French priests engaged in trying to win Japanese converts to
Catholicism would call upon women religious to provide similar services in Japan. Also, the sisters would be able to reach Japanese women
in a way that would have been impossible for the priests.
Some modern Japanese scholars critique the works performed by
the sisters because no effort was made to include the Japanese in the
sisters’ projects, nor was there any nationally co-ordinated plan. Rather,
their efforts sprung up here and there to meet immediate needs. This is
cited as a reason for the lack of any Japanese statistics on the work of
the sisters. The sisters are seen as insensitive to Japanese culture because they placed poor children and orphans together with middle- and
upper-class children in their early schools.65
Nonetheless, for their time, the work of the sisters was extraordinary.
That the services the sisters provided met some immediate needs of the
day emerges clearly from the above. The options the sisters provided
for Japanese girls in terms of education in those early years cannot be
easily dismissed when one realizes that in 1890, 70% of the female children did not have access to education, and in 1895, 87% of the primary
school teachers were men.66 In addition, the option for Japanese
women to choose religious life instead of marriage offered not only an
A Social History of French Catholicism, 1789–1914 (New York, 1989), pp. 118–119.
Ibid., p. 118. In 1808 there were 12,300 women religious; 1815—15,000; 1830—
30,000; 1850—66,0000; 1861—104,000; 1878—135,000. See Claude Langlois, Le catholicisme au féminin: Les congrégations françaises à supérieure générale au XIXe siècle
(Paris, 1984), p. 321.
64
Ibid., pp. 119–120.
65
Tashiro Kikuo. Nihon Katorikku shakai jigyoshi kenkyu (Tokyo, 1989), pp. 88–89.
66
Byron K. Marshall, Learning to be Modern: Japanese Political Discourse on Education (Boulder, Colorado, 1994), pp. 75–76. By 1905 20% of the teachers were women and
90% of the girls were being educated.
62

63

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THE FIRST WOMEN RELIGIOUS IN JAPAN: MOTHER SAINT MATHILDE RACLOT

alternate lifestyle, but afforded these women an outlet for their many
talents. For example, today, we find the establishments founded by this
first congregation in Japan in the hands of their Japanese sisters.67
The sisters were, of course, part of the cultural imperialism inherent
in promoting Christianity in a country which had little choice but to accept the semi-colonial status imposed by Western powers. These religious women also benefited from the privileges granted France through
the unequal treaties. But they certainly did not exemplify the worst of
imperialism. They did not set out to exploit the people of Japan for
the gain of imperial France. The comments quoted above show that
they were critical of the behavior of some of their fellow countrymen.
And even though they represented the Catholic Church to a certain degree, strictly speaking, they were not missionaries, they had no say in
Church law or practice, nor did they limit their services to Catholics or
make conversion to Catholicism a condition for their services. Further
study is needed to assess whether or not the services provided and
the institutions created by the sisters “actively depended on the subordination of their heathen sisters,” as expressed by the historian Susan
Thorne in her discussion of what she calls “missionary-imperial feminism” in relation to the missionary work of the British women in the
Victorian period.68
Mother Saint Mathilde is just one of many women who dedicated
their lives to bettering, in their view, the life of the Japanese. Even
though there is much we do not know about her because she did not
like to draw attention to herself, her works, or her congregation,69 her
life demonstrates how the confluence of circumstances in France and
Japan brought about the entrance of women religious into Japan.
Through her we learn about a very different kind of western presence
in Japan; we see Meiji Japan through new eyes, and we add valuable
pages to the history of women. Many more such stories remain that
need to be told. Meanwhile, let us end with what was probably considered high praise at the time, namely, the words of Father Alfred Ligneul,
a longtime missionary in Japan and, at one point, the Paris Foreign Mis-

See note 48.
“Missionary-Imperial Feminism” in Gendered Missions: Women and Men in Missionary Discourse and Practice, edd. Mary Taylor Huber and Nancy C. Lutkehaus (Ann Arbor,
Michigan, 1999), p. 60.
69
“Vie,” p. 1, SEJ, YC.
67
68

BY ANN M. HARRINGTON, B.V.M.

623

sion priest in charge of the Tokyo-Yokohama mission. Like Mother Saint
Mathilde, he recognized different roles for men and women in the nineteenth century, and Mother Saint Mathilde clearly won his admiration.
In summing up what he referred to as Mother Saint Mathilde’s “virile”
and “entrepreneurial character,”he wrote,“‘Mother Mathilde: But she’s a
man!”70

70
Bulletin de la Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris 18 e année, n. 213 (September, 1939), 623. Another example of this type of compliment in nineteenth-century
France is King Louis-Philippe of France, in 1833, saying of Mother Anne-Marie Javouhey,
founder of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny,“‘She is a great man!’”cited in Mary Grey,“She
is a Great Man!” International Review of Mission, LXXXI (April, 1992), 201–212.

INVENTING CATHOLIC IDENTITIES IN
TWENTIETH-CENTURY SPAIN: THE VIRGIN
BIEN-APARECIDA, 1904–1910
BY

JULIO DE LA CUEVA*

Since The Invention of Tradition, the collective volume edited by
Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, was first published in 1983, a
tremendous amount of historical research has been done along the
lines proposed by the contributors to this most inspiring book. However, the study of religious traditions, especially of Catholic traditions,
may not have benefited from this approach as much as the traditions of
other areas of scholarly interest. The aim of this article is to explore
how modern Catholic identities—or rather some signs that convey
Catholic identities—may have been invented or re-invented—and why
this necessity was felt.
To this purpose, a particular devotion is examined. It is the case of a
local madonna who, at the beginning of the twentieth century, was
made the patroness of the Spanish northern diocese and province of
Santander, more commonly known as La Montaña or Cantabria (the latter has been the official name of this autonomous region since 1980).
How the patronage was achieved (despite the non-existence of an alleged popular will); the enthusiasm of the Marian movement and the
struggle against secularization which formed the context of the patronage; the unifying symbol that the Virgen Bien Aparecida was intended to represent, and the type of Catholic identity it related to and
helped to promote are discussed in the following pages.
I

An August day in 1605:Some shepherd children from Marrón (a small
hamlet in the foothills of the Cantabrian mountains) were sheltering
from a storm in a little ruin of a shrine devoted to St. Mark, on a wooded
*Dr. de la Cueva is a researcher in the Complutense University of Madrid. He wishes to
thank Dr. Frances Lannon for her useful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

624

BY JULIO DE LA CUEVA

625

hill known as Somahoz. Suddenly, they noticed strange lights shining
from one of the windows. Curious about the origin of the lights, the
children approached the window and discovered a tiny statue of the
Virgin Mary and Child. They did not even dare to touch it. The following days they continued to visit the shrine, lingering in front of the luminous madonna until late at night. When asked about where they
went for so long, they eventually confessed.Although the children were
not believed, several villagers could not resist approaching the site of
the “apparition”to ascertain for themselves the truth or falsehood of the
story. When they got there,they could see an unusual light coming from
the little church. Frightened, they went back to Marrón and reported
the fact to the parish priest.He became convinced that the children had
told the truth and decided to lead a procession to St. Mark’s.
On September 15, the villagers of Marrón made their way toward
Somahoz. When they arrived at the shrine, the priest looked for the
madonna, found her on the window-sill and took her down to show her
to the people. Then, the parishioners carried the statue around the
church in a procession, went inside again, placed it on the altar and devoutly heard Mass.
Some days later, the townspeople decided to move the image to a
nearby church, that of St. Peter, at least until St. Mark’s was rebuilt. However,as they were attempting to do this,the sunny day was suddenly disturbed by a terrible thunderstorm. Frightened, the villagers returned to
St. Mark’s, replaced the madonna on the altar, and had a Mass said. The
day cleared up again, as clear as the Virgin’s will to remain at Somahoz.
At that point, the inhabitants of Marrón decided to have the Virgin’s
shrine built on the site of her apparition. And the Virgin was named
Bien-Aparecida, that is the ‘Well-Appeared,’Virgin.1
So far, this would be just one example of a long series of discoveries
of Marian statues and images in early modern Spain, and would tie in
with the discovery pattern identified by William Christian—the finding
of a sacred image by shepherds or their animals in the countryside, the
miraculous failure of attempts to move it to the closest village, and the
eventual building of a shrine on the very site of the apparition.2 How1
The account of the apparition of Our Lady Bien-Aparecida is taken from Father José
de León, Historia de la Sagrada Imagen de Nuestra Señora Bien Aparecida que se venera en Hoz de Marrón, Provincia y Diócesis de Santander (Rennes and Paris, 1890
[1777]).
2
William A.Christian, Jr.,Apparitions in Late Medieval and Renaissance Spain (Princeton,New Jersey,1981),pp.15–21.See also Mary Lee Nolan and Sidney Nolan,Christian Pilgrimage in Modern Western Europe (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1989), pp. 258–266.

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THE VIRGIN BIEN-APARECIDA, 1904–1910

ever, three hundred years later, the Bien-Aparecida shrine was no longer
just the objective of processions formed by local peasants, but the destination of larger pilgrimages coming from the provincial capital and
from elsewhere in the diocese of Santander. In fact, by December, 1905,
Our Lady Bien Aparecida had been proclaimed patroness of the diocese
and province of Santander. In this way, not only was Mary’s prominent
role in the life of the Church during the so-called Marian age solemnly
acknowledged; she now had also become involved in the heated
politico-religious atmosphere of the Spanish 1900’s.

II

The chronology of the Marian age of the Church3 is symbolically delimited by the definition of two controversial Marian dogmas: the Immaculate Conception (1854) and the Assumption of the Virgin Mary
into Heaven (1950). In the eighteenth century, enlightened clergymen
found some forms of Marian piety (which would later become acceptable) bordering dangerously on superstition. From the 1960’s, the Second Vatican Council would constitute a turning point leading toward a
Catholicism oriented more toward Christ and the scriptures. In between, however, for more than a hundred years, Marian apparitions, pilgrimages, fraternities and congregations, prayers and other expressions
of the devotion to Mary, maybe only competing with devotion to the
Sacred Heart of Jesus, marked and furthered the nineteenth- and early
twentieth-century revival of Catholicism.
It is difficult not to notice the concurrence of the “age of Mary” with
the “age of revolutions”—if we can apply Hobsbawm’s phrase to a
longer span of time. The Catholic devotion to Mary had deep roots, but
Tridentine, and later enlightened Church authorities had distrusted visions, pilgrimages, miracles, and in general any type of religious mani3
The centrality of Mary in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Catholic Church has
recently aroused the interest of historians and anthropologists. Among the various works
dealing with this issue see,for example,David Blackbourn,Marpingen:Apparitions of the
Virgin Mary in Bismarckian Germany (Oxford, 1993); William A. Christian Jr., Visionaries:The Spanish Republic and the Reign of Christ (Berkeley, California, 1996); Thomas
A. Kselman, Miracles and Prophecies in Nineteenth-Century France (New Brunswick,
New Jersey, 1983); Nicholas Perry and Loreto Echeverria, Under the Heel of Mary (London and New York, 1988); Barbara C. Pope,“Immaculate and Powerful:The Marian Revival
in the Nineteenth Century,” in C. W. Atkinson, C. H. Buchanan and R. Miles (eds.), Immaculate and Powerful.The Female in Sacred Image and Social Reality (Boston, 1987), pp.
173–200, and Sandra L. Zimdars-Swartz, Encountering Mary: From La Salette to Medjugorje (Princeton, New Jersey, 1991).

BY JULIO DE LA CUEVA

627

festation that lay outside the sacramental system. In the nineteenth century, however, there was a shift in attitude. In the midst of such a turbulent century, many Catholics continued to turn to the powerful
mediation of Mary to help them deal with their hopes and fears. Many
even claimed to have seen her, and many more made their way toward
the sites of apparitions, longing for spiritual or physical healing. In accepting some of these forms of Marian cult, the Church not only channeled a potentially dangerous movement of popular piety which might
get out of control at any time but saw in it a powerful weapon to fight
back against secularization, anticlerical policies, socialism, and whatever other modern threats might jeopardize its stability.4 In turn, the
Church’s consent to and promotion of the cult of Mary legitimized and
intensified the Marianism already present in popular Catholicism, and
fostered new instances of its most extraordinary manifestations.5
The definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854
symbolically opened an era of Marian devotion. From a historical point
of view, it would be almost impossible not to relate the proclamation of
this dogma by Pius IX to his continued opposition to the unification of
Italy, the subsequent issue of the Syllabus errorum in 1864, and the
dogma defining papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council in 1870
while the Italian troops laid siege to the capital of Christendom. No
doubt, the Catholic Church never ceased to consider itself under siege
during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: a “beleaguered
tower” in hostile territory. In this context, the flourishing cult of Mary,
and especially the doctrine of her Immaculate Conception, reassured
the Church that it would finally prevail over its enemies.
Not only the universal Church, but also the Spanish Church saw itself
as increasingly isolated in a hostile modern world. Having begun the
nineteenth century in a position of privilege, the Spanish Church soon
underwent the abolition of the tithe, the secularization of its properties, the dissolution of religious communities, and the slaughter of friars
during 1834–35. In 1851 a settlement was reached by means of a Concordat, which granted the Church rights and privileges. However, in
1868 a revolution overthrew the Bourbon dynasty and the Spanish
Church again felt itself to be under threat. Moreover, the anticlerical actions of the revolutionary juntas and the provisional government, as
well as the constitutional recognition of religious freedom, confirmed
4
See Blackbourn, op. cit., pp. 49–53; Ralph Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism 1789–1914 (London and New York, 1989), pp. 138–157; Kselman, op. cit., pp. 84–
94, 141–160; Pope, op. cit., pp. 173–175.
5
Blackbourn, op. cit., pp. 395–396.

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THE VIRGIN BIEN-APARECIDA, 1904–1910

the ecclesiastical authorities’ motives for condemning liberalism, in
whose name the attack on the Church had been launched. Even in
1875, when a more moderate liberal rule was re-established and a Bourbon king had been restored to the throne, the Church was to retain a
strong suspicion of liberalism. Nevertheless, thanks to the support of
the new moderate liberal rulers, by the turn of the century the Spanish
Church had achieved an impressive recovery.6

III

By 1905, the first year of the official patronage of the Virgin BienAparecida in Cantabria, the Spanish Church was again in trouble. Anticlericalism, confined to republican newspapers for more than twenty
years, had resurfaced anew in the political arena and had reached both
the government and the people. After the loss of the remains of the
Spanish empire in 1898, awareness of the precarious state of the nation
was widespread, and anticlericalism regained political force as some
groups (intellectuals, republicans, radicals), alarmed by the institutional
recovery of Catholicism, insisted on blaming the Church for the decline
of Spain.7 At the same time, French anticlerical politics offered a path
for them to follow. And, in fact, in 1901 the Liberals (one of the two parties taking turns to share power) decided to advocate an anticlerical
policy. Their anticlericalism, however, was moderate compared with
that of the republicans. The republicans were a significant political
force—in Santander (the provincial capital of Cantabria) they were the
most-voted-for political group. They were also the ones who had kept
anticlericalism alive for a quarter of a century. By the turn of the century, as a result of the 1898 mood of discontent, their anticlericalism
was growing in regard both to the importance it was given in their
politics and to the violence of the language employed to express it.
Not surprisingly, violence was not restricted to words; it extended to
actions: thus, for instance, in Santander in 1901 and 1903, two demon6
Two good introductions to the Spanish Church during the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries are William J. Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society in Spain, 1750–1874
(Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984), and Frances Lannon, Privilege, Persecution, and
Prophecy: The Catholic Church in Spain, 1875–1975 (Oxford, 1987).
7
See Carlos Serrano,“1900 o la difícil modernidad,” in S. Salaün and C. Serrano (eds.),
1900 en España (Madrid, 1991), pp. 193–205; Manuel Revuelta González, “La recuperación eclesiástica y el rechazo anticlerical en el cambio de siglo,”in J.L.García Delgado
(ed.), España entre dos siglos (1875–1931). Continuidad y cambio (Madrid, 1991), pp.
219–231; Julio de la Cueva,“The Stick and the Candle: Clericals and Anticlericals in Northern Spain 1898–1910,” European History Quarterly, 26 (1996), 241–265.

BY JULIO DE LA CUEVA

629

strations ended with a mob attacking convents and other religious institutions.
In 1904 the fiftieth anniversary of the definition of the dogma of the
Immaculate Conception was to be commemorated in Cantabria, as
everywhere else. As required by the pope, pilgrimages to Marian
shrines were made throughout the region, and on December 8 special
religious services were held in all the churches of the diocese. These
events were intended as pious celebrations, but were also presented as
“comforting” demonstrations of the vitality of Catholicism in a country
which was thought to “have lost an enormous treasure of faith and
morals.”8 Mary and the Immaculate Conception gave the faithful hope
in the final victory of the Church and the destruction of all evil.9 The
vigor of a threatened Spanish Catholicism could certainly rely on a figure of Mary, considered “the blessed Woman who alone triumphed over
all heresies, over all the enemies of Her Most Holy Son, over all the refuters of His Vicar and of His Church.”10 Consequently, the well-attended
novenas, vespers, vigils, Masses, and other services, as well as the multitude of blue cloths and lights displayed in the streets, could be regarded
by the Diocesan Bulletin as “a glorious page in the difficult history of
the present day.”11
The Marian enthusiasm evoked by these commemorative events encouraged Emilio Hidalgo, parish priest of Marrón and administrator of
the Bien-Aparecida shrine, to put forward the idea that Mary, under her
title of “Bien-Aparecida,” should be declared patroness of La Montaña.
The sources do not reveal the origins of the proposal, as Hidalgo used
the impersonal form:“the idea has been conceived that . . .” in all the
available documentation.12 It must be said that, in any case, the rapidity
and ease with which the project became a reality point to a remarkable
predisposition for it to be accepted.
One thing is known about this initiative: the bishop of Santander, Vicente S.Sánchez de Castro,did not inspire it.Moreover,he was reluctant
8
Boletín Oficial Eclesiástico del Obispado de Santander (hereafter cited as BOEOS),
December 14, 1904.
9
El Diario Montañés, December 8, 1904; Páginas Dominicales, December 8, 1904.
10
BOEOS, December 14, 1904. For this argument, see also Wenceslao Escalzo,“Recuerdos y esperanzas,” Páginas Dominicales, December 8, 1905.
11
Ibid.
12
The documents used in the proceedings leading to the proclamation of Our Lady
Bien-Aparecida as patroness of Cantabria are kept in the Archivo del Santuario de la BienAparecida, Marrón (hereafter cited as ASBA), book “Crónica del tercer centenario y patronato de Nuestra Señora Bien-Aparecida” (hereafter cited as “Crónica”).

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THE VIRGIN BIEN-APARECIDA, 1904–1910

to sponsor the patronage and ask for its approval by the pope without
first assessing the devotion to the Virgin Bien-Aparecida, probably considering that the universal popularity of a madonna located in a shrine
in the far east of the province was not at all self-evident.In order to help
the bishop overcome his reticence, on March 6, 1905, Hidalgo sent a circular letter asking all the rural deans of the diocese for their opinion on
the faithful’s devotion to the Virgin Bien-Aparecida. Since the letter was
written in ambiguous terms, it could have given the impression that it
was the bishop himself who wished that Our Lady Bien-Aparecida be
proclaimed patroness of the diocese.13 Thus, it is no surprise that all the
deans whose response is recorded gave their approval to the project.
However, only those in charge of deaneries in the eastern third of the
diocese clearly confirmed the faithful’s keen devotion to Our Lady BienAparecida. Those from the center reflected the reality of such a devotion less enthusiastically, or made vague references to its expansion
throughout the province. The only two recorded reports from the west
(San Vicente de la Barquera and Comillas) brought to light the fact that
the Catholics of that area not only lacked devotion to the Virgin BienAparecida but also that they did not even know of her existence.14 Furthermore, as only the deans from the diocese of Santander were
consulted, the extent of the devotion in western and southern parts of
the province that did not belong to that diocese, but whose patroness
(as the patroness of La Montaña) Our Lady Bien Aparecida would also
become, was not taken into account.
After completing the consultation with the rural deans, Emilio Hidalgo also sought the blessing of the council of the provincial government (Diputación Provincial), as it was thought necessary that the
“civil constituent [of Cantabrian society] added their supplications to
those of the religious one.”15 A letter and several personal interviews secured the support of the councilors, and the proposal that the Holy See
should authorize the proclamation of Our Lady Bien-Aparecida as patroness of the province was quickly and almost unanimously (but for
one vote) passed on May 18.16 On the same day,the town council of Ampuero (the municipality to which Marrón and the shrine belonged) had
reached a similar agreement. Letters from both councils, asking for paCircular letter from Emilio Hidalgo to deans, March 6, 1905, ASBA,“Crónica.”
The Dean of San Vicente de la Barquera and the Dean of Comillas to Emilio Hidalgo,
March 29, 1905, and March 30, 1905, ASBA,“Crónica.”
15
Emilio Hidalgo to the President of the Provincial Council, May 16, 1905, ASBA,
“Crónica.”
16
Minutes of the session of May 18,1905,Archivo Histórico de la Diputación Provincial,
Santander, book 0842.
13

14

BY JULIO DE LA CUEVA

631

pal approval;a summary of the deans’reports along with another report
from the Cathedral Chapter, and a letter from the Cantabrian community in Cuba were all sent to Rome by the bishop. Only then did Emilio
Hidalgo break the news of the projected patronage to the general public, apologizing for the secrecy of the proceedings thus far.17
In Rome the process slowed down. The original project looked forward to celebrating the third centenary of the apparition and the first
feast day of Our Lady Bien-Aparecida as patroness of La Montaña at the
same time. The Sacred Congregation of Rites, however, took its time: on
July 14 it formally admitted the request; on October 26, it was informed
favorably, and in a meeting held on December 5 it decided to sanction
the patronage. Subsequently, on December 6, Pope Pius X ratified the
Congregation’s decision and officially declared the Virgin Bien-Aparecida
patroness of the province of Santander, and a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites was issued. Finally, on January 14, 1906, the Diocesan
Bulletin of Santander published the decree.
An immediate consequence of the decree of patronage was the transformation of local pilgrimages to the shrine into diocesan pilgrimages.
Thus, in September, 1905, even though the Virgin Bien-Aparecida was
not yet the official patroness, the third centenary of her apparition was
solemnly commemorated with a triduum which intended to gather together people from all over the diocese—the fact that Rome was being
slower than expected could not hinder a fitting celebration of the centenary. Nevertheless, during the first two days of the triduum, the only
organized pilgrimages came from nearby areas. On September 15, the
anniversary of the apparition and the main day of the celebrations,“no
special pilgrimage was registered” and although “hundreds and thousands of people” were reported to have visited the shrine despite the
rainy weather, there was no mention of how many hundreds or thousands.18
In 1906 the first diocesan pilgrimages to the shrine of the now-official
patroness of Cantabria were made. After a series of delays, they were
eventually scheduled for September 7, 8, and 9. The triduum was
presided over by Bishop Sánchez de Castro and was led by a canon, a
parish priest, and a Jesuit, in an obvious attempt to have all the clergy
represented. This time a longer and more careful preparation, as well as
the appeal of the newly-proclaimed patronage, attracted a larger number of the devout. The official account calculated between 18,000 and
El Diario Montañés, June 13, 1905.
BOEOS, September 21, 1905.

17
18

632

THE VIRGIN BIEN-APARECIDA, 1904–1910

20,000 people turning out at Somahoz during the three days. However,
the organizers were not successful in bringing pilgrims from any deanery west of Santander (e.g., from the western half of the diocese) or
from the Cantabrian areas belonging to other dioceses. The absence of
pilgrims from San Vicente de la Barquera, Comillas, and Torrelavega was
blamed on the railway companies. The absence of pilgrims from
Liébana, Polaciones, or Campoo (valleys belonging to the dioceses of
León, Palencia, and Burgos respectively) was neither explained nor
even mentioned.19

IV

The traditions of modern Catholicism are as worthy of being interpreted within the general framework put forward by the contributors
to The Invention of Tradition as the traditions of other modern institutions. In our case,“the use of ancient materials to construct invented
traditions of a novel type for quite novel purposes”20 had an effective
part in the Spanish Catholic revival of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries.
This revival did not involve the re-emergence of the old type of customary, communal, local Catholicism, but rather reflected the endeavor
to create a new type of more militant, internalized, strongly united
Catholicism. At the turn of the century, this “new” Catholicism was
needed to face the threat of secularization, which in the 1900’s was felt
as a real, political—rather than a vague, sociological—threat. It was
needed as well by the Church’s never-abandoned aspiration to establish
a fully Catholic state and Catholic society in Spain. In order to achieve
that Catholicism, modern and traditional, sacred and profane methods
were set in motion simultaneously. Therefore, on the one hand, Spanish
Catholics understood that they had to resort to “modern,” purely profane means if they wanted to push forward their proposals in a world
becoming more secular; so the press, meetings, demonstrations, and
mass political movements were some of the devices employed by
Catholics to respond to the socio-political circumstances of the 1900’s.
At the same time, Spanish Catholics in no way dismissed customary
teaching and preaching, sacraments, religious services, missions, proBOEOS, September 17, 1906.
Eric Hobsbawm,“Introduction: Inventing Traditions,” in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence
Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, England, 1994), p. 6.
19

20

BY JULIO DE LA CUEVA

633

cessions, devotions, pilgrimages, romerías and fiestas, pious associations, etc.; instead, they updated these old instruments and made ample
use of them. Thus, these traditional means, while remaining symbolically associated with the past and tradition of the Church, were charged
with different meanings and now applied to present-day purposes.
One of the needs of Spanish Catholicism was to promote its unity, to
serve as a source of strength in the critical circumstances of the 1900’s.
The need was even more obvious in a diocese like that of Santander,
consisting of a multitude of small, isolated valleys whose inhabitants,
proudly fond of their local traditions, showed little identification with
other, larger geographical units.21 The political confrontations between
Catholics who accepted the liberal state and those who did not were an
even more worrying source of divisiveness, just when the Church was
feeling challenged from the very political realm. There were also other
types of division, of greater or lesser importance, which could not be ignored: different spiritual attachments and devotions, the difference between and within secular and regular clergy, class differences among
the laity,and so on.The construction of a unique identity was,therefore,
an objective necessity of Cantabrian Catholicism. And the finding—
the invention—of a unifying, identifying symbol could be expected to
provide a feasible means to that end. Emilio Hidalgo, though surely
not aware of all these considerations, supplied that symbol when he
proposed that Our Lady Bien-Aparecida be made the patroness of La
Montaña.
Hence, the character of “invented” tradition of the patronage of the
Virgin Bien-Aparecida is apparent in its use as an “artificial” unifying
symbol in times of trouble for the Church. However, it is even more
clearly revealed by the very process of its invention. There were real
elements of popular tradition at the heart of the whole matter, as the
cult of Mary has always been a major theme—and one of the most appealing—of popular religion, and as the devotion to the Virgin BienAparecida could actually claim to be firmly rooted in the tradition of the
people. However, the truth of Mary’s general popular appeal notwithstanding, her particular popularity as Bien-Aparecida had always been
confined to the eastern third of the region of Cantabria.
In order to disguise this original lack of universal acceptance, it was
pretended that our Lady Bien-Aparecida had been chosen as the pa21
This continued to be the same even in the 1960’s, as shown by William A. Christian,
Jr., Person and God in a Spanish Valley (Princeton, New Jersey, 1989), pp. 13–15.

634

THE VIRGIN BIEN-APARECIDA, 1904–1910

troness of La Montaña as a result of “the people’s will,” either reflecting
an ancient, self-evident universal devotion to this Virgin throughout the
region22 or as the result of this particular madonna being freely selected
as a patroness out of all the local madonnas of Cantabria. In either case,
“popular will”would have been expressed through the vote of the rural
deans, as representatives of the clergy, and the provincial councilors, as
representatives of “the people.”23 It is already clear that the movement
leading to the patronage was not born “from below” but imposed “from
above” by ecclesiastical and political elites onto the populace. It is no
wonder, then, that a Catholic journalist, after having admitted the limited success of the 1906 pilgrimages in spite of the ecclesiastical triumphalism, recommended various actions to “popularize”the patronage,
thus challenging the official presumption that the Virgin Bien-Aparecida
already enjoyed widespread popularity.24
Alongside the lack of universal favor of the Virgin Bien-Aparecida and
the striking feature revealing the invented character of the “tradition”of
her patronage, what should also be borne in mind is that this patronage
was probably only possible in the emotional and doctrinal context of
the Marian age, a rather recent phenomenon in the history of the
Church.25 More prosaically, one would wonder whether the choice of
patroness would have fallen on the Virgin Bien-Aparecida had the
shrine not been connected to Marrón by a road built in 1888, and had
Marrón not, in turn, been connected to the provincial capital and other
towns by the Santander-Bilbao railway laid in 1896.

22
Thus,absolutely ignoring the non-existence of the devotion to the Virgin Bien-Aparecida
in western and southern Cantabria, the provincial council affirmed:“throughout the province all the faithful kneel down before her in devotion” (the Provincial Council to the
Pope, May 21, 1905, ASBA,“Crónica”).
23
Bishop Vicente S. Sánchez de Castro’s pastoral letter of January 8, 1906, BOEOS, January 14, 1906; Sacred Congregation of Rites’ decree, B0EOS, January 14, 1906; Manuel Sainz
de los Terreros, Santuarios marianos en la Provincia de Santander (Madrid, 1906), p.
24; Eduardo de Huidobro, Noticia Histórica de Ntra. Sra. Bien-Aparecida, Patrona de la
Diócesis y Provincia de Santander, y novena en honor de la misma excelsa Abogada
principal de la Montaña (Santander, 1906), pp. 34–35; Carmen González Echegaray, Santuarios marianos de Cantabria (Santander, 1988), p. 91.
24
Pedro Sánchez,“Por si vale,” El Diario Montañés, September 10, 1906.
25
As to the emotional context, Lourdes was the ultimate reference—thus, in the official
account of the pilgrimages of September, 1906, the narrator indicated: “we witnessed
scenes which reminded us of those we had recently seen in the grotto of Lourdes”
(BOEOS,September 17,1906).The bishop himself compared the Bien-Aparecida shrine to
Lourdes after the pilgrimages of September, 1908 (BOEOS, September 21, 1908).

BY JULIO DE LA CUEVA

635

V

The Catholic unifying identity that the Virgin Bien-Aparecida was expected to symbolize emphasized the image of the Church as a redoubt
of righteousness surrounded by the forces of evil. So, when Bishop
Sánchez de Castro, one of the hierarchy’s most severe critics of liberalism, presented the new patroness of the diocese, not only did he point
out the popular features of Mary as the heavenly Mother particularly
concerned with sufferers and sinners, but, above all, he emphasized her
role as she who “dissipating the darkness caused by errors and continuous social turmoil, shows us the safe path leading to Jesus Christ.”26
And when calling the pilgrimages of September, 1906, he invited the
faithful to go to the shrine and pray not for their own particular needs,
but for the more general needs of the Church and the country,
asking [the Virgin] not to turn her merciful eyes away from our diocese, to
deliver us from evil, to guard our faith, to make it thrive free from heresy
and impiety in our dear motherland, to thwart the plans of the enemies of
the Church, and to defend Our Most Holy Father Pius X, who has made her
our Defender and Advocate, against them.27

The final victory could well rely on Mary, who,“as in her Immaculate
Conception crushed Satan’s head, [was also trusted to] [ . . . ] halt the
advance of the legions that serve under his command.”28 Even more significantly, one influential Catholic publicist invoked the ideal of a crusade and, regarding Our Lady Bien-Aparecida as a twentieth-century
Virgin of Covadonga, explicitly connected the purpose of her patronage with the launching of a new Reconquest against “the modern
Moors.”29
The characterization of a common enemy—the “modern errors” and
their advocates—and the affirmation of the will to defeat it were only a
part of the definition of a common identity which was attempted by
Cantabrian Catholicism under the mantle of Our Lady Bien-Aparecida.
26
Bishop Sánchez de Castro’s pastoral letter of January 8, 1906, BOEOS, January 14,
1906.
27
Bishop Sánchez de Castro’s pastoral letter of August 14, 1906, BOEOS, August 14,
1906.
28
Bishop Sánchez de Castro’s pastoral letter of November 21, 1906, BOEOS, November
22, 1906.
29
José M. de los Corrales,“La Bien-Aparecida,” El Adalid, September 16, 1906. According
to historical tradition, the first Christian victory and beginning of the Reconquest, after
the Moorish invasion of 711, took place in 722 in Covadonga (Asturias), under the special
protection of the Virgin venerated in this place.

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THE VIRGIN BIEN-APARECIDA, 1904–1910

It has already been indicated that overcoming the localism of Cantabrian
popular religion could be considered another absolutely essential aim
of a Catholicism that needed unity as a source of strength.30 The challenge for Catholicism was to retain its popular appeal, while gaining a
translocal dimension. Marian devotions seemed to be particularly suitable for that goal. At a wider level, the endeavor to transform Our Lady
of Pilar, in Saragossa, into a national shrine, reached its peak in connection with the fiftieth anniversary of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, and eventually failed.31 However, the well-established
devotions of Our Lady of Covadonga in Asturias or of Our Lady of Begoña and Our Lady of Arantzazu in the Basque Country (both neighboring regions) showed the potential of Marian cults in constructing
regional Catholic identities.32 Moreover, the very recent declaration, in
September, 1903, of the Virgin of Begoña as the official patroness of Vizcaya could have triggered the wish of Cantabrian churchmen to have
their own regional patroness—and it should not be forgotten that the
idea of the patronage was initiated in the part of La Montaña nearest to
Vizcaya.
In this manner, the Virgin Bien-Aparecida was an instrument for the
integration of the diocese of Santander. The motherly figure of Mary
could not be more appropriate for gathering such a scattered diocesan
family around her. Her representation as Advocate and Queen added
the role of almighty intercessor on behalf of the entire diocese to that
of loving common Mother of all the diocese’s people. The importance
of the patroness for the diocese was well understood by Bishop
Sánchez de Castro, who soon forgot his initial reluctance and cared
both for the success of her cult and for the improvement of everything

30
The characterization of Spanish popular religion as “local religion,” in William A.
Christian, Jr., Local Religion in Sixteenth-Century Spain (Princeton, New Jersey, 1981).
31
See BOEOS, August, 1904–May, 1905; also see William A. Christian, Jr., Moving Crucifixes in Modern Spain (Princeton, New Jersey, 1992), pp. 13–14.
32
The fact that Cantabria lacked a major Marian devotion was resented by one of the
rural deans:“if this project is successful, we will no longer envy Covadonga, Montserrat, El
Pilar, Lourdes, and all those happy places chosen by the heavenly Queen as site of her
throne” (the Dean of Escalante to Emilio Hidalgo, April 25, 1905, ASBA,“Crónica”). Later,
Emilio Hidalgo would refer to this argument and would add the case of Vizcaya as a
province favored by the Virgin—Our Lady of Begoña—with her patronage (El Diario
Montañés, June 13, 1905). And later it would be repeated by Agapito Aguirre, one of the
preachers of the 1906 triduum (El Diario Montañés, September 9, 1906). In 1908 Covadonga and Begoña were still the models to be followed as far as the cult of the Virgin BienAparecida was concerned (Nionato,“La Patrona de la Montaña,” Páginas Dominicales,
September 13, 1908).

BY JULIO DE LA CUEVA

637

concerning her shrine. In 1908 he asked the Trinitarians to found a
community in Somahoz to look after the shrine.33
The inhabitants of the province of Santander lacked a definite identity as a whole—unlike the Basques, who had a different language, or
the Asturians, who had a mythical participation in the formation of Spain.
They neither completely felt themselves to be part of Castile nor perceived themselves as a separate region, and they lived in isolated valleys,divided into four different dioceses,etc.So,the Virgin Bien-Aparecida
could provide them with a common symbol to relate to. Furthermore,
it was a symbol perfectly suited to the incipient, mild Cantabrian regionalism of the turn of the century, which was profoundly Spanish and
profoundly Catholic.34 Thus, the close connection of the Virgin BienAparecida and La Montaña with the fate of Catholic Spain was emphasized by the recounting of old legends about the residence of Pelayo
(the mythical first king of Asturias and proto-hero of the Reconquest
against the Moors) and the upbringing of Fernán González (first independent count of Castile, a region which was, in turn, looked upon as
the medieval kingdom that led both the fighting against the Muslims
and the unification of Spain) at or near Somahoz.35 The patronage of our
Lady Bien-Aparecida also supplied these “regionalists” with an opportunity to clearly equate region with religion,of montañesismo (Cantabrian
regionalism) and devotion to Our Lady Bien Aparecida. Thus, in September, 1906,“the noble and Catholic Cantabrian people” would have
been represented by the pilgrims to the shrine, whereas those who had
expressed their reservations or criticism about the patronage would be
accused of “lack of montañesismo.”36 ‘The identification of Cantabria
and Catholicism would be, therefore, of the same kind as the identification of Spain and Catholicism which summarized the ideology of nationalCatholicism (nacional-catolicismo), thirty years later under Franco.
The devotion to the Virgin Bien-Aparecida, therefore, sought to rein-

33
The diocesan dimension of the patronage was highlighted by Bishop Sánchez de Castro in his cited pastoral letters and in that of September 14, 1906, BOEOS, September 17,
1906. The characterization of Mary as Mother, Advocate, and Queen is common to all the
literature about the patronage, and these three aspects were continually stressed by the
bishop. On the foundation of the Trinitarian community, see various documents, ASBA,
book “Fundación del Convento de la Bien Aparecida.”
34
On the Catholic traditionalism of Cantabrian regionalism, see Manuel Suárez Cortina,
Casonas, hidalgos y linajes. La invención de la tradición cántabra (Santander, 1994).
35
See Bernardino Peña Diego, “Por la Bien-Aparecida,” El Diario Montañés, June 26,
1905; Huidobro, op. cit., pp. 24–26; Sainz de los Terreros, op. cit., pp. 13–14.
36
BOEOS, September 17, 1906.

638

THE VIRGIN BIEN-APARECIDA, 1904–1910

force a sentiment of Cantabrian regionhood proudly related to a sentiment of Spanish nationhood, with both regional and national sentiments inseparably linked to Catholic religion.
Another level of the translocal Catholic identity that was promoted
by the patronage had to do with the universal dimension of the Church.
The universalism of the Church after a century of ultramontanism was
translated into a strong allegiance to the pope. Unlike local patrons and
patronesses, who usually owed their position to age-old popular custom, the patronage of the Virgin Bien-Aparecida was ultimately due to
the confirmation of the alleged “will of the people” by the pope. The
conclusive role of the pope in the selection of the patroness never
ceased to be highlighted.37
In these different ways, the minute madonna of Somahoz came to
represent a call to Cantabrian Catholics to relate themselves not only to
their local communities and devotions, but also, and above all, to the
diocesan, national, and universal Church.
The pilgrimages to the Bien-Aparecida shrine may also have been
aimed at reinforcing the desired translocal dimension of Cantabrian
Catholicism since people from all the districts of the diocese could be
gathered in a single place to engage in religious exercises and socializing. As a Catholic newspaper commented:“on the summit of Somahoz,
under the mantle of their common Patroness, the most distant districts
and villages have tightened the bonds of regional brotherhood with
those of Christian charity.”38 This socializing among the pilgrims points
to another aspect of the integrative potential of the devotion—the momentary forgetting of social differences. Pilgrimage has been defined as
a “liminoid” phenomenon which tends to blur the differences of status
among the individuals participating in it.39 The split between the rich
and the poor, patricians and plebeians was, for one day, symbolically forgotten. Therefore, although no record was kept of the way the faithful
were accommodated in the trains heading for Somahoz in these first
years, it is plausible to think that, like the Marian pilgrimage to Las Caldas in 1904, the devotees of Our Lady Bien-Aparecida traveled to Marrón by train “making no distinction between social classes or categories,”
and so:
37
See Bishop Sánchez de Castro’s pastoral letters of January 8, 1906, BOEOS, January
14, 1906, and August 14, 1906, BOEOS, August 14, 1906.
38
Páginas Dominicales, September 20, 1908.
39
Victor Turner and Edith Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture. Anthropological Perspectives (Oxford, 1978).

BY JULIO DE LA CUEVA

639

in many carriages one was able to see together like brothers, bound by the
tie of a common fraternal love, a common fervor, a common hope, the distinguished gentleman from an old Cantabrian family and the humble
workshop laborer; the illustrious professor devoted to science, or the senior civil servant, or the wealthy bank owner, or the rich landowner, and
the modest clerk or the poor artisan.40

VI

There were no official pilgrimages to the Bien-Aparecida shrine in
September, 1907. And the unofficial ones confined themselves to the
traditional local pilgrimages of the faithful of nearby areas. Even the indulgences granted by the bishop to those visiting the shrine on the patroness’s feast day were not enough to encourage pilgrims from other
areas to go to Somahoz. By contrast, 1908 was “the year of the pilgrimages”41: from the diocese of Santander, pilgrims had set off toward the
Marian shrines of Covadonga,Saragossa,and Lourdes.The Bien-Aparecida
shrine was also the destination of many Cantabrian Catholics during
the celebrations held on September 13, 14, and 15. For the first time, the
faithful from the western districts of the diocese came to meet Our
Lady Bien-Aparecida.They, like their fellow pilgrims from the rest of the
diocese, had been packed into special trains by zealous priests wanting
to please their bishop. In fact, it was Sánchez de Castro’s desire that the
patroness be honored with all the pomp and ceremony provided by the
splendor of carefully prepared liturgy and the gathering of pious
masses.The newly installed community of Trinitarian friars contributed
enormously to the successful organization of the events. In 1909 and
1910 the patroness’s day was also solemnized with pilgrimages and special services, but the standards of the 1908 celebrations were never
reached again.42 However, the absence of grand displays of Marian devotion at the Bien-Aparecida shrine was absolutely justified at least in
1910, since attention focused on another issue of the greatest importance for Catholics. In the course of the events regarding this issue,
Mary was going to be given a major symbolical role.
The year 1910 marked a peak in the tension between the Catholic
Church and the advocates of secularization in Spain. The government
had introduced the “ley del Candado”(“the Padlock Bill”),a bill that forBOEOS, September 21, 1904.
Páginas Dominicales, September 6, 1908.
42
For an account of the celebrations in these years, see El Diario Montañés, September, 1907–1910.
40

41

640

THE VIRGIN BIEN-APARECIDA, 1904–1910

bade the establishment of new religious communities for two years, a
period during which a stricter law on associations (stricter at least as far
as the submission of religious associations to common legislation was
concerned) was expected to be passed. All anticlericals, even those
who regarded the proposal as extremely timid,supported the law,in the
hope of further secularization measures. The reaction of religious
forces was unprecedented and led to mass mobilizations throughout
Spain.
On October 2,according to the Catholic El Diario Montañés,sixteen
thousand people demonstrated against the bill in the streets of Santander and over forty thousand more in the rest of the region.The latter
gathered in more pious sites—they rallied in a dozen shrines scattered
throughout Cantabria.43 And, not surprisingly, all the shrines chosen for
the gatherings were Marian shrines, and one of them was, of course, the
shrine of Our Lady Bien-Aparecida. A certain image of Mary was thus
proved to be well established, certainly in the perception of Catholic
leaders and very plausibly in the minds of many of the faithful. In
Cantabria, at least, Mary had been confirmed in her role as the guarantor of the unity of Catholics against the progress of secularization.

VII

Opposition and lack of success were two of the risks which faced the
promoters of the patronage.First of all,the patronage of the Virgin BienAparecida was regarded as a threatening symbol by those who did not
share the prospect of a religious society for Cantabria and Spain. Thus,
the Cantabrian republicans firmly opposed the organization of the pilgrimages which were to be held in September, 1906, on the grounds
that these kinds of religious events only served as manifestations of
“Catholic exclusivism” and usually ended up turning into political
demonstrations against “Freedom and Progress.”44 Moreover, they accused the promoters of the patronage of attempting to introduce a
new, nontraditional devotion as a way of achieving political goals of a
reactionary character by spurious means, and related the celebrations
to the advance of clericalism in northern Spain.45 Furthermore, the republicans felt that the pilgrimages would be a real provocation, given
the heated atmosphere surrounding the religious question at the time
El Diario Montañés, October 3–5, 1910.
La Montaña, August 17, 1906.
45
La Montaña, August 19, and September 10, 1906.
43

44

BY JULIO DE LA CUEVA

641

as well as the general strike by miners who were reportedly prone not
to distinguish between employers and the devout.46 Finally, after these
subtle threats, the most radical republicans would claim that, if the pilgrimages had been able to take place without bloodshed, it had been
due to their own benevolence and control over the masses.47
The new regional cult of the Virgin Bien-Aparecida, therefore, attracted the anger of anticlericals and secularists, but failed to arouse the
deep attachment of many devout Cantabrian Catholics. The difficulties
of these first years’ pilgrimages have already been underlined—their
success was somewhat limited as well as devoid of spontaneity. In the
beginning, indeed, they were not even able to compete with expeditions to more traditional, local shrines which also celebrated their festivals in mid-September,attracting the faithful from nearby areas,and thus
preventing them from going to Somahoz.48 Moreover, the tercentenary of
the apparitions and the proclamation of the Virgin Bien-Aparecida as the
patroness of the diocese and province of Santander met with the indifference of the press,even of the Conservative party press,local organ of
one of the liberal regime’s dominant parties; only the Catholic newspapers offered an extensive coverage of both events. Later, the Conservative press would join the Catholic press in promoting the patronage
but, even so, it was not possible to organize diocesan pilgrimages every
year.The local press of the far east of Cantabria would continue to reflect
people’s affection toward the Virgin Bien-Aparecida but, in these first
years, would never regard her as the patroness of the whole region.49
The evidence suggests that the devotion to Our Lady Bien-Aparecida
really did spread in the long term,but in a rather incomplete way.As late
as the 1960’s, in some southwestern parts of the diocese, devotion to
the Virgen Bien-Aparecida ranked well below local devotions—and
even below the devotion to images located in other regions, in the preferences of the faithful.50 Quite recently (December 8, 1986), during the
opening ceremony of the Diocesan Synod of Santander (the first in a
hundred years), the statue of the Virgin Bien-Aparecida had to share its
privileged position in the cathedral of Santander with that of the Virgin
of the Light, patroness of the westernmost district of Liébana, and with
La Montaña, September 3, 1906.
La Montaña, September 9, 1906.
48
Sánchez, op. cit.
49
See El Asón, September, 1909–1910, and El Avisador and La Ilustración de Castro,
September, 1906–1910.
50
Christian, Person, pp. 54–78.
46

47

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THE VIRGIN BIEN-APARECIDA, 1904–1910

the Virgin of Montesclaros, patroness of the southern district of Campoo.51
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Spanish Church was in
need of symbols which would help promote a Catholic sense of belonging to a united community in order to struggle more efficiently
against secularization. In “the age of Mary” Marian devotions would
seem perfectly fitted to fulfill that function.Unifying symbols of this and
other types were sought both at a national and at a regional/diocesan
level, but the search appears to have been more successful at the latter
level. In the northern region of Cantabria, geographical, political, social,
and even purely religious divisions among Catholics made the necessity
for a strong collective identity—and therefore of a unifying symbol—
even more acute if possible.The proposal that the Virgin Bien-Aparecida,
venerated in the far east of Cantabria, should be declared patroness of
the diocese and region offered a chance to satisfy that need. Thus, in
times of crisis for the established religion, a patroness was invented for
Cantabria,with the old materials of a popular local devotion serving the
new goals of reaffirming the identity of the region as a common and
uniquely Catholic identity. The story of the invention of the patronage
would eventually be, as many others, a story of both achievement and
failure. Catholic elites succeeded in turning a local madonna into the
patroness of the region and having her progressively accepted as such
by the Cantabrian faithful. However, they failed to make her a unique,
deeply felt,supreme religious symbol,as they also failed to impose a single religious identity on all Cantabrians.It is a story which could well be
applied to the whole of Spanish Catholicism and maybe to other regional and national Catholicisms—the attempt to create a single common identity based on religious traditions of a more or less invented
nature, and the eventual failure to achieve such a goal.

51
Ana María Rivas,“Símbolos religiosos en Cantabria: crisol de identidades,” typescript
of the paper given at the course “La religiosidad en Cantabria: una mirada antropológica,”
Camargo, July, 1992 (copy provided by Prof. Manuel Suárez Cortina).

THE INTRODUCTION OF SOCIOLOGY AT THE
CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, 1895–1915
BY

C. JOSEPH NUESSE*

Sociology as a scientific discipline was still acquiring its academic
base when the recently founded Catholic University of America opened
its department in the field in 1895. It was the first American Catholic institution to offer the subject. Its establishment of its department followed by only three years the opening of the first department of
sociology in the country at the University of Chicago.
The account of the university’s initiative that follows is intended to
serve two principal purposes.One is to place the event in the history of
the discipline. The other is to investigate how sociology could be received in an intellectual milieu faithful to Catholic teaching. Sociology,
after all, had been tainted from its beginnings by positivist philosophy
and, in the theories of the American pioneers, by evolutionary naturalism. Thus, after a brief presentation of the facts concerning the introduction of the discipline, attention will be given to the motives of its
proponents, the approach of the first professor, the nature of the first
courses offered, and the enrollment of the first students.
The Foundation

In 1895 the university, at the beginning of its seventh year, was establishing its first non-ecclesiastical faculties.1 Within the next five years
it became, as a student of the field’s institutionalization has noted, the
only Catholic institution “to develop sociology in any serious fashion
before 1900.”2 In this latter year, according to the same author, about
*Dr. Nuesse is professor of sociology emeritus and provost emeritus of The Catholic
University of America.
1
See C. Joseph Nuesse, The Catholic University of America, A Centennial History
(Washington, D.C., 1990), Chaps. III–IV.
2
J. Graham Morgan, “Sociology in America: A Study of Its Institutional Development
until 1900” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Balliol College, Oxford University, 1966),
p. 257.

643

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INTRODUCTION OF SOCIOLOGY AT THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY, 1895–1915

one-third of the 637 colleges and universities then existing in the
United States were offering courses under the name. In addition to The
Catholic University of America, only five undergraduate institutions
under Catholic auspices could be listed among them.3
The first course in the country announced as sociology had been offered as early as 1873 when William Graham Sumner at Yale University
had included it in the range of the many subjects that he was teaching
as a professor of political and social science. By the time that The
Catholic University of America opened its department others who also
are now revered as American pioneers were at work, notably Charles
Horton Cooley at Michigan, Franklin Henry Giddings at Columbia, Edward Alsworth Ross on his way to Wisconsin, Albion Small at Chicago,
and Lester Frank Ward at the Smithsonian Institution.
Sociology was having a phenomenal growth in the American academe. It has been portrayed as “more a ‘movement’ than an intellectual
discipline”4 in view of its ready inclusion in institutions founded during
the rapid national expansion of higher education and also in view of its
support from the several sectors of American society in which a scientific basis for social reform was being sought. One of the most important and most conspicuous of these was the Protestant ministry in
which the Social Gospel movement was then widely influential.In 1900
one-third of the teachers of social science courses in American higher
education had had some theological training. As perceived by many at
the time, “in many respects sociology was social Christianity.”5 There
was, however, no movement in Catholic circles that could be compared
with this American Protestant thrust.6
In 1891 the trustees of The Catholic University of America approved
conditionally the establishment of a school of the social sciences. Later

3
Ibid., Appendices A and B. The early history of offerings in sociology in the United
States is conveniently summarized in Hamilton Cravens, The Triumph of Evolution:
American Scientists and the Heredity-Environment Controversy 1900–1941 (Philadelphia,1978),Chap.IV.See also,L.L.Bernard,“The Teaching of Sociology in the United States
in the Last Fifty Years,” American Journal of Sociology, L (1944–45), 534–548.
4
Anthony Oberschall, “The Institutionalization of American Sociology,” in Anthony
Oberschall (ed.), The Establishment of Empirical Sociology: Studies in Continuity, Discontinuity, and Institutionalization (New York, 1972), p. 189.
5
Morgan, op. cit.,pp. 132, 252–253.
6
For the Protestant initiatives, see William H. Swatos, Jr., Faith of the Fathers: Science,
Religion, and Reform in the Development of Early American Sociology (Bristol, Indiana, 1984).

BY C. JOSEPH NUESSE

645

in the same year, a lawyer from Yale, William Callyhan Robinson (1834–
1911), was appointed to be its dean. This school was announced to the
public prematurely in 1893 as a “School of Sociology and Comparative
Jurisprudence.”It was opened two years later as the School of the Social
Sciences with a Department of Sociology.7 It is of interest that the
change in the name of the school may have been a result of a consultation by the dean-elect with his veteran colleague, Sumner, who was reported as having said “that sociology is a word having no meaning and
not a suitable one to use. . . .”8
It is possible that Lester Frank Ward, who was at hand in Washington,
was also consulted. In a report to the Holy See about the year 1894, the
chancellor of the university,Cardinal James Gibbons,listed Ward among
the cooperatores of the university, identifying him as prefect of the national museum of fossil flora and as the author of works in sociology.9
No other evidence that he was consulted has been found, however.
On the campus the person who was best informed and most influential in the founding of the department was a moral theologian,
Thomas Joseph Bouquillon (1840–1902), a priest of Belgian origin.10 On
his advice, the rector of the university, Bishop John Joseph Keane
(1839–1908), appointed a former student of Bouquillon’s, William
Joseph Kerby (1870–1936), a priest of the Archdiocese of Dubuque, to
be the first professor of sociology.11 From its establishment, in 1895, until Kerby’s return from his doctoral studies in Europe,in 1897,Bouquillon
was in charge of the department. Thereafter, until 1915, Kerby was its
lone member.

7
Nuesse, op. cit., pp. 109–110, 114–116; also,“The Introduction of the Social Sciences in
The Catholic University of America (1895-1909),” Social Thought, XII (1986), 30–43.
8
William C.Robinson to John J.Keane,New Haven,Connecticut,May 29,1894,in Office
of the Rector (hereafter OR), Archives of The Catholic University of America (hereafter
ACUA).
9
In Fondo Segretario di Stato, Delegazione Apostolica, Archivio Segreto Vaticano. No
record has been found that Ward ever appeared on campus as one of the occasional lecturers invited to acquaint the priest students of the early years with developments outside the scope of their ecclesiastical and theological studies.
10
See C. Joseph Nuesse, “Thomas Joseph Bouquillon (1840–1902), Moral Theologian
and Precursor of the Social Sciences in The Catholic University of America,” Catholic Historical Review, LXXII (October, 1986), 601– 619.
11
See Paul H.Furfey,“Kerby, William Joseph,”New Catholic Encyclopedia (15 vols.;New
York, 1967),VIII, 164–165, and Timothy M. Dolan,“Prophet of a Better Hope: The Life and
Work of Monsignor William Joseph Kerby” (unpublished master’s dissertation, The
Catholic University of America, 1981).

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INTRODUCTION OF SOCIOLOGY AT THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY, 1895–1915

M otives

One may speculate that two factors especially had caused American
Catholic institutions generally to lag behind others in introducing sociology. First, Catholic colleges and universities were then less open than
others to curricular innovations of any kind, inasmuch as they were still
following patterns that they had inherited from ecclesiastical and European sources. Second, in view of their curricular conservatism, they
were hardly likely to accept as a new discipline one that even the American pioneer Small felt lacked “a distinctive intellectual content, a distinctive method, or even a point of view.”12 Moreover, they would not
have been open to influences from movements that would have allowed acceptance of the view that social science was to some extent
“originally a Protestant product.”13
The academic leadership that The Catholic University of America
manifested in introducing sociology could have been expected of it,
however.The Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884 had approved
the foundation of the university as a means of raising the intellectual
level of American Catholics. The bishop who was the foremost proponent of the foundation had argued then that “if intellectualism is often
the foe of religious truth, there is no good reason why it should not also
be its ally.”14 Consistent with his view, the university had taken on from
its beginning the orientation to research that had become characteristic of contemporary Prussian institutions and that was being exemplified in the academic movement initiated in 1876 by The Johns Hopkins
University in nearby Baltimore.15 The pioneers of sociology in the
United States were in institutions participating in this movement. At
The Catholic University of America it was expected that sociology as a
new discipline would be approached like any other, critically and in relation to Catholic thought. This was the disposition that was to make
the institution, as an historian has put it,“the principal channel through
which the methods and spirit of modern university work were diffused
into the world of Catholic higher education.”16
12
Oberschall,op.cit.,p.189.On the vagaries of early American sociologists,see Cravens,
op. cit.
13
Arthur Vidich and Stanford M. Lyman, American Sociology: Worldly Rejections of Religion and Their Directions (New Haven, 1985), p. 57.
14
John Lancaster Spalding, University Education Considered in Its Bearing on the
Higher Education of Priests (Baltimore, 1884), p. 12.
15
See Nuesse, Catholic University, Chap. III.
16
Philip Gleason, “American Catholic Higher Education, A Historical Perspective,” in
Robert Hassenger (ed.), The Shape of Catholic Higher Education (Chicago, 1967), p. 41.

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647

In the Progressive Era these academic motives were reinforced by
prevalent concerns for social reform that some Catholic leaders were
sharing.17 The earlier activities of the Church in charities, education,
temperance, and colonization of immigrants were well established. The
problems of the Catholic immigrant masses, of course, had become immediate. Socialism as a proposed solution of these problems was considered to be a serious threat. Identification with the cause of labor
followed almost naturally18 and was encouraged by the pioneer social
encyclical Rerum novarum, issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1891.19
Thus, in the search for solutions of problems, the way was being
opened for the introduction of the social sciences in Catholic colleges
and seminaries. Even before the papal encyclical was issued, Archbishop John Ireland of St. Paul had lectured at The Catholic University
of America on April 10, 1891, on “The Duty of Catholics in the Presence
of the Social Movements of the Times.” In the context of contemporary
events, it is significant that Bouquillon, who was the best informed of a
three-member faculty committee that was charged with planning the
introduction of the social sciences, could have urged priority for these
fields as “the demand of the day . . . insisted on by the Pope, and . . .
given in no other Catholic institution.”20
The first rector of The Catholic University of America, Bishop Keane,
exemplified the influence of the progressive movement in supplying
motives for the introduction of the department. It is noteworthy that
during the university’s first winter, in 1890, he had given a series of five
public lectures on Herbert Spencer’s First Principles. His declared purpose was to show that religion and science were not only not incompatible but, ultimately, could be reconciled. When, in the next year, he
sought an interview with Robinson, before appointing him as dean, he
applied his purpose to contemporary concerns by writing:
Both clergy and laity, if they are to be the scholars of the future, evidently
need broad and deep and careful study of the great social questions which
17
The emergence of academic sociology out of movements for social reform is summarized in Cravens, op. cit., and treated comprehensively in Dorothy Ross, The Origins of
American Social Science (Cambridge, England, 1991).
18
See Henry J. Browne, The Catholic Church and the Knights of Labor (Washington,
D.C., 1949). On the role of labor issues generally, see Ross, op. cit., pp. 126–128, 304–305.
19
See Aaron I. Abell,“The Reception of Leo XIII’s Labor Encyclical in America, 1891–
1919,” Review of Politics,VII (1945), 464–465.
20
Edward A. Pace, handwritten draft of report to John J. Keane, December 16, 1894, in
Edward A. Pace Papers, ACUA.

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INTRODUCTION OF SOCIOLOGY AT THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY, 1895–1915

the march of events is bringing more and more to the surface, and rendering of greater and greater importance.21

By 1892 the rector could report announcements of work in political
and social science that was being undertaken in Europe at the Catholic
University of Louvain,the Catholic Institute of Lille,and elsewhere as reflecting “one of the latest fashions.”22 And in his annual report for the
year 1892–93 he presented to the university’s trustees the new school
that they had authorized as something to be “recognized as an indispensable department of every well organized university.”23 By virtue of
his office, and in keeping with his personality, he had to be interested in
what was new.
At the end of the academic year, in a lengthy article in the Catholic
press, Keane presented to the public “social and Biblical questions” as
“the pivotal points in divinity studies.”The bent of his thinking was disclosed in a paragraph on the theme that although theories alone might
not be “productive either of much good or much evil,” what he understood as “the practical import of sociology” would demand of its student “the finest powers of discrimination.”24 Alert as he was to “the
social question,” however, his view of sociology was limited. To him, it
would “comprise a course of Ethics, that is, the Natural Law and its developments.”25 The view of the dean of the School of Philosophy, who
was a distinguished experimental psychologist, emphasized also that
the new “branch”would stand “in close connection with the teaching of
Ethics.”26 Of course, historically, the social sciences had emerged from
moral philosophy. Social reform was still the dominant theme of American sociologists of the 1890’s.
Keane’s statements suggest strongly his identification with the progressive mood of his time and even an optimistic view on his part that
needed social reforms might be guided through the use of Catholic concepts and the projection of goals in traditional Catholic phraseology.
Fortunately, in disciplinary terms, a more rigorous and informed academician was at hand in the person of Bouquillon.Although Bouquillon’s
21
Keane to Robinson, Washington, D.C., July 17, 1891, in William C. Robinson Papers,
ACUA.
22
Keane to Robinson, Washington, D.C., Nov. 7, 1892, in Robinson Papers, ACUA.
23
Fourth Annual Report of the Rector of the Catholic University of America, March
1, 1893 (Washington, D.C., 1893), p. 11.
24
“The Scholastic Year,” The Catholic Times, No. 29 ( June 17, 1893).
25
Keane to Robinson,Atlantic City, New Jersey, June 6, 1894, in Robinson Papers,ACUA.
26
Edward A. Pace, in Eighth Annual Report of the Rector of the Catholic University of
America (Washington, D.C., 1897), p. 31.

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649

name may be hardly recognized in theological circles today and his
work may even be disparaged because of his characteristic conservatism,27 he was pedagogically up-to-date. He was a Neo-Scholastic
when Neo-Scholasticism was new and, on the point of interest here, he
was especially well informed concerning European developments in
sociology.
Bouquillon was regarded by his colleagues in the university as having
internationally “no superior in the nineteenth century in the knowledge of moral theology.”28 In his courses, as his former student, Kerby,
was to write,“he emphasized strongly the historical and sociological aspects of principles and problems . . . neglecting no results of modem
research which contributed to clearness and solidity in his exposition
of them.”29 Perhaps his influence can be seen also in the career of a
priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul who was enrolled during the university’s first year, Joseph F. Busch, a future bishop and a pioneer in
Catholic social action. In 1895 Busch was writing to Small at Chicago to
report that he had used both the textbook by Small and George E. Vincent and Ward’s Dynamic Sociology in a “class” composed of “young
professional men (Catholics)” and, further, that Archbishop Ireland was
considering use of the textbook in the St. Paul Seminary.30
Bouquillon insisted that the findings of the new social sciences had
to be confronted by moral theologians.31 That he viewed sociology systematically—perhaps more systematically than some pioneers in the
field—became apparent at an early date, since, when consulted, he advised the rector that the melioristic courses in sociology that the deanelect was proposing were not sufficiently scientific.32
At the time, according to Bouquillon’s understanding, three views of
sociology were in circulation. One such view considered sociology to
27
See Charles E. Curran, The Origins of Moral Theology in the United States:Three Different Approaches (Washington, D.C., 1997), Chaps.V–VI.
28
Thomas Joseph Shahan to Fr. Cushion, Washington, D.C., December 2, 1903 (copy), in
Thomas Joseph Shahan Papers, ACUA.
29
William J. Kerby,“Bouquillon, Thomas,” Catholic Encyclopedia (16 vols.; New York,
1908–1912), II, 715–716.
30
Bernhard J.Stern (ed.),“The Letters of Albion W.Small to Lester F. Ward,”Social Forces,
XII (1933), 170–171.
31
Thomas J. Bouquillon, “Theology in Universities,” The Catholic University Bulletin
(hereafter CUB), I (1895), 31,and “Moral Theology at the End of the Nineteenth Century,”
ibid., V (1899), 249–254.
32
Thomas J. Bouquillon to John J. Keane, Washington, D.C., undated, in Robinson papers, ACUA, and Robinson to Keane, New Haven, Connecticut, October 22,1891. In OR,
ACUA.

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INTRODUCTION OF SOCIOLOGY AT THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY, 1895–1915

be a general philosophy of society, which previously had been encompassed within ethics. On the other hand, Spencer and the European Albert Schäffle, with the early Auguste Comte, seemed to him to conceive
of sociology as a special but superior science synthesizing all practical
and social sciences.To Bouquillon himself, it seemed that most scholars
were following the later Comte, as he understood him, and identifying
sociology as simply the whole collection of the social sciences.His own
preference—philosophically grounded—was to define the field as “the
general theory of social being.”33 By 1893 he was reported to be “making a study of the systems of sociology taught in various universities.”34
The rector evidently relied upon him to prepare the announcements
for the opening of the department in 1895,in which familiarity with the
work of Georg Simmel is suggested by use of the term “reciprocal relations.”35
Earlier in the same year that the School of the Social Sciences was
opened, The Catholic University Bulletin had been inaugurated as a
scholarly journal. In its first year it reported on the European developments to which the rector had previously called attention, reprinted at
length remarks of the Louvain Neo-Scholastic who later became the internationally beloved Cardinal Désiré Mercier, distinguishing between
positive science and the positivism that the followers of Comte were
propagating, and reviewed knowledgeably the definition of sociology,
its method, and its divisions, with references to the work of Ward and
that of Émile Durkheim in France.36 It seems likely that Bouquillon contributed at least the latter item as well as an unsigned review of
Durkheim’s L’anée sociologique, which had just begun to appear.

T h e First Professor

The university’s aspirations for leadership in so far as the new field of
sociology was concerned had to be almost completely dependent upon
the professor chosen to introduce the subject. In view of what was expected of him, two facets of this dependence and of the responsibility
that it imposed deserve emphasis. In the first place, as the first American Catholic to enter the field and to undertake training specifically to
33
Bouquillon to Keane, Washington, undated (1891), in Robinson Papers, ACUA. In
French.
34
Keane to Robinson, Washington, D.C., January 9, 1893, in Robinson Papers, ACUA.
35
See Keane to Robinson, Washington, D.C., March 8, 1895, in Robinson Papers, ACUA
36
CUB, I (1895), 136–140, 470–472.

BY C. JOSEPH NUESSE

651

be a sociologist, Kerby had the task of distinguishing within the new
field what could be accepted as in accord with “right reason” and compatible with Catholic faith.
Secondly, in the discharge of this responsibility, Kerby had to be left
almost completely to his own devising. Of course, the pioneers in the
field themselves had not had training specifically in sociology and had
developed their theoretical structures independently. In Kerby’s case,
the nature of his training, given the state of the discipline and instruction in it, was left almost completely to his own judgment.Although the
departments at Chicago and Columbia had begun to offer doctoral programs, there is no evidence that Kerby’s sponsors or even Kerby himself considered his enrollment in them. In any case, in his time Europe
would still have been looked to as the preferred place for advanced
studies in any field. No plan for training in sociology, however, was available there.Thus, it would be after his own self-directed preparation that
Kerby would become responsible for organizing a program for the instruction of others, in particular for the students of an institution with
a corporate commitment to Catholic faith.
Kerby proved himself equal to his task. He became, first of all, notably
comfortable in his role as a priest-professor. In childhood in Iowa, he
had had the advantage of initiation into the classics by an Irish immigrant father who became a successful small-town merchant and banker.
After his ordination to the priesthood and his selection for advanced
study, he had earned the respect of Bouquillon in the new university’s
School of Sacred Sciences. As a professor his colleagues found in him a
model gentleman.37 To undergraduates he was “among the best loved
men on the campus.”38 In the 1920’s, after directing a retreat for priests
of the Diocese of Los Angeles and San Diego, its bishop praised him because “in giving us piety” he had “also put science into it and raised the
Retreat to a very high level.”39 When, toward the end of his life, he was
invested as a domestic prelate, a former student who preached extolled
him aptly as “proof that humanity and divinity can coalesce attractively
in man.”40 Finally, Kerby revealed his own personal integration in an autobiographical declaration,“I cannot get away from a spiritual judgment
37
See Percy A. Robert to Ora Kerby, Garrett Park, Maryland, July 29, 1936, in William J.
Kerby Papers, ACUA.
38
Frank Kuntz, Undergraduate Days, 1904–08 (Washington, D.C., 1938), p. 97.
39
John J. Cantwell to Thomas J. Shahan, Los Angeles, April 19, 1927, in Kerby Papers,
ACUA.
40
Ignatius Smith, O.P., Trinity College Record, XXVIII (1934), 134.

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INTRODUCTION OF SOCIOLOGY AT THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY, 1895–1915

of everything even in the field of Sociology, no matter how far remote
from technical spiritual reality any particular thing may be.”41
The preparation for his professorial career that Kerby undertook
gave him both insight into the foundations of sociological science and
breadth for the understanding of contemporary social phenomena.The
offer of appointment to the university that he received included the
funding for his study in Europe and, after consultations, he accepted
Bouquillon’s advice to study either in Leipzig or Berlin.42 Choosing
Berlin, Kerby followed three courses in political economy under the
historical economist, Gustav Schmoller, and others in the philosophy of
law and in practical philosophy in which many of the topics that were
being included in the emerging European sociology were being
treated.43
All of these topics might well have been given a focus by the lectures
of Georg Simmel,the founder of what is now called formal sociology.Although students of Simmel’s influence have overlooked Kerby as one
who had attended his lectures,44 it may be, as was the case with Robert
Park of Chicago, that Simmel’s was the only formal course in sociology
that Kerby ever had. The philosopher Simmel was giving the field what
many today would accept as its most enduring definition.45 His definition, moreover, unlike some others that were being advanced, could be
made compatible with the metaphysics in which Kerby had been
trained.
By the beginning of 1896 Kerby had decided to focus his studies on
socialism since he had found that it was arousing in Europe “an enthusiasm before which argument is powerless.”46 His decision met no opposition. As sociology was being understood in most American
academic circles at the time, it was embracing the study of movements
such as socialism and also of social work, which was later to be the field
41
“A View of Minor Poets,” unpublished and undated manuscript, in Kerby Papers,
ACUA.
42
Bouquillon to Kerby, Washington, D.C., May 26, 1895, in Kerby Papers, ACUA. In
French.
43
Anmeldebuch, Königlichen Friedrich Wilhelms Universität zu Berlin, in Kerby Papers, ACUA.
44
Donald N. Levine, Ellwood B. Carter, and Eleanor Miller Gorman,“Simmel’s Influence
on American Sociology,” American Journal of Sociology, LXXXI (1976), 813–845, 1112–
1132.
45
Theodore Abel,“The Contribution of Georg Simmel: A Reappraisal,” American Sociological Review, XXIV (1959), 474.
46
Kerby to Keane, Berlin, Germany, December 6,1895, in OR, ACUA.

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653

of Kerby’s major contribution. He moved to the Catholic University of
Louvain in the fall of 1896 to prepare his dissertation, Le Socialisme
aux États-Unis,47 for which he obtained his doctorate in 1897.
Kerby taught sociology at The Catholic University of America and at
some other Washington institutions from 1897, when he returned from
abroad, until 1936, the year of his death. He was head of the department
at the university until 1932. As virtually the lone Catholic among academic sociologists at the turn of the century, he became a charter member of the American Sociological Society when it was organized in
1905, and he was later, from 1918 to 1920, a member of its executive
committee.He read a paper on “Processes in Radicalism”at the Society’s
annual meeting in 1920.48 The University of Notre Dame bestowed an
honorary degree upon him in 1912 and then, when establishing its own
department of sociology in 1915, gave responsibility for its leadership
to one of Kerby’s former students who would continue to consult
him.49
Although Kerby’s interest in his professorial duties seems never to
have waned during his four decades of affiliation with the university,his
practical bent, guided no doubt by his perceptions of need, became
more and more evident. As early as 1904, he joined with a colleague
who was an economist in arranging a prize-winning exhibit on Catholic
charities for the St. Louis Exhibition of that year.50 He was the prime
mover in the organization of the National Conference of Catholic Charities (now Catholic Charities, U.S.A.) in 1910,51 served as its executive
secretary until 1920, and urged the professionalization of charities
work throughout his career.52 During World War I he helped to bring
into being the National Catholic War Council that led to the establishment of the National Catholic Welfare Conference (now the United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops). As chairman of a War Council committee on women’s activities,he was instrumental in founding and later,
Brussels, 1897.
Publications of the American Sociological Society, XV (1921), 163–173.
49
South Bend News-Times,“Notre Dame Adds Sociology Course,” July 18, 1915.
50
William J. Kerby,“The Exhibit of Catholic Charities at St. Louis,” CUB, X (1904), 478–
483.
51
William J. Kerby,“The National Conference of Catholic Charities,” CUB, XVIII (1912),
684–697; National Conference of Catholic Charities, The First National Conference of
Catholic Charities (Washington, D.C., 1910); Donald P. Gavin, The National Conference
of Catholic Charities, 1910–1960 (Milwaukee, 1962).
52
See his The Social Mission of Charity: A Study of Points of View in Catholic Charities (New York, 1921; reprinted, Washington, D.C., 1944).
47
48

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INTRODUCTION OF SOCIOLOGY AT THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY, 1895–1915

from 1924 to 1929, directing the National Catholic School of Social Service.53 His department became known especially for the preparation of
diocesan directors of Catholic charities until, in 1934, the university’s
School of Social Work was established.54 Kerby was indeed a national
Catholic leader during a period when national organization became a
unifying force in the rapidly changing American society.55 While still in
his prime, perhaps looking back upon his own professorial career,
Kerby called the attention of the institution’s chancellor to what he perceived as the “rather practical character” that had been “forced” upon
the university and had therefore displaced to some extent the “technical research” that was the university’s mission, because of the former’s
“very great value in the life of the Church.”56 The works in question
were such as he had undertaken.

The First Courses

Nationally,in fact,in 1895 the teaching of sociology was coming to be
identified with what were to be called “the three D’s”: dependents, defectives, and delinquents.57 As catalogues of the period show, even before the introduction of sociology, some problems of this kind were
being treated at The Catholic University of America in Bouquillon’s
course entitled “Fundamental Questions in Moral Theology.” Its contents were described as follows in the catalogue for the year 1894–95:
1. The moral order: its elements, extent and relation to the physical order.
2. Human activity: its essential principles, its conditioning causes, such as
temperament, heredity, inclinations, passions, habits: the relation between
Moral Theology, Psychology, and Physiology. 3. Morality, Imputableness, Responsibility, especially in view of social and juridical relations. 4. Crime,

53
See Loretta R. Lawler, Full Circle:The Story of the National Catholic School of Social
Service, 1918–1947 (Washington, D.C., 1951).
54
In an unpublished autobiographical manuscript written about 1951–52, Monsignor
John O’Grady, who succeeded Kerby at NCCC, recalled that in Kerby’s early years the university had become “a sort of shrine” for leaders in Catholic charities by developing in
them “a sort of objectivity that was sorely needed.” John O’Grady Papers, ACUA
55
See Robert Wiebe, The Search for Order: 1877–1920 (New York, 1967); also Patrick
Bernard Lavey,“William J. Kerby, John A. Ryan, and the Awakening of the Twentieth Century Catholic Social Conscience”(unpublished doctoral dissertation,University of Illinois,
1986).
56
Kerby to Michael Joseph Curley, Washington, D.C., January 19, 1923 (copy), in Kerby
Papers, ACUA.
57
Oberschall, op. cit., p. 197.

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655

Repentance, Correction, Punishment, in relation to the modern theories of
Criminology and Penology.58

During the first two academic years of the Department of Sociology,
1895–96 and 1896–97,when work in the field was actually in the charge
of Bouquillon, only independent study, not courses, seems to have been
offered.59 It was reported then that “those making sociology their principal study [were] pursuing their researches under the guidance and
with the assistance of Dr. Bouquillon.”60
Bouquillon’s contributions could be seen in the announcement of
the opening of the School of the Social Sciences “to furnish opportunities for instruction and research in the various sciences that treat of the
reciprocal relations of mankind” and his organization of material of the
field under such headings as “The Social Being or organism in the abstract,”“Society in the concrete,”“Domestic Society,”“particular associations,”“Social Systems,”“Sciences preliminary to Sociology,”and “Sciences
auxiliary to Sociology.”61 It is significant to add that Bouquillon’s continuing interest in the field was evident in his attendance in 1897 at the
meeting in Paris of the Institut de Sociologie that Réné Worms had
founded in 1893, after which he reported:
The chief topic of discussion was the organic concept of society. The theory
was strongly supported by its well-known defenders,Novicow and Lilienfeld,
and opposed with great vigor by Tarde, Stein, and de Kranz. The opponents
of the theory seemed to have the best of the argument.62

Courses in the History and Literature of Sociology and in the Elements of Sociology are listed in the university’s announcements for
1897–98, the first year in which offerings of the department were those
of Kerby and the first year in which, after the early dissolution of the
School of the Social Sciences, sociology was being offered in the School
of Philosophy (designating, in the German fashion, what are usually
called in the United States the arts and sciences). These two courses
were presented as “elementary work in Sociology required for [the]
baccalaureate degree.” Since the university was not then offering undergraduate programs, they can be considered as having been intended
58
Year-Book of The Catholic University of America, 1894–95 (Washington, D.C.,
1894), p. 32.
59
Kerby to L.L. Bernard, Washington, D.C., November 28, 1927 (copy), in Kerby Papers,
ACUA
60
CUB, II (1896), 23.
61
Official Announcement of the School of the Social Sciences in the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., 1895–96 (Washington, D.C., 1895), pp. 50–51.
62
“European Congresses of 1887,” CUB, IV (1898), 24–25.

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INTRODUCTION OF SOCIOLOGY AT THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY, 1895–1915

to serve as prerequisites for advanced work. It was noted that courses
leading to higher degrees “being special and elective” could not at the
time be permanently formulated, but would be “framed for each subject
and student as the occasion arises.”63
The course in the History and Literature of Sociology was designed
to study sociological theory “historically rather than critically,” as subsequent announcements put it,64 while that in the Elements of Sociology
had rather a methodological and philosophical cast. The announcements for 1898–99 indicate Kerby’s general approach:
Sociology as taught in the University is neither a body of pure speculation, as
the science is sometimes represented, nor is it merely identical with social reform. It embraces the general principles underlying social phenomena.
. . . To preserve the useful character of the work, principles will not be
studied without careful and detailed application to social conditions, normal
and abnormal; and to preserve the scientific character of the courses, no sociological research, no study of social problems will be entertained, without
the constant guidance of the principles involved.65

This statement indicated plainly Kerby’s view of his own position
within the cross-currents of sociological endeavor as it was being understood at the turn of the century.Obviously,he was attempting to reconcile systematic analysis of “social being” with the study of current
social conditions and problems, while at the same time, on another
plane, maintaining “the scientific character” of his courses within the
framework of “principles” derived from philosophical as well as sociological analysis.
During 1898–99 Kerby added to his previous offerings a course on
socialism and a seminar on sociological literature. During 1900–1901
he began to offer work “on the Labor Question and the Social Reform
Program of the Catholic Church,” thus indicating the active interest in
labor problems that he maintained for some years. During 1901–1902
he offered a course on the sociological aspects of the medieval guilds
and during the following year a course on the sociological aspects of
the labor movement. The catalogue listings of courses for each of these
years described the work in sociology as “largely introductory.”
63
Year-Book of The Catholic University of America 1897–98 (Washington, D.C.,
1897), pp. 24–25.
64
Year-Book of The Catholic University of America 1901–1902 (Washington, D.C.,
1901), p. 81.
65
Year-Book of The Catholic University of America 1898–99 (Washington, D.C.,
1898), p. 54.

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657

Other courses that Kerby introduced before 1915 treated “social
processes in American life with particular reference to the functions of
conservatism and radicalism” (1907–1908), the sociological background of poverty and aims and methods in charity (1908–1909), and
principles and methods in social reform and social legislation (1910–11).
According to his own description, “from 1912 to 1914 the general
scope of the department included five divisions: Elementary Sociology,
General Sociology, Social Reform, Sociological Aspects of Poverty and
Relief and selected problems in the Seminar.”66
It is easy to note in these offerings the trend toward the emphasis
upon the professionalization of Catholic social work that was to become Kerby’s major contribution. It should be noted too that after undergraduate programs of concentration began to be offered by the
university, although not in sociology, two courses in sociology were required for the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Philosophy.67
Kerby,among others,had aroused so much interest in social studies that
his faculty, in deciding upon general requirements for undergraduate
degrees, had adopted a resolution providing that in such requirements
“emphasis be placed on Economics and Sociology.”68
Kerby’s definition of sociology as “the systematic study of forms, factors, processes and relations that occur in human association”69 was intended by him to be broad enough to include both of what he
distinguished as descriptive and directive aspects of the discipline. He
utilized “descriptive sociology,”never disparaged it,and often pointed to
its merits, but he found it less than satisfying in his search for “the great
laws which appear in the processes of human association.”70 In what he
called “directive sociology” Catholic teaching could be utilized to supply goals for social reform. Thus, Kerby’s energies came to be devoted
more and more to the professionalization of Catholic charities and to
the development of spirituality. Although he never addressed directly
the question of a “Catholic sociology” as it was to be formulated by one
of his successors, he would seem to have excluded its possibility at the
“descriptive” level but to have assumed its necessity at the “directive”
level.
Kerby to Bernard, op. cit.
Yearbook of The Catholic University of America (Washington, D.C., 1910), p. 176.
68
School of Philosophy, Minutes, May 3 and 6, 1910, in ACUA.
69
“The Teaching of Sociology in Catholic Women’s Colleges,” in Catholic Education Association, Proceedings, XVII (1920), 153.
70
“Human Nature and Social Questions,” Catholic World, LXXXV (1907), 43.
66

67

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INTRODUCTION OF SOCIOLOGY AT THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY, 1895–1915

Kerby’s original systematic application of sociological method as he
conceived it is best exemplified in a manuscript for an introductory
textbook that he never published.71 Significantly, its title promised not
an introduction to sociology but an Introduction to Social Living. Fusing the “descriptive” and the “directive” aspects of the discipline that he
had distinguished, he identified three basic processes in social life immediately involved in personal development, namely, individualization,
socialization, and idealization. The thrust of these processes—which he
conceived as forming a “social cycle”—is almost self-evident. The formulation had an obvious pedagogic advantage inasmuch as it motivated
students to reflect upon their own social participation. The grounding
of the processes in empirical observations and their amenability to teleological extension became clear. As a student of his spirituality has emphasized, Kerby was convinced that two realities were being “brought
to articulation by sociology, the social complexity of modern industrial
society and the extent to which one’s self-concept is shaped by social
forces.”72
That Kerby’s teaching earned him the respect and admiration of his
colleagues at an early date is manifest in resolutions of faculty bodies of
the time. First, the Faculty of Theology, supported by trustees, sought
unsuccessfully his transfer to their school as associate professor of
moral theology to succeed Bouquillon after the latter’s death.73 In both
the School of Philosophy and the Academic Senate it was objected that
the move “would seriously cripple the work of the School of Social Sciences.”74 Kerby’s promotion to full professorial rank was approved
unanimously in his faculty with the comment that he had “in every respect measured up to the best standards as teacher and as man”75 and
then approved in turn by the Academic Senate and the Board of
Trustees.76
Kerby was indeed a gifted if somewhat unorthodox teacher. Some
correspondence that he saved suggests that students accustomed to a
non-participatory classroom style were at first ill at ease in his courses.
71
The manuscript is in ACUA. A portion has been published by the William J. Kerby
Foundation, since dissolved, as Introduction to Social Living (Washington, D.C., 1948).
72
Bruce H. Lescher, C.S.C.,“William J. Kerby: A Lost Voice in American Catholic Spirituality,” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, CII (1991),
5–6.
73
Minutes, May 12, 1902 and March 19, 1903, in ACUA.
74
School of Philosophy, Minutes, May 28, 1902; Academic Senate, Minutes, June 16,
1902, in ACUA.
75
School of Philosophy, Governing Board, Minutes, March 4, 1903, in ACUA.
76
Academic Senate, Minutes, October 29, 1906, and January 17, 1907, in ACUA.

BY C. JOSEPH NUESSE

659

One of his students at Trinity College, however, writing many years after her graduation, has left a clear description of his method:
The experience was unique. He used no text book, nor did he hand out
long lists of required or suggested “readings” as is customary with college
professors. Instead, his classes were laboratory exercises where in [sic] he
guided and inducted the students into relating and interpreting the most
commonplace every day actions to basic concepts in such fashion that
fundamental truths became inescapably meshed into the students thinking for all time.77

The First Students

It is difficult to interpret enrollment lists for the period. As already
noted, the university did not offer undergraduate degree programs until
1904 and an undergraduate concentration in sociology was not offered
until after World War II. Students enrolled in the department of sociology during the years under consideration were pursuing what is now
called graduate study.
It would appear that eight students followed some work in sociology
or ethics during the department’s first year, when it was in the charge of
Bouquillon. Only one, Wellford Addis of Washington, D.C., a layman, was
enrolled for a degree in sociology during the two years 1895–1897. He
did not complete the doctoral program that he began.
The records suggest that student interest in sociology grew only gradually during Kerby’s early years. The first after Addis to elect sociology
as a major or minor subject in their degree programs were two laymen
from the Department of English, who, in 1899, after taking course work
in previous years, elected sociology as a second minor subject in their
programs for the degree of Master of Philosophy. They passed examinations during the following years.78 After the academic year 1898–99,
Kerby reported that his students had shown a “splendid spirit” but had
not done much “positive work” in sociology as all had devoted most of
their time to other studies.79
Not until 1903 was a student, a Marist priest, admitted to candidacy
for a doctorate in sociology.80 After approval of his dissertation, entitled
“St. Francis as a Social Reformer,” and after written comprehensive exLouise McGuire, handwritten memorandum (1940), in Kerby Papers, ACUA.
School of Philosophy,Minutes,October 9,1899, June 6 and November 7,1900,in ACUA.
79
Report for the Academic Year 1898–99, Office of the Vice Rector, 1896-1916, ACUA.
80
School of Philosophy, Minutes, November 5, 1903, in ACUA.

77
78

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INTRODUCTION OF SOCIOLOGY AT THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY, 1895–1915

aminations in his major and two minor fields and a public oral examination, his degree was conferred in 1904.81 Two master’s degrees were
conferred in 1909,another in 1910,a second doctorate in 1912,after approval of a dissertation entitled “The Social Obligations of Consumers,”82
four master’s degrees in 1914, and two doctorates in 1915, the dissertations being “Classification of Desires in St. Thomas and in Modern Sociology” and “A Legal Minimum Wage.”83
It can be noted that the topic of the dissertation on the social obligations of consumers may have been suggested by Kerby in view of work
that he had published at Louvain on “the question of department
stores.”84 The author of that on the minimum wage was John O’Grady,
who was appointed to the faculty in 1915 and who, in 1920, succeeded
Kerby as executive secretary of the National Conference of Catholic
Charities.
The dissertation promising a critical comparison of the views of St.
Thomas Aquinas and American pioneers in sociology was written by
Henry Ignatius Smith, a Dominican priest who had previously earned a
doctorate in sacred theology. It is almost exclusively philosophical in its
approach, with disappointingly little critical analysis. The classification
of desires as “sources of human actions” in the works of St. Thomas
Aquinas is presented thoroughly and systematically with references to
its bearing upon Ward’s “subjective” and Small’s “objective” classifications. The treatment throughout is notably irenic, “prompted by the
hope that modern sociology may find it to its advantage to acquaint itself more thoroughly with our old theological and philosophical literature” and that those already “thoroughly acquainted with that older
literature may find new insight in their own fields and a wider vision of
truth by taking advantage of the splendid results of the research work
that must be credited to modern sociology.”85
The year 1915 marked the end of what was in effect a twenty-year
founding period of the department of sociology. Among his colleagues
on the campus, Kerby, until 1915 the department’s lone professor, had
Ibid., March 2, April 6, May 4 and 25, 1904.
Ibid., March 6, May 27, November 5, 1912.
83
Ibid., June 4, 1915. For a complete compilation of masters’ and doctors’ degrees conferred,see Bernard G.Mulvaney,C.S.V.,“The Department of Sociology of The Catholic University of America, 1894–1955,” American Catholic Sociological Review, XVI (1955),
266–309.
84
Catholic University Chronicle, I (1897), 76.
85
Henry Ignatius Smith, O.P., Classification of Desires in St.Thomas and in Modern Sociology (Philosophical Studies,Vol.VIII [Washington, D.C., 1915]), pp. 41–42.
81

82

BY C. JOSEPH NUESSE

661

won confidence in his discipline as well as in himself. Among Catholic
leaders nationally, he had become known as a champion of progressive
measures, and, most prominently, as the leading advocate of professionalization in Catholic charities. Thus the visibility of the department of
sociology was increased with a resulting increase in enrollment in programs for higher degrees and in the number of undergraduate students
satisfying the newly updated requirements for the degrees of bachelor
of arts and bachelor of philosophy. The expansion of the department
was indicated.The new demands upon it were reflecting not only its internal development but the increasing institutionalization of sociology
in colleges and universities founded by American Catholics.86

See Bernard, op. cit., pp. 535, 542, 546, for suggestions as to this growth.

86

THE FIRST INTER-AMERICAN EPISCOPAL
CONFERENCE, NOVEMBER 2–4, 1959:
CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES CALLED TO
THE RESCUE OF LATIN AMERICA
BY
JAMES F. GARNEAU*

As with the push for the evangelization of African-Americans, and the
subsequent efforts to ordain priests from within the same community
for service within the United States, to a great extent, both the initiative
and the sustaining momentum for an ecclesial pan-American movement intended to aid the Church in Latin America during the Cold War
era came from the Holy See.1 The first inter-American Episcopal Conference,held at Georgetown University, Washington,D.C.,November 2–
4, 1959, consisting of representatives of the collegial bodies of the Latin
American, United States, and Canadian hierarchies,2 was convoked by
the Holy See in order “to broaden the concept of collaboration in solving the problems of South America, transforming it from a Latin American effort . . . [to] build a Pan-American collaboration.”3
*Dr. Garneau, a priest of the Diocese of Raleigh, is the academic dean and an assistant
professor of church history in The Pontifical College Josephinum, Columbus, Ohio. He
presented an abbreviated version of this paper at the Joint Meeting of the American
Catholic Historical Association and the Canadian Catholic Historical Association, University of Toronto, April 6, 2001. The addition of pages to the October issue of the Catholic
Historical Review to permit publication of this article has been financed by a subvention
from the Anne M. Wolf Fund.
1
Cyprian Davis, The History of Black Catholics in the United States (New York, 1993),
pp. 195–237 passim; Stephen J. Ochs, Desegregating the Altar: The Josephites and the
Struggle for Black Priests, 1871–1960 (Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1990), pp. 280–288, 327–
332.
2
The Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano (CELAM) had been created in 1955, The National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC) in 1919 (under the title of the National
Catholic Welfare Council; its antecedent organization was the National Catholic War
Council, created in November, 1917), and the Canadian Catholic Conference (CCC) in
1943.
3
Antonio Samorè, as quoted in NCC News Service, October 26, 1959, in the Archives of
The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. (ACUA), NCWC/USCC Papers, OGS,
Subject Files, International Affairs: Latin America: CELAM (1959, October–November).

662

BY JAMES F. GARNEAU

663

This gathering was the culmination of a series of papal initiatives that
sought to establish a greater degree of co-operation between the
churches in North and South America. The Holy See at that time had
enormous confidence in the ability of the Church in the United States
and in Canada to respond to the principal Cold War-related crises that
it had identified in Latin America—the advance of Communism and the
spread of Protestantism. These North American churches were judged
at the time as being especially capable of providing the necessary personnel and material aid to stem the advancing tide of both movements.4
During the Washington meetings, bishops from each of the regions
expressed their views with regard to the situation and presented proposals for action. Their deliberations provide an opportunity to examine the broad variety of expectations and attitudes in the postwar era
within the various national churches represented and the Holy See.This
variety made effective long-term collaboration difficult, despite the appearance to many observers of a more monolithic ecclesial unity in the
1950’s. The often contrasting perspectives observed at this conference
help to explain the more radical and public divisions within the Church
in America (North and South) of the following generation.
Cardinal Richard J. Cushing,Archbishop of Boston and founder of the
Missionary Society of St. James the Apostle, whose purpose it was to
send English-speaking diocesan priests for periods of missionary ser4
By its generally clandestine nature, the actual extent of Communism in Latin America
in the period under consideration is difficult to document. Studies on the subject are
found in Frederick C. Turner, Catholicism and Political Development in Latin America
(Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1971) pp. 121–138; and, from a “liberationist” perspective
(i.e., of Liberation Theology), Dermot Keogh (ed.), Church and Politics in Latin America
(London, 1990), passim. An anecdotal approach (one which had wide influence at the
time) is used in John J. Considine, Call for Forty Thousand (New York, 1946), especially
pp. 13, 87, 96, 152, 175, and 266; and idem, New Horizons in Latin America (New York,
1958), passim. Public Protestant activity, which began during periods of Liberalism in
several Latin American nations from soon after independence through the early twentieth
century, and was even encouraged by some governments, is documented and analyzed in
many places, including, William R. Read, Victor M. Monterroso, and Harmon A. Johnson,
Latin American Church Growth (Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1969); H. McKennie Goodpasture (ed.), Cross and Sword: An Eyewitness History of Christianity in Latin America
(Maryknoll, New York, 1989), especially pp. 105–242; Roger S. Greenway,“Protestant Missionary Activity in Latin America,” in Coming of Age: Protestantism in Contemporary
Latin America, ed. Daniel R. Miller (Lanham, Maryland, 1994), pp. 175–204; David Martin,
Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America (Oxford, 1990); and,
from a “liberationist” perspective, Jean-Pierre Bastian,“Protestantism in Latin America,” in
The Church in Latin America, 1492–1992, ed. Enrique Dussel (Maryknoll, New York,
1992), pp. 313–350,

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THE FIRST INTER-AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CONFERENCE, NOVEMBER 2–4, 1959

vice to Latin America, presided over the meetings, and Archbishop Antonio Samorè, Secretary of the newly-created Pontifical Commission for
Latin America,5 was in attendance. In addition, there were twenty other
bishops present, including the apostolic delegates to Canada (Sebastiano Baggio) and the United States (Egidio Vagnozzi), and eighteen
prelates from the United States, Canada, and all of South America (six
from each of the three regions).6
The purpose of the meeting, as understood by the Holy See and its
representatives, was much broader than that initially envisioned by the
majority of the United States bishops. Rather than yet another appeal
for financial support of a particular project or local effort within Latin
America, to which the United States bishops had become accustomed
over the years, this meeting had as its goal the mobilization and coordination of efforts from Canada and the United States for the strengthening of the Church in Latin America.7 The extent of the change and
5
One of the last major acts in the pontificate of Pius XII was the establishment of the
Pontifical Commission for Latin America (CAL) in April of 1958. The new Secretary of the
Sacred Consistorial Congregation, Cardinal Marcello Mimmi, was also named the first
president of CAL, and Archbishop Antonio Samorè its first Secretary (later, vice-president).
With CAL in existence, a higher profile was given to the papal initiatives with regard to
Latin America. According to the Annuario Pontificio of 1959, its purpose was to study
the “fundamental problems of Catholic life in Latin America in a unified manner,” and to
favor “close collaboration between those Offices and Congregations of the Roman Curia
most concerned with the solution of such problems. It also carefully follows and sustains
the activity of the Latin-American Episcopal Council (C.E.L.A.M.) and the Secretariat General annexed thereto.” See Annuario Pontificio per l’Anno 1959 (Vatican City, 1959), p.
1142, original in English.
6
“Minutes of the Meeting. Inter-American Episcopal Conference. November 2, 3, and 4,
1959. Washington, DC,” ACUA, NCWC/USCC Papers, OGS, Subject Files, International Affairs: Latin America, 1959–1966.
The U.S. prelates participating, in addition to Cardinal Cushing, were Archbishops
Robert E. Lucey (San Antonio), Joseph E. Ritter (St. Louis), Karl J. Alter (Cincinnati, and
President of the NCWC); and Bishops Mariano Simon Garriga (Corpus Christi), Joseph T.
McGucken (Sacramento); and Auxiliary Bishop James H. Griffiths (New York). The Canadians consisted of Archbishops Georges Cabana (Sherbrooke), Paul Bernier (Gaspé, and
President of the CCC), Marie-Joseph Lemieux (Ottawa); Bishop John C. Cody (London);
Coadjutor Bishop Albert Sanschagrin (Amos); and Auxiliary Bishop Francis V. Allen
(Toronto). The Conferencia Episcopal Latinoamericana (CELAM) was represented by
Archbishops Miguel Dario Miranda y Gómez (Mexico, Mexico, and President of CELAM),
Helder Pessôa Câmara (Auxiliary, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and First Vice-President of
CELAM), Emilio Botero González (Pasto, Colombia), Juan Carlos Aramburu (Tucumán, Argentina); and Bishops Manuel Larraín Errázuriz (Talca, Chile, and Second Vice-President of
CELAM), and Agnelo Rossi (Barra do Piraí, Brazil).
7
The intentions of the Holy See are indicated in a letter, Mimmi to Cicognani, June 24,
1958, a translation of which (entitled “Rough Translation”) was sent to all members of the

BY JAMES F. GARNEAU

665

unprecedented levels of co-operation that were expected by the Holy
See became apparent to some of the United States bishops only gradually. In a letter of March 6, 1959, to Monsignor Paul F.Tanner, the General
Secretary of the National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC) at the
time, the Archbishop of Philadelphia, Cardinal John O’Hara, wrote that
these initiatives of the Holy See “seem to imply a program for the American Bishops that goes far beyond anything we had contemplated.”8
On the other hand, for well over a year the bishops of the Episcopal
Council of Latin America (CELAM), led by its General Secretary, Dom
Helder Pessôa Câmara of Brazil, had been requesting such a meeting
with representatives of the NCWC, without much favorable response.9
The United States bishops had not ignored the needs of the Church in
Latin America. They had been supporting the continued existence of
the Montezuma Seminary since its opening in Las Vegas, New Mexico,
in September, 1937, and referred to this fact not infrequently.10 There
were United States Religious personnel serving in various countries of
Latin America,11 and there had been a certain sharing of information
and resources in matters of Catholic Action,12 Rural Life,13 Catholic ReNCWC with a cover letter, to “Your Excellency,”from Paul Tanner, General Secretary of the
NCWC, July 8, 1958, in ACUA, NCWC/USCC Papers, OGS, Subject Files, International Affairs: Latin America: CELAM (1958).
8
O’Hara to “Dear Monsignor Tanner,” in ACUA, NCWC/USCC Papers, OGS, Subject Files,
International Affairs: Latin America: CELAM (1959, January–June).
9
See ACUA, NCWC/USCC Papers, OGS, Subject Files, International Affairs: Latin America: CELAM (1956–57), passim; ibid. (1959–1966),“Minutes of the Meeting. Inter-American Episcopal Conference,” p. 183.
10
Mary M. McGlone, Sharing Faith Across the Hemisphere (Washington, D.C.: United
States Catholic Conference, 1997), pp. 79–80. The annual subsidy for the seminary was
$125,000.00 in 1957. See report of NCWC to CELAM,“Memorandum,” November 7, 1957,
informing the latter of the activities of the U.S. Church on behalf of Latin America, in
ACUA, NCWC/USCC Papers, OGS, Subject Files, International Affairs: Latin America:
CELAM (1958). On the involvement of the Reverend John J. Burke, C.S.P., General Secretary of the NCWC, in the Mexican Church crisis of the 1920’s and ’30’s, see Quigley,
“Notes on the History of the U.S. Bishops’ Conference in Its Relations with the Church in
Latin America” (unpublished manuscript, n.d.), pp. 1–2; Angelyn Dries, The Missionary
Movement in American Catholic History (Maryknoll, New York, 1998), pp. 95–96; and
McGlone,op.cit.,pp.77–80.A more complete study of the political and diplomatic history
is available in David C. Bailey, ¡Viva Cristo Rey!: The Cristero Rebellion and the ChurchState Conflict in Mexico (Austin, Texas, 1974).
11
See Dries, op. cit., pp. 45–49, 54–57, 179–186; McGlone, op. cit., pp. 80–83; and Gerald
M. Costello, Mission to Latin America: The Successes and Failures of a Twentieth Century Crusade (Maryknoll, New York, 1979), pp. 3–6.
12
The Social Action Department of the NCWC, under the direction of the Reverend
Raymond A. McGowan, co-ordinated the U.S. participation in the series of Inter-American

666

THE FIRST INTER-AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CONFERENCE, NOVEMBER 2–4, 1959

lief Services,14 and the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine,15 for some
time. But there was no central organizing plan or office for assistance,
and little interest in establishing such. The bishops of the United States
had refused to establish a committee of bishops for the purposes of
studying the situation and mobilizing the available resources for Latin
America at their annual meeting in 1957.16 And a national collection “to
defend the Faith in Latin America if serious consequences are to be
avoided” was proposed as early as 1956, but it too had been rejected as
impractical by the General Secretary of the NCWC.17
Nevertheless, a special push came from the Holy See in the form of a
letter, dated June 24, 1958, from Cardinal Marcello Mimmi, the President
of the newly created Pontifical Commission for Latin America, to the
Apostolic Delegate in the United States, Archbishop Amleto Cicognani.
The letter,copies of which were sent to the bishops of the United States
by the NCWC, emphasized what Mimmi judged to be the “basic problem of Catholic life in Latin America—an insufficient number of apostolic forces,” at a time when “the Church is faced with new problems
Social Action Seminars, 1948–1958. McGowan also directed the short-lived Latin American Bureau of the NCWC, 1931–1933. See Thomas E. Quigley,“Notes, pp. 2–3; Dries, op.
cit., pp. 97–100. The Catholic Students Mission Crusade, also inspired by the themes and
principles of Catholic Action,contributed to a consciousness,among U.S.Catholics,of the
religious situation in Latin America; see Angelyn Dries,“The Missionary Critique of American Institutions: From Catholic Americans to Global Catholics, 1948–1976,” U.S. Catholic
Historian, 17 (Winter, 1999), 59–72.
13
On the extensive and prodigious labors of Monsignor Luigi Ligutti of the National
Catholic Rural Life Conference, and the influence of the international conferences that
were sponsored, see Quigley,“Notes,” pp. 3–4; McGlone op. cit., p. 83; and Costello, op. cit.,
pp. 27–29, 33.
14
Evidence of CRS involvement is seen throughout the records in ACUA, NCWC/USCC
Papers, OGS, Subject Files, International Affairs: Latin America: CELAM.
15
The interest and efforts of Archbishop Robert E. Lucey of San Antonio have already
been noted in this study. For more see Stephen A. Privett,“Robert E. Lucey: Evangelization
and Catechesis among Hispanic Catholics” (Ph.D. dissertation, The Catholic University of
America, 1985).
16
Reverend John A. Wagner, Executive Secretary, Bishops’ Committee for the Spanish
Speaking, to Msgr. Paul F. Tanner, July 3,1958, in ACUA, NCWC/USCC Papers, OGS, Subject
Files, International Affairs: Latin America (1958). Wagner reported that Archbishop Lucey
had been advocating the establishment of a bishops’ committee for many years, but to no
avail. A Mission Secretariat had been established by the NCWC in 1949, with the Reverend
Frederick McGuire, C.M., appointed its executive secretary. The foundation of this secretariat, and its relationship with the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, under the direction of Monsignor Fulton J.Sheen,is discussed in Dries,Missionary Movement,pp.152–155.
17
Letter of Dale Francis to Monsignor Howard Carroll, November 6, 1956, and reply, December 3, 1956, in ACUA, NCWC/USCC Papers, OGS, Subject Files, International Affairs:
Latin America (1956–57).

BY JAMES F. GARNEAU

667

due to social changes in course and to the developments of the antiCatholic offensive, particularly on the part of Protestantism and Communism.”
Mimmi recognized the “praiseworthy activity” of the Church in the
United States both for what American Catholics “have done and are doing in behalf of the Church in Latin America . . .,” drawing particular attention to the “cooperation on the part of the secular clergy.”18 Mimmi
suggested that in addition to priest personnel,“Religious, Sisters, and,
eventually, also laymen inspired by an Apostolic spirit,” might be sent to
Latin America in greater numbers. He admired the “beautiful organizing
forms that represent a precious heritage of Catholicism in the United
States,”and he hoped that these might be transplanted to “the South,”for
the sake of the Church there. In the end, organizational skills, financial
resources, and personnel were deemed essential, and the United States
was seen to possess these in abundance.
In addition, there was a unique form of pressure on the bishops of
the United States coming from Latin America. While the commitment of
the United States to the fight against Communism was unquestioned,
both domestically and internationally, during those years, there were
some ecclesiastics in Latin America who noted that the primary source
of “Protestant proselytism” in their countries was the same United
States of America.In a paper entitled “The Catholics of the United States
of America and Protestantism in America,” Bishop Agnelo Rossi of Barra
do Piraí, Brazil, argued that the “Good Neighbor Policy”of the Roosevelt
years, which had so advanced the development of “Pan-American
union,” had also intensified the rapid growth and influence of Protestantism in the region. Rossi, writing on behalf of the “National Committee of Defense of Moral[s] and Faith”of the Brazilian hierarchy,called on
North American Catholics to increase their assistance to the Church
throughout Latin America, so that the Catholic Church,“the true link of
union in America,” might prosper and grow. The suggestion that North
Americans had a special responsibility to assist because their nation
constituted the principal source of the problem was not a very subtle
one.19
18
He specifically referred to the Archdiocese of St. Louis, which had first sent priests to
Bolivia in 1956, and the “incipient ‘Society of St. James the Apostle’ in the Archdiocese of
Boston,” Cardinal Cushing’s project, though it had not yet sent anyone to Latin America,
nor had it even been formally established. See above, footnote 7.
19
“Rough translation,” n.d., in ACUA, NCWC/USCC Papers, OGS, Subject Files, International Affairs: Latin America: CELAM (1956–57).

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THE FIRST INTER-AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CONFERENCE, NOVEMBER 2–4, 1959

The Canadian Church and in particular the French Canadians, who
were never faulted for the spread of Protestantism in Latin America,
were also seen as capable of providing needed assistance, especially in
terms of clerical and Religious personnel. From the generation just preceding World War II to that following it, the total number of priests in
Quebec increased from 4,274 to 7,908, giving a ratio of clergy to laity,
in 1960, of 1:586.20 This stood in marked contrast to the experience in
Latin America, where in 1960 there was a ratio of one priest for approximately 5,420 Catholics. (The ratio in the United States at the time
was 1:835.21) In addition, French Canada was proving itself to be increasingly generous to the missions financially, contributing nearly
$2.25 million in 1957.22
During the war,there was an increase of opportunities for Catholic as
well as Protestant Canadians to demonstrate their missionary zeal, due
to the inability of many European missionaries to continue their work
in various regions of the world.23 Moreover, in light of the pervasive anticolonial attitudes of the postwar era, the French Canadian missionaries were perceived by many people in third-world nations as more
acceptable collaborators than some priests and Religious from Europe
and the United States in as much as they were largely free of political
and imperialist suspicions.24 In many instances, Canadian Catholic missionary societies and their members had experience with the evangelization and pastoral care of indigenous peoples within their national
territories long before they went to foreign lands, and so were more apt
to accept local customs and cultural expressions as compatible with
20
Roberto Perin,“French-Speaking Canada from 1840,” in A Concise History of Christianity in Canada, ed. Terrence Murphy (Toronto, 1996), pp. 241–242.
21
François Houtart and Émile Pin, The Church and the Latin American Revolution,
trans.Gilbert Barth (New York,1965),p.154.Houtart also reported that while many of the
37,600 priests working in Latin America were from Europe and North America, eightyfour percent of the Protestant ministers working in the same region were native to it, and
that their ratio of church members to ministers at the time was approximately 482:1.
22
Perin, op. cit., p. 242.
23
Robert T. Handy, A History of the Churches in the United States and Canada (New
York, 1977), p. 409.
24
John Webster Grant, The Church in the Canadian Era:The First Century of Confederation (Toronto, 1972), p. 155; and Jean Bruchési, A History of Canada, trans. R. W. W.
Robertson (Toronto, 1950), pp. 282–285, wherein he noted that at the end of World War II
Canada had two cardinals, and that “Canadians have acceded head [sic] of many great religious orders and have assumed an increasingly important influence in the Roman Curia,
the nerve centre of the Church.” Perhaps, however, he exaggerated when he suggested
that by this time Canada had become “a focal and centre point of Catholic, and indeed of
Christian thought.” Also, see Henri Gondreault,“Les Missionnaires Canadiens à l’Etranger
au XXe Siècle,” Sessions d’Etude: Société d’Histoire de l’Eglise Catholique, 50 (1983), 378.

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Christian life.25 They had learned that missionary work was a “two-way
process of cultural interchange.”26
The postwar religious revival in Canada paralleled that occurring in
the United States.27 Along with notable increases in membership, attendance,28 church-related construction, and in the numbers of candidates
to the priesthood and the Religious life, the period was also marked by
a new ecumenical spirit.29 It is perhaps ironic that this postwar ecumenism, which enabled the Catholics, especially the English-speaking
ones, to abandon their cultural and institutional isolationism within
Canadian society, combined with economic prosperity and an increasingly secular worldview, may have undermined much of the celebrated
religious revival and subsequent ecclesial expansion, both at home and
abroad. But that would not become apparent until the 1970’s.30 The
peak number of Catholic Canadian missionaries working in Latin America and throughout the world was reached in 1971.31
25
On the development of Catholic missionary efforts in Canada that followed the call
of Pope Benedict XV’s Maximum Illud, issued November 30,1919, see Gondreault, op.
cit., pp. 363–368.
26
Ibid., p. 181. However, Perin, op. cit., p. 242, in evident disagreement with this analysis, wrote,“In general, the missionaries’ objective was for native cultures to adopt FrenchCanadian religion in its entirety.”
27
Brian Clark, “English-Speaking Canada from 1854,” in A Concise History of Christianity in Canada, p. 355; Handy, op. cit., pp. 409–410.
28
According to Grant, op. cit., p. 181, in a 1955 Gallup Poll, ninety-five percent of the
French-Canadian population of the Province of Quebec attended Mass on a weekly basis.
On the “religious revival” of the period within the United States, called “American Religion’s Indian Summer,”by James Hennesey, S.J., in A History of the Roman Catholic Community in the United States (New York, 1981) ), p. 284, see Mark Silk, Spiritual Politics:
Religion and America Since World War II (New York, 1988); J. Ronald Oakley, God’s
Country: America in the Fifties (New York, 1986); Stephen J. Whitfield, The Culture of
the Cold War (Baltimore, 1991), pp. 77–100; James D. Patterson, Grand Expectations:The
United States, 1945–1974 (New York, 1996), pp. 328–333; and Robert Wuthnow, After
Heaven: Spirituality in America Since the 1950’s (Berkeley, 1998). A 1958 Gallup Poll indicated that nearly half of the adult population in the United States attended church or
synagogue in a sample week, as cited in Paul Blanshard, God and Man in Washington
(Boston, 1960), p. 15.
29
Mark A. Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada (Grand
Rapids, Michigan, 1992), p. 537; Handy, op. cit., pp. 404–407, 409–411. There was something of an ecumenical spirit witnessed in Nova Scotia and other parts of eastern Canada
in the 1930’s, a result of the credit union and cooperative movements that sought out
practical solutions to economic difficulties for farmers, fishermen, and miners. See Grant,
op. cit., p. 140.
30
Clark, op. cit., pp. 358–359.
31
According to Gondreault, op. cit., p. 368, there were 1,894 in Latin America, and 5,256
worldwide.

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The first time the Holy See ever called the bishops of Latin America
together as a body was in the form of a plenary council, convoked at
Rome in 1899, in order to address a number of common pastoral and
canonical concerns.32 The next such meeting was also convoked by Roman authority; Pius XII, taking advantage of the occasion of a Eucharistic Congress to be held at Rio de Janeiro,Brazil, July 17–24,1955,invited
representatives from among the bishops of Latin America to convene
under the presidency of the Secretary of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation, Cardinal Adeodato Piazza, and with Archbishop Antonio
Samorè, Secretary of the Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical
Affairs, to function as executive secretary of the proposed conference.
In an Apostolic Letter to Cardinal Piazza, Ad Ecclesiam Christi ( June
29, 1955), the Holy Father expressed his desire that the assembled representatives develop a pastoral plan for the continent.33 The two weeks
of meetings produced the establishment of the Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano (CELAM), the first regional conference of bishops, consisting of representatives of the hierarchies of twenty-two Latin
American nations.“At Rio, the bishops were really united for the first
time,” Samorè noted in a 1976 interview,34 and thus united, they were
soon encouraged by the Holy See to organize their efforts more effectively.
The problems peculiar to the Church in Latin America were of increasing concern to the Holy See, and it saw that part of the solution lay not
only in local collegial consultation and action, but also in pan-American
collaboration. The encouragement in the formation of CELAM, seven
years prior to the convening of the Second Vatican Council, demonstrates that the national and regional episcopal conferences were
judged to be useful tools by the Holy See itself, and were not simply a
consequence of the conciliar decree Christus Dominus, as is commonly assumed.35 The first inter-American episcopal conference of
1959 was, therefore, the next step in a significant process, inspired by
Rome.

32
The Council opened in Rome on May 28, 1899, with fifty-three archbishops and bishops present from sixteen countries in Latin America. The work of the Council was concluded on July 9, 1899. See Felipe Cejudo Vega,“El Primer Concilio Plenario de la América
Latina” ( J.C.D. dissertation, University of Ottawa, 1948); and Acta et Decreta Concilii Plenarii Americae Latinae (Vatican City, 1999).
33
The letter can be found in Acta Apostolicae Sedis,XXXXVII,Series II,Vol.XXII (1955),
539–544.
34
Costello, op. cit., p. 15.
35
See especially Christus Dominus, pars. 36–38, on episcopal conferences.

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671

The Holy See had undoubtedly been made aware,through a variety of
sources, of the severe shortage of Catholic priests in most of Latin
America. As early as 1946, the Maryknoll missionary John J. Considine
had dramatically documented this shortage in his book, Call for Forty
Thousand,36 by means of which he left no doubt that the loss to the
Church of vast numbers of the population, to both Protestant and Communistic influences, was not only possible but actual. His solution, of
course, was in the rapid expansion of the number of priests serving the
region. In another study of the region, published in 1958,37 Considine
continued to call for the presence of more priests, both through the importation of foreign priests and the development of native clergy in
each country. A helpful overall picture and analysis of the Latin American contexts was also provided by means of the conclusions reached at
the Third Inter-American Catholic Action Week held in Chimbote, Peru,
in 1953.38 These analyses were echoed in the 1958 letter of Cardinal
Mimmi to Archbishop Cicognani, which was distributed to the hierarchy of the United States by the NCWC.
Nevertheless, there was a sentiment expressed among some experts
that the presentation of the “principal dangers” to Latin American
Catholicism was being too narrowly drawn. In an inter-office memorandum to Monsignor Tanner, Father Frederick A. McGuire, C.M., the Executive Secretary of the Mission Secretariat of the NCWC, responded
to Cardinal Mimmi’s call to action with his own critique: “I noted,
with something akin to dismay, that there was no mention of the socioeconomic conditions prevalent in many of the Latin American republics
and the connection between a retrograding Faith and these deplorable
socio-economic conditions. . . . I am firmly convinced that there is a direct connection.”39 And not long afterwards, a press release was issued
See above, footnote 4.
Considine, New Horizons in Latin America.
38
William J. Coleman, Latin-American Catholicism:A Self-Evaluation (Maryknoll, New
York, 1958). In the final report, which was intended to inform and animate Catholic Action groups throughout the continent, several causes of the current crisis were identified
(ibid., pp. 46–51, 62), including “external agents,” namely, Freemasonry, Communism, and
“Protestant propaganda that is undertaken on a great scale because of North American financial support.” Further evidence of a similar perception is seen in an “Inter-American
Week of Apologetical Studies” ( January 2–9, 1955), that had been called by the Archbishop of Bogotá, Cardinal Crisanto Luque, to evaluate the situation, and had produced a
document entitled,“The Protestant Problem in Latin America” in ACUA, NCWC/USCC Papers, OGS, Subject Files, International Affairs: Latin America (1949–1955).
39
“Inter-Office Memorandum,” September 10, 1958, in ACUA, NCWC/USCC Papers,
OGS, Subject Files, International Affairs: Latin America: CELAM (1958).
36
37

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by the NCWC News Service that proclaimed,“NOT COMMUNISM, BUT
‘SOCIAL UNREST’ IS REAL THREAT TO LATIN AMERICA, EDITOR
SAYS.”40 The emphasis on the need for the reform of the social order
was also prominently heard in some Latin American voices, such as
those of Bishops Manuel Larraín of Chile and Helder Pessôa Câmara of
Brazil, both of whom would be among those representing CELAM in
Washington in 1959. There and elsewhere, these prelates came to be
known as noted advocates of the position that extreme poverty and social inequities were the more fundamental problems in Latin America,
not Protestantism and Communism, but there was little evidence in
minutes of the Inter-American Episcopal Conference that the United
States bishops were attuned or sympathetic to this kind of analysis.41
That conference had on its agenda a series of topics for discussion:
clergy, education, social action, Amerindians, and the “biblical movement.” The final session, in addition to concluding remarks by Cushing,
Samorè, and others, included the presentation of a summary statement,
prepared in a special meeting held on the previous evening by a committee consisting of Cushing, Miranda, Bernier, Alter, and Tanner. The
statement was intended for “all the bishops of Latin America, Canada
and the United States,” and not for the press, as it was explicitly stated.42
When the meeting began on the morning of Monday, November 2,
1959, at the School of Linguistics on the campus of Georgetown University, Archbishop Samorè began by alluding to the historic nature of
the conference. He observed that the occasion was “the first time representatives of the Hierarchies of the Americas have held a formal session; this is the first Pan American Episcopal Meeting.” Later in the

40
December 15, 1958, ibid. (1959, May-July). The editor quoted was Jaime Fonseca, of
Noticias Católicas, the Spanish- and Portuguese-language news service of the NCWC.
41
See Earl Boyea,“The National Catholic Welfare Conference: An Experiment in Episcopal Leadership, 1935–1945” (Ph.D. dissertation, The Catholic University of America,
1987), pp. 396–425. Boyea’s extensive research in the archives of the NCWC has led him
to the conclusion that “the NCWC regularly articulated its concern about Communism
along two fronts: the need to confront it and the need to address social ills which supported its rise and furtherance.” He also noted that when the bishops spoke publicly on
the matter,“the more vocal opponents of Communism tended to focus just on its evils and
the need to oppose it” (interview with author). This thesis is very much in keeping with
what is documented in this paper with regard to the U.S. bishops who participated in the
1959 Inter-American Episcopal Conference. Members of the staff, such as McGuire, were
clearly more in touch with the “official” stance (with its “two fronts”) of the NCWC than
prelates like Cushing.
42
“Minutes of the Meeting. Inter-American Episcopal Conference,“ p. 156–159.

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673

session, again emphasizing the importance of the encounter, Samorè
quoted the Holy Father, Pope John XXIII, who had expressed his own
intense interest in the meeting and its results when he told him,“You
are taking Caesar on your shoulders.”43
Early on in the meetings, Samorè proposed that a “bureau or section”
be established in the Bogotá, Ottawa, and Washington offices of the various conferences represented in order to foster and co-ordinate efforts
on behalf of the Church in Latin America, under the leadership of CAL
in Rome.The assembled bishops never directly acted on this proposal.44
Furthermore, while Samorè presumed that the bishops’ committees
present were not merely ad hoc in nature, i.e., for the sole purpose of
the assembly, and would continue functioning after it, Archbishop Alter
of Cincinnati, President of the NCWC, clearly avoided endorsing the
idea. He seemed to express some level of annoyance when he said,“We
knew nothing of the composition of the Canadian committee when our
committee was set up, nor did we know the personnel of the Latin
American committee.” He also indicated that it was only very late in the
organizational process that he even learned that the Canadians had
been invited by Rome.45
Samorè returned to his original theme on November 4, at the presentation of the summary statement, which did not, by the way, include
the proposal he sought. He urged Cardinal Cushing to encourage the
American bishops to make their members present into “a permanent
committee of the N.C.W.C.” The Cardinal only indicated that he would
be “very happy to propose it.”46
Archbishop Bernier of Gaspé (Canada)47 began his remarks on November 2 by praising “this great movement of solidarity,” and confidently stated that public opinion in Canada was well disposed toward
it. He predicted that not only were the bishops, priests, and Religious of
the nation “anxious to go to Latin America to spend five, ten, or fifteen
years of their lives to help Latin America help itself,” but that “even our
laymen” wish to join the effort.48 By this time, in fact, the Canadian
Church counted five bishops, fifty religious societies, and about a thouIbid., p. 33.
Ibid., pp. 18–19.
45
Ibid., p. 73.
46
Ibid., p. 159.
47
Bernier was appointed Bishop of Gaspé,with the personal title of archbishop,in 1957,
and was President of the Canadian Catholic Conference from 1958 to 1960.
48
“Minutes of the Meeting. Inter-American Episcopal Conference,” p. 20.
43

44

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THE FIRST INTER-AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CONFERENCE, NOVEMBER 2–4, 1959

sand “priests and religious, and the lay apostles who . . . formed our advance party in Latin America.”49
More directly addressing the theme of the shortage of clergy, Archbishop Lemieux of Ottawa suggested that Latin American bishops send
candidates for the priesthood to United States and Canadian seminaries, both for the purpose of assisting their local churches with the costs
of formation, and for the sake of better acquainting North American
seminarians with South American realities.50 Archbishop Botero of
Pasto (Colombia), who began his first intervention by reaffirming that
Protestantism and Communism were the twin principal threats to the
Catholic faith on the continent,also favored the offering of scholarships
to American and Canadian seminarians for study in Latin American seminaries. He also proposed the creation of seminaries in North America
(one in the United States and one in Canada), wherein candidates from
those countries could be prepared for service in Latin America, as had
been done in Spain and Belgium.51
This last idea was not well received, either by the Americans or by
the Canadians. More favorably received was the idea of supporting,
both financially and with faculty, the creation of new seminaries in the
south. Bernier suggested that one be considered for the Central American and Caribbean region.52 Alter expressed apprehension about the stability of the region, and, interestingly enough, cited the concern of New
York’s Cardinal Francis Spellman about the risks of investing in a seminary in the area. Archbishop Lemieux was more positive toward the
idea and, showing a certain political astuteness regarding Cold War realities and recent United States interventions in the region, suggested
that only the Canadians could safely build a seminary in the region.53
In the midst of these discussions regarding seminary construction,
Samorè reminded the assembled group that there were no bishops present from Central America.54 Nevertheless, the summary statement prepared on the evening of November 3 stated that the bishops of Canada
49
As of June 1, 1958, as noted in “Apostolic Cooperation between Canada and Latin
America,” a pastoral letter of the Canadian hierarchy, issued January 13, 1960, in Donum
Dei: Serving the Church in Latin America (Ottawa: Canadian Religious Conference,
1963), p. 106.
50
“Minutes of the Meeting. Inter-American Episcopal Conference,” pp. 27–28.
51
Ibid., pp. 48–55. A history of the Madrid-based effort is found in Antonio Garrigos
Meseguer, Evangelizadores de América: Historia de la OCSHA (Madrid, 1992).
52
“Minutes of the Meeting. Inter-American Episcopal Conference,” p. 67.
53
Ibid., p. 79.
54
Ibid., p. 65.

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675

and the United States would “help in the construction of two seminaries, one in the Caribbean area and the other in Northeastern Brazil.”The
latter region had been suggested by Archbishop Câmara on the first day
of meetings.55 The statement also indicated the hope of the bishops that
plans for the exchange of seminary professors and the granting of
scholarships for seminarians would also be developed.56 Notably, in the
matter of seminary construction alone,no further consultation with the
episcopal conferences being represented was indicated as necessary, as
it was insisted upon in all other matters discussed.
In the midst of his intervention, Archbishop Botero had also highlighted the generosity that the Church in the United States had shown
in its contribution to the missionary needs of Latin America. He praised
Serra Clubs, the Montezuma Seminary, Maryknoll, and Cushing himself.57 Bernier asked Cushing to explain the structure of the St. James Society, which Cushing had canonically established earlier that same
year.58 The Cardinal-Archbishop of Boston seemed happy to comply
with the request, and explained the nature and purpose of the society.
But later that day, Bernier suggested that a Canadian counterpart was
not in the making, when he said that there was a “strong feeling in
Canada against forming a new society of any kind” among most of the
bishops.59
The question of sending North American clerical and Religious personnel to Latin America was broached on the first day. It was hoped by
proponents that the presence of English-speaking Religious could both
inspire local vocations in Latin America, and provide an alternative to
the many schools run by the YMCA and other Protestant groups, where
English was taught. Archbishop Alter was the most vocally opposed to
this approach, apparently for two principal reasons.“I am convinced,”
he said,“in my own mind that we are on a false trail if we think that outside help is going to solve the problem. Some stimulation from outside
will help, but the problem has to be solved from the inside.”60 His second objection stemmed from a local pastoral concern: the contemporary increase of the Catholic population in the United States and the
Ibid., pp. 74–75.
Ibid., p. 158.
57
Ibid., p. 54.
58
The first public mention of Cushing’s idea for a new society came in the form of a column written by the Archbishop for the archdiocesan newspaper, the Pilot, 129 (February
1, 1958), 15. It was canonically erected on July 25, 1958.
59
“Minutes of the Meeting. Inter-American Episcopal Conference,” pp. 33, 63–64.
60
Ibid., p. 37.
55

56

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lack of a proportionate increase in the number of Religious sisters
needed to teach in parochial schools. As a consequence, he calculated,
the increasing number of lay teachers “is actually bankrupting us.” He
also noted the lack of sufficient numbers of Catholic chaplains in the
United States military.61
The following day, when the bishops took up the topic of education,
Alter returned to his theme of the previous day and stated even more
emphatically that sending Religious to Latin America would mean,“our
children will go to public schools.”62 Lemieux responded that while he
could not commit the Religious to missionary work in Latin America,“I
think I can push those of my diocese to listen to the call of the Holy
See.”63 Samorè announced that he was planning to meet in the near future with Religious superiors in the United States and Canada in order
to advance his proposals. In response to a question from Lemieux, inquiring of Samorè as to how many schools the Holy See expected each
country to undertake, he suggested that the Canadian Religious might
begin work in Latin America with two schools “this year.”64 In response,
Vagnozzi, the Apostolic Delegate in the United States, pointed out the
difference in funding between the United States and Canadian school
systems, and concluded that perhaps the Canadian Church “might be
even more generous,” since American Catholics were “paying twice” for
the education of their youth.65
While Lemieux was evidently enthusiastic about the possibilities of
expanded North American Religious presence in Latin America, Alter
was not alone in his caution. Bernier, along with the Archbishop of
Cincinnati, pointed out that the bishops could not simply “convoke”the
Religious,much less assign them to the new apostolate.66 The concept of
offering scholarships to Catholic colleges and universities in the north
Ibid.
Ibid., pp. 115–116.
63
Ibid., p. 116.
64
Samorè was scheduled to address a joint meeting of the Conferences of Major Superiors of Men and Women Religious, held at the University of Notre Dame on August 17,
1961. Due to the death of Cardinal Tardini (on July 30, 1961), Monsignor Agostino
Casaroli, substituting for Samorè, made the presentation, culminating in a request that
“each religious province aim to contribute to Latin America in the next ten years a tithe—
ten per cent—of its present membership as of this current year.” The full text of the talk
is found in Costello, op. cit., pp. 273–281. The same presentation was given in Canada at a
joint session of the two Directive Councils of the Men’s Section and the Women’s Section
of the Canadian Religious Conference, on August 22, 1961, see Donum Dei, pp. 43–57.
65
“Minutes of the Meeting. Inter-American Episcopal Conference,” p. 117.
66
Ibid., pp. 115–119.
61
62

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to Latin Americans and to paying more attention to the pastoral care of
such students was more widely embraced by those present.
In the afternoon session on November 3,“social action”was discussed.
Monsignor Edward E.Swanstrom,the director of Catholic Relief Services,
was invited to give a presentation. In this context, Samorè was quick to
note the concern of the Holy See about the dual menaces of Communism and Protestantism in Latin America, and he proposed the establishment of a “social school, for the training of labor leaders,” in order to
respond to the current dire situation. He cited a letter of the bishops of
Bolivia,dated October 27,1959,in which they stated,“The great dangers
that threaten the Catholic Church in Bolivia are Communism and Protestantism.” They also warned,“The number of Protestants actually grows.”67
Samorè’s perspective was subsequently affirmed and re-emphasized by
the two apostolic delegates present,Vagnozzi and Baggio.68
Baggio pointed favorably to the example of the Catholic University of
Santiago, Chile, where a faculty of social sciences had just opened. But
he also emphasized the need for the formation of “popular leaders . . .
who will be able to teach how to form unions, how to infiltrate unions,
how to have strikes and maintain them within limits, how to be able to
answer questions about the social doctrine of the Church.” He went on
to present the suggestion of Bishop John R. MacDonald of Antigonish
(Canada), who had previously offered scholarships for priests and lay
people from Latin America in order to study in his diocese, which had
a tradition of education and formation of leadership for the establishment of cooperatives and credit unions of various kinds, among farmers, fishermen, and miners.69
Samorè pledged to contact Bishop MacDonald as soon as possible,
“both from Rome and from Bogotá.” Archbishop Miranda then publicly
thanked Archbishop Lucey for having paid the expenses for three
priests of the Archdiocese of Mexico City to attend training programs at
Ibid., pp. 132–133.
Ibid., pp. 138–140.
69
Ibid., pp. 140–141. Also, see Grant, op. cit., pp. 139–140, wherein he highlights the cooperative programs among farmers initiated at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish,
Nova Scotia, during the Great Depression, and the subsequent annual conferences that
were held on social and economic problems. Such Canadian efforts, generally small in
scale, were theologically supported in 1931 by Quadragesimo Anno, and provided a
counterweight to the influence of Socialism and Communism. Also of note in this context, and indicated by Grant ( p. 148), was Archbishop J. C. McGuigan’s call in 1939, that
the Church must turn “from talk against Communism to work for social justice.” He was
Archbishop of Toronto at the time.
67

68

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St.Francis Xavier University in Antigonish.According to the archbishop,
the priests, as a result of this formation, were highly successful in setting up credit unions and a housing project in Mexico.70
Bishop Larraín of Chile, praising the work of Monsignor Luigi G.
Ligutti, a priest of the Diocese of Des Moines and first executive secretary of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference,71 also stressed the
importance of Catholic Action groups, of the formation of lay leadership, and of the establishment of institutes for that purpose, in all these
efforts for social reform. Auxiliary Bishop James H. A. Griffiths of the
Archdiocese of New York recommended the establishment of “labor
schools,” in order to “reinfiltrate” labor unions and associated movements.72 In the final summary statement, the bishops of the United
States and Canada agreed to subsidize a School of Social Service. They
also recommended that “native students” be sponsored in “foreign universities,” and that “labor and agricultural schools or centers” be established in order to develop “the right type of leaders among the rural and
laboring classes.”73
Larraín also addressed the subject of the “Amerindian Problem,” recommending that Catholic universities throughout the Americas, in a
joint effort, establish “some sort of Indian Studies Institute.” He was followed by Archbishop Miranda, who pointed out that “the problem of
the Indian” was not exclusive to South America. But no further proposals or suggestions were made, and the proposals were not mentioned in
the final statement of the bishops, nor were the indigenous peoples of
America.74
On November 4, Cardinal Cushing presented the final draft of the
summary statement that had been prepared, and noted the invitation of
the Pan-American Union (headquartered in Washington, D.C.) to all the
participants for the next day. The Canadians were assured, after a question from Archbishop Bernier, that they too were welcomed, though
Canada, at that time, was not an “American Republic,” and thus not a
member of the Union.The bishops then proceeded to discuss the “fight
against Protestantism” at length, under the subject heading of the “Biblical Movement.”

“Minutes of the Meeting. Inter-American Episcopal Conference,” pp. 142–143.
See above, footnote 13.
72
“Minutes of the Meeting. Inter-American Episcopal Conference,” pp. 141–142, 145.
73
Ibid., p. 158.
74
Ibid., pp. 148–149.
70

71

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Bishop Rossi of Brazil began the discussion by acknowledging the
difficulties that had been created for the Catholic Church in North
America by the anti-Protestant manifestations in Colombia.75 “Many of
our own acts,” he conceded,“. . . may seem to resemble a little bit the
mentality of the inquisition and this, we know, has created problems for
our Catholic brothers in North America.” This was something of an understatement at a time when many bishops in the United States—and
Cushing was certainly in the lead among them—were trying to allay the
fears and rebut the outspoken warnings of Paul Blanshard, Protestants
and Other Americans United, and similar individuals and organizations,
with regard to the dangers of increased Catholic influence and power
in the United States and throughout the world.76
Rossi stated his conviction that about a thousand people “went into
heresy” each day in Latin America, and denounced the “bible propaganda” of the YMCA and other groups. “Latin America is now the
promised land for Protestants who have lost ground both in Europe and
the U.S. to indifference in religion.” He reaffirmed his thesis that the
United States’ “Good Neighbor Policy” had fostered the advance of
Protestantism in Latin America, and went so far as to say that it was “an
instrument in disguise of the political imperialism of the U.S.”77
There were two partial responses to Rossi’s assertions.The first came
from an American, Archbishop Lucey of San Antonio, who had been involved with catechetical efforts among Hispanic immigrants in the
United States for quite some time.78 Ignoring the attack on the foreign
policy of his country, Lucey spoke about his various preferred catechetical methods, by which priests, parents, and other teachers were
formed, and the programs that had already been undertaken in the
75
Ibid., pp. 164–169. Archbishop Botero of Colombia was anxious to speak on the situation, and did so, defending the Church in his country (ibid., pp. 178–181).
76
On the perception that growing international Catholic influence was a menace to the
American understanding of democracy, see the editorial, “Can Catholics Close a Continent?” The Christian Century, 59 (December 23, 1942), 1582–1583; John A. Mackay,“Hierarchs, Missionaries, and Latin America,” Christianity and Crisis, 3 (May 3, 1943), 2–5;
Paul Blanshard, American Freedom and Catholic Power (Boston, 1949); and John Martin
Dawson, Separate Church and State Now (New York, 1948). A defense of the Catholic
position, especially in light of the accusations of Catholic persecution of Protestants in
Colombia, is found in Luigi Ligutti,“Showdown in Colombia,”America, 99 ( June 14, 1958),
330–331; and Baltasar Alvarez Restrepo,“A Letter from a Bishop,” ibid., pp. 332–333.
77
“Minutes of the Meeting. Inter-American Episcopal Conference,” pp. 164–165. Rossi
also noted that the closing of the missions in China, due to the Communist takeover
there,had made Latin America a target of North American Protestant proselytizing efforts.
78
See Privett, op. cit.

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United States and in Latin America for the extension of his model of the
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD).79 The second was from
Bernier,who also ignored the question of “U.S.imperialism,”and defended
the Canadian Church’s recent record of ecumenical relations with the
Christian Council of Churches. The Bishop of Gaspé then attacked an
article written by Father Albert J. Nevins, wherein the Maryknoll missioner and editor had suggested that the practice of Catholicism was
sadly lacking in Latin America.80 It was this kind of “scandalous” reporting, Bernier affirmed, which “fan[ned] the fires of anti-Catholicism in
Latin America.” While he proposed that the American and Canadian
episcopates “should make a unanimous objection to such articles,”
there was no mention of the issue of Protestantism in Latin America in
the final statement or of Nevins’ writings.81
At this point in their deliberations, the North American bishops were
apparently much more prepared to address the issue of Communism.In
the final summary, which had been presented to the bishops at the beginning of their last session (November 4), it was concluded that Communism was “the greatest enemy confronting the Church in many of
these countries.”But in the last minutes of the assembly’s time together,
another perspective came to light. It was presented and forcefully advocated by Dom Helder Câmara. In his intervention, he spoke of “the
scandal of the twentieth century: two-thirds of humanity remain in a
state of want and hunger.” He also called the situation “the great sin of
our century,” and claimed that only Communism and Christianity “have
enough inner drive capable of raising the under-developed world.”82
His proposed solution suggested something more radical than anything that had previously been put forth in the course of the meeting:
“. . . the task ahead of us is not to mobilize alms. Our first object is to
lead public opinion to understand that raising the under-developed
world is a much more serious and urgent problem than the East-West
conflict itself.” He was sure that the Church, in taking the lead in such a
movement,“would inflict upon Communism the severest blow.” More
fundamental than any of the programs thus far proposed, Câmara as“Minutes of the Meeting. Inter-American Episcopal Conference,” pp. 170–178.
Though not mentioned explicitly in the minutes, presumably Bernier meant Nevins’
“How Catholic Is Latin America?” The Sign, 36 (September, 1956), 11–14, 67–68. In this
same article Nevins wrote,“The sad fact is that Catholicism in Latin America is nothing
more than a tradition for the vast majority of people there. . . . for only a few is Christ a
living reality” ( p. 11).
81
“Minutes of the of Meeting. Inter-American Episcopal Conference,” pp. 182–183.
82
Ibid., pp. 183–184.
79

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serted, was the necessity for “consciousness” by the one-third, who
were capable of helping and thus obliged to assist, of the “misery and
hunger” of two-thirds of humanity, in order to re-establish human dignity. The reality of such massive human suffering, he believed, was a
danger more serious “than the Communist danger itself.”He called upon
the hierarchies of Canada and the United States to call the alarm, and to
form public opinion on all levels, utilizing all possible means of communication. He called for a “movement to convince the United States
and Canada that the number one urgency should be Latin America.”83
In response to this dramatic appeal,Cushing offered 25,000 copies of
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s book, Masters of Deceit,84 which the Cardinal had had translated into Spanish.“All you have to do is write to me,”
he proclaimed,“and you can have them.” In addition, he offered copies
of a kind of catechism, Questions and Answers on Communism,85
which he had co-authored with the ex-Communist Louis Boudenz, and
which he reported had been “checked by the F.B.I.” And finally, while
recommending in this context the use of a series of films on the mysteries of the rosary that had been produced by Father Patrick J. Peyton,
Cushing, with great sensitivity, cautioned that the depiction of the Jews
in some of the episodes was problematic.86 At this point, so near the
conclusion of the conference, no other prelate present endeavored to
respond to Câmara’s declaration, and there were no proposals to modify the summary statement in accordance with his comments.87
In concluding remarks the President of CELAM, Archbishop Miranda,
said that he considered the meeting a “solemn historical moment.” And
in words that presaged many of the ideas found in the decree Christus
Dominus of Vatican Council II, he concluded that the assembly had
demonstrated,“We are bishops of the Church. . . . The boundaries are
mere accidents.” He closed with a few words for his “Canadian brothers,” noting the “spiritual links that united Canada and the Latin American countries,” calling them “ideal.” Presumably, he was focusing his
reflections on the Catholic culture of Quebec rather than anglophone

Ibid., p. 186.
J. Edgar Hoover, Masters of Deceit: The Story of Communism in America and How
to Fight It (New York, 1958).
85
Richard J. Cushing, Questions and Answers on Communism (Boston, 1960).
86
“Minutes of the Meeting. Inter-American Episcopal Conference,” p. 187.
87
This might be surprising, given the long-standing “two front” policy of the NCWC
with regard to Communism: that it needed to be combated directly as an evil, and that the
social ills that gave rise to it needed to be addressed. See above, footnote 41.
83

84

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THE FIRST INTER-AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CONFERENCE, NOVEMBER 2–4, 1959

Canada.88 For his part,Archbishop Samorè praised and thanked Cushing
in particular and, noting the beginnings of CELAM in 1955, hoped that
“in a certain way this day signifies the date of an Episcopal Pan-American
Union. . . .”89
As already noted, the summary statement of the bishops completely
avoided mention of a “Protestant menace” in Latin America, as well as
mention of Archbishop Câmara’s perspective. The Cold War view of
Communism dominated the plans for action, and the North American
bishops showed great readiness to accept proposals for several specific
projects, though proposals that called for the establishment of more
permanent bodies, such as committees, commissions, and the like, and
structures for continuing communication, such as Samorè so earnestly
sought, were referred to the respective national episcopal conferences.
Samorè also made clear that CAL was to be the chief co-ordinating
agency in whatever efforts were undertaken on behalf of the Church in
Latin America, and the bishops seemed to accept this, as indicated in
the summary statement.90
Only two weeks after the conference at Georgetown University, the
bishops of the United States convened for their annual meeting at The
Catholic University of America, in Washington, D.C.; on the morning of
November 18,the very first day of their gathering,they discussed the report of the ad hoc “Committee on South America,” which had represented them all at Georgetown. Archbishop Samorè was again present.
Whatever the bishops may have thought of the situation in Latin America and of the Holy See’s goals and objectives, their response at their annual meeting was more in keeping with “American pragmatism,” and
their proposals reflected such.
In summarizing the earlier conference for the assembled bishops,
Cardinal Cushing reported that the meetings had consisted of three
points:“1. More priests and seminaries are needed in Latin America. 2.
Schools of all levels, social institutions are necessary. 3. In regards to the
over-all missionary program, it is hindered by the activity of Protestants,
especially from North America, and communists.” The minutes of the
meeting show that Samorè again recommended that the ad hoc committee of bishops be constituted a permanent subcommittee, and that a
permanent office for the same purposes be established within the
NCWC. He also voiced the prior approval of Pope John XXIII for the al“Minutes of the Meeting. Inter-American Episcopal Conference,” p. 192.
Ibid., pp. 193–194.
90
Ibid., p. 159.
88

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location of five percent of the annual funds of the Propagation of the
Faith, Catholic Near East, and Home Missions for works in Latin America. A letter from the Pope was also read, in which the Holy Father exhorted the American bishops to “weigh these decisions with careful
study,” and expressed his confidence in them, writing, “We have no
doubt that they will meet with your approval.”91
In their discussions and decisions on the matters at hand, the bishops
proudly noted that Catholic Relief Services had distributed “forty million dollars worth of food, clothing and medicine” to the region, and
that “1,102 American priests have worked in Latin America” (with special mention made of “the work Maryknoll is doing in that continent”).
They agreed that “under the auspices of the Holy See a meeting of all
provincials of [Religious] communities of the United States would be
called and the needs of schools and teachers in South America be presented to them.” The bishops also approved the allocation of one million dollars, designated “for the use of the Pontifical Commission for
Latin America,”from the same sources Samorè had mentioned, with any
deficit in that amount being supplied from the annual Laetare Sunday
collection.92 Before the end of the meeting, a telegram expressing gratitude was sent to the assembly in Washington by Cardinal Tardini, the
Secretary of State of the Holy See, on behalf of the Holy Father.
In the course of the discussions prior to voting, Bishop Griffiths of
New York reminded the bishops of their “special obligation to South
America because Protestant missionaries come from our country and
are supported by U.S. money.” He also recommended that Latin American students studying at schools and universities in the United States be
invited to visit Catholic families, so that “they might see American
Catholic life,” and be taken to “a busy American parish on Sunday morning where they would see the number of American men faithful to their
religious duties and to Holy Communion.”93 Here was evidence of the
great confidence of that era in the efficacy, for both home and abroad,
of the “American Way of Life.”
The comments of Bishop Griffiths, suggesting that the solution lay in
the practical example of “American Catholic life,” were considered sig“Minutes of the Annual Meetings of the Bishops of the United States, 1959,” pp. 11–

91

14.
92
See ACUA, NCWC/USCC Papers, NCWC Administrative Board Minutes,Vol.V,“Minutes
of the Administrative Board of the NCWC, November 16–17, 1959,” p. 980. Also see Dries,
Missionary Movement, pp. 187–189; and Quigley,“Notes,” p. 4.
93
“Minutes of the Annual Meetings of the Bishops of the United States, 1959,” p. 14.

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THE FIRST INTER-AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CONFERENCE, NOVEMBER 2–4, 1959

nificant enough to be preserved in the minutes of the annual meeting.
They also have left the unspoken assumption that Latin American parishes
were not “busy,” and that Latin American Catholic men were not “faithful to their religious duties and to Holy Communion,” so unlike the synthesis and system offered in the United States,with its own characteristic
virtues.
While the Holy See continued to apply pressure on the bishops of the
United States and tried to outline the principal themes of the discussion, they looked to North America for the “beautiful organizing forms
that represent a precious heritage of Catholicism in the United States”
(as Mimmi put it), as well as for needed personnel and financial resources. The U.S. Bishops’ Latin American Committee was permanently
established by the Administrative Board of the NCWC during their
meeting on November 16, 1959, with Cardinal Cushing named to serve
as the first chairman. In addition, the Latin American Bureau of the
NCWC was (re-)established, and John J. Considine, M.M., was named as
the first director.94 In the discussions of the Administrative Board of the
NCWC, held prior to the annual meeting of all the bishops, Cardinal
James Francis McIntyre, the Archbishop of Los Angeles, suggested that a
constructive contribution of the United States church to Latin America
would be to send American priests,“at the administrative level” to help
organize their chanceries, and to offer “many practical helps on organization and administration.”95
The Americans indeed proved generous in many practical ways. The
funding and the increase in the number of Religious and diocesan personnel continued to rise dramatically throughout the following decade,
as did the promotion of the Papal Volunteers for Latin America (PAVLA),
which sent the first lay missionaries to Latin America in 1961. Though
the national office for PAVLA was closed in 1971, the beginning of the
1970’s also proved to be the peak period in terms of the number of
United States Catholic missionaries in Latin America.96 Cardinal Cushing
was an avid public supporter in word and deed of the mission effort in
the region, as he understood it, until his death in November, 1970.97
As for the Canadian hierarchy, they too deliberated, and formed the
Canadian Episcopal Commission for Latin America (CECAL) and the
“Minutes of the Administrative Board of the NCWC, November 16–17, 1959,” p. 980.
Ibid., p. 979.
96
Dries, Missionary Movement, p. 273.
97
See James F. Garneau,“‘Commandos For Christ’:The Foundation of the Missionary Society of St. James the Apostle and the ‘Americanism’ of the 1950s and 1960s” (Ph.D. dissertation, The Catholic University of America, 2000).
94

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Canadian Catholic Office of Latin America (COCAL) to oversee and encourage missionary support in the region. The latter was established in
Ottawa at the general secretariat of the CCC, charged with serving CECAL and its needs, and maintaining communication with CELAM, the
bishops and Religious superiors of Canada, and other persons and
groups involved in the Latin American apostolate. COCAL was also intended to be an agency for publicity and other propaganda in favor of
this work. These plans were announced in a pastoral letter of January
13, 1960, approved and signed by the members of the Administrative
Board of the Canadian Catholic Conference.98
In addition to the bureaucratic response, the bishops pledged themselves to assisting the Church in Latin America to fight against the “assaults
of error,irreligion and atheistic communism,which constantly threaten its
religious and moral heritage.”99 The concern about Protestantism, so central to the crisis in the eyes of the Holy See and certain Latin American
bishops, was not directly addressed as such, but perhaps only obliquely
(i.e., with the mention of “error”). In the midst of their “religious revival,”
with its ecumenical overtones, perhaps the Canadian hierarchy was no
less anxious than their American counterparts to avoid needless offense
to their co-nationals of other religions and ecclesial communities.
The “Plan of Apostolic Co-Operation” announced by the Administrative Board included the publication of an indulgenced prayer for vocations and for the people in Latin America and the promise to “urge
some of the priests of our dioceses to offer themselves generously for
apostolic work in Latin America” and to encourage the Religious orders
and institutes of the country to send members, especially for service in
medical and educational apostolates. Lay people were also invited to
join in the effort as volunteers, and the bishops pledged to offer scholarships within “our universities, seminaries, colleges and educational
establishments.” St. Francis Xavier University of Antigonish was highlighted for its programs of training in social service, and signaled as
a special resource for the plan of co-operation. This last approach
would, it was hoped, be especially effective in “preventing the triumph
of Marxist ideology.” The letter was to be read in every Catholic church
and chapel in Canada.100 As a national Church, the Canadians (at least as
represented by the CCC) appeared as committed to a Cold War per98
“Apostolic Co-operation between Canada and Latin America,” in Donum Dei, pp.
105–106.
99
Ibid., pp. 107.
100
Ibid., pp. 109–110, 113.

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THE FIRST INTER-AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CONFERENCE, NOVEMBER 2–4, 1959

spective as the Americans when it came to the ecclesiastical realities of
Latin America.
The Canadian Church reached its apex in the number of missionaries
sent to Latin America in 1971, when there were 1,894, serving in
twenty-three countries. This was an increase of 93.9% since 1958. As
with the United States experience, the decline would be nearly as dramatic; the number of missionaries fell in the decade that followed (i.e.,
to 1981) by 19% (compared with a 29.7% decline of all Canadian missionaries throughout the world). Only the number of lay missionaries
increased during the 1970’s, from thirty-two to seventy-five, but the total was still modest. Particularly affected were the apostolates of the Religious in the fields of education and healthcare.101
Both the NCWC and the CCC responded to the call of the Holy See
as they understood it in 1959. That understanding was heavily influenced by the Cold War national and international ambience of the day.
The members of CELAM did not appear to speak with one voice in the
matter of interpreting the nature, causes, and meaning of their own ecclesiastical and social realities. Many individual missionaries, nearly on
their arrival in some cases, would make their own judgments, causing
many of them to embrace interpretations that led to deep-seated theological conflicts within the Church, locally and universally. The collapse
of much of the missionary effort, as advocated by Popes Pius XII and
John XXIII, was the result.
In light of the call of Pope John Paul II in Ecclesia in America102 for a
new era of co-operation and a greater sense of solidarity among all the
local churches of America,103 it is particularly instructive to study the experience of the first Inter-American Episcopal Conference and its results. The principal lesson of those efforts has been the relative futility
of commencing projects and programs without establishing a common
understanding among all of the participants, in this case, among the
members of the hierarchy as well as the missionaries themselves. The
Synod of Bishops for America, celebrated at the Vatican from November
16 to December 12, 1997, may have been an effort on the part of the
Gondreault, op. cit., pp. 368–376.
John Paul II, Ecclesia in America, insert in L’Osservatore Romano (English edition)
1576 ( January 27, 1999).
103
Understood in Ecclesia in America to include the entire hemisphere, north and
south. In this document, and elsewhere, John Paul II almost always refers to “America” in
the singular.
101

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687

Holy See and others to establish such a base of common understanding
for future endeavors. But the continuing debate as to purpose and
goals, especially among the generation of aging missionaries in Latin
America from North America, and even within some of the local
churches in Latin America, suggests that consensus has hardly been
achieved. Some level of success in terms of the projects now being proposed, however, may depend on it and in fact prove again to be a prerequisite for it.

MISCELLANY

JOSEPH HUSSLEIN, S.J., AND THE AMERICAN
CATHOLIC LITERARY REVIVAL:
“A UNIVERSITY IN PRINT”
BY

STEPHEN A.WERNER*

I. Rationale and Organization of “A University in Print”
Arnold Sparr described the American Catholic Literary Revival of this century in To Promote, Defend, and Redeem: the Catholic Literary Revival and
the Cultural Transformation of American Catholicism, 1920–1960.1 Sparr
mentioned the work and writings of such figures as Daniel A. Lord, Francis X.
Talbot, and Frank O’Malley. Other Catholic writers also contributed to this revival, including Allen Tate and Joseph Husslein. Husslein is significant for his effort to promote Roman Catholic literature through his writings and more
importantly through his project “A University in Print,” in which he edited over
two hundred books on Catholic thought and culture for a wide audience.
Joseph Caspar Husslein, S.J. (1873–1952), was born and raised in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin.2 In 1891 he entered the Society of Jesus at St. Stanislaus Seminary
near St. Louis, Missouri. After studying and teaching at Saint Louis University,
Husslein was ordained in 1905.From 1911 to 1930 Husslein worked on the staff
of the Jesuit weekly America in New York and taught at Fordham University.
During these years Husslein wrote over four hundred articles and ten books on
*Dr. Werner is an adjunct professor at Saint Louis University, Maryville University, and
Webster University. He teaches courses in Christian history, world religions, and mythology.
1
Arnold Sparr, To Promote, Defend, and Redeem: The Catholic Literary Revival and
the Cultural Transformation of American Catholicism, 1920–1960 (Westport, Connecticut, 1990). See also Dolores Elise Brien,“The Catholic Revival Revisited,” Commonweal, 106 (December 21, 1979), 714–716.
2
Husslein’s life is described in Stephen A. Werner,Prophet of the Christian Social Manifesto: Joseph Husslein, S.J., His Life, Work, & Social Thought (Milwaukee, 2001), and “The
Life, Social Thought, and Work of Joseph Caspar Husslein, S.J.” (Ph.D. dissertation, Saint
Louis University, 1990).

688

BY STEPHEN A. WERNER

689

such social issues as worker cooperatives, factory working conditions, woman
workers, socialism, and unjust business practices. He produced one of the
largest corpora of American Catholic writing on social issues. Husslein’s most
important books on social questions were The Church and Social Problems
(1912), The World Problem: Capital, Labor and the Church (1918), Democratic Industry (1919), The Bible and Labor (1924), and The Christian Social
Manifesto (1931).3 Of particular significance is Husslein’s The Bible and Labor.
In a method untypical for Catholic thinkers of this period, Husslein used the
Bible—particularly the Old Testament—to develop principles for social ethics.
This approach would not be repeated until after Vatican Council II.
In 1930 Husslein curtailed his writing on social issues and moved to Saint
Louis University, where he founded the School of Social Service and began his
“A University in Print.”4 Husslein’s work at Saint Louis University coincided with
a particularly vibrant period for the university. New journals were published:
The Modern Schoolman, Historical Bulletin, and Classical Bulletin. The Institute for Social Order was founded.
The figure from the University’s Jesuit community to garner the most attention was Father Daniel Lord. A showman and promoter, he organized and ran
the Catholic youth program Sodality. He edited the Queen’s Work, produced
musical pageants, and wrote hundreds of pamphlets. Lord and Husslein knew
each other and believed they had the same mission of promoting Roman
Catholicism, but Lord—flamboyant and gregarious—and Husslein—hardworking and quiet—were too independent for long-term co-operation. The St. Louis
Jesuit community produced a number of “lone stars.” Husslein and Lord shared
the American penchant for promotion.
For all the difficulties of the 1930’s, it was an age of growing confidence for
Catholics. The worst of the anti-Catholic nativism had died down; American
Catholics had proven their patriotism in World War I;the National Catholic Welfare Conference brought some unity to the American hierarchy, and the
calamity of the depression reaffirmed among Catholic social thinkers the conviction that Catholic teaching had much to say to the world. Radio provided a
means for a number of speakers to disseminate a Catholic view. (It is unfortunate that Charles Coughlin is the most remembered of these voices.) The final
3
Joseph Husslein, The Church and Social Problems (New York: America, 1912); The
World Problem: Capital, Labor and the Church (New York: P. J. Kenedy, 1918); Democratic Industry (New York: P. J. Kenedy, 1919); Bible and Labor (New York: Macmillan,
1924); The Christian Social Manifesto (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1931).
4
Descriptions of “A University in Print” can be found in Joseph Husslein,“A University
in Print,” The Jesuit Bulletin, 15 (April, 1936), 1–3, 8; Joseph Husslein, “A University in
Print,” The Jesuit Bulletin, 26 (February, 1947), 12–14; William Holubowicz,“A University
in Print,”Sign,21 (December,1941),281–282; William Barnaby Faherty,Better the Dream:
St. Louis: University and Community, 1818–1968 (St. Louis, 1968), pp. 298–300, and
Dream by the River: Two Centuries of Saint Louis Catholicism, 1766–1980 (St. Louis,
1973), p. 173.

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JOSEPH HUSSLEIN, S.J., AND THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC LITERARY REVIVAL

and most important factor in the growth of confidence was simply the burgeoning Catholic population caused by large families descended from the immense waves of immigrants of the 1800’s and early 1900’s. Catholics had
become the largest denomination in America. American Catholicism had the
confidence not only to promote itself to the world, but ironically, and perhaps
more importantly, Catholicism had to promote itself to its own members.
Husslein’s “A University in Print” flowed from his social thought. He believed
that society could only be restored with a return to religion and morality.Husslein
believed that Catholic social teaching, especially Leo XIII’s Rerum novarum,
held the keys to rebuilding society. However, such a restoration required knowledge of Catholic thought and teaching. This required high-quality Catholic literature.Husslein desired to help energize Catholicism in America by promoting
and disseminating Catholic literature and by promoting Catholic writers and
thinkers. Yet Husslein did not want to limit his effort to religious writing. He believed that Catholic scholars had much to say on history, social science, and
other subjects. He envisioned a wide range of topics for “A University in Print.”
In addition to responding to Husslein’s social thought,“A University in Print”
also responded to the lack of American Catholic intellectuals and the lack of
American Catholic literature. In Husslein’s time the shortage of American scholars was widely recognized. John A. O’Brien, Newman chaplain at the University
of Illinois, published Catholics and Scholarship: A Symposium on the Development of Scholars (1939), a collection of papers lamenting the lack of
Catholic scholarship.5
Many Catholics lamented the lack of American Catholic literature. There was
a deliberate effort to create and encourage an American Catholic literary revival.Arnold Sparr has seen three goals behind this effort: to promote American
Catholicism, to defend the Catholic faith, and to redeem American secular society. Sparr described the American Catholic literary revival as a “curious mixture
of insecurity, protest, and apostolic mission.”6
Husslein had two markets. He wanted to expose non-Catholics to the best of
Catholic writing and to reach Catholics, for he believed that many of the latter
were unaware of their intellectual heritage. Husslein sought first “the constant
perfecting of an intellectual and inspiring Catholic leadership; second, the acceptable interpretation of Catholicism to the non-Catholic intellectual world.”7
Husslein wanted to provide Catholic writings of high quality for those both in
and out of academic settings.

5
John A. O’Brien (ed.), Catholics and Scholarship:A Symposium on the Development
of Scholars (Huntington, Indiana, 1939).
6
Sparr, op. cit., p. 17.
7
Husslein to the Father General [Wlodomir Ledochowski, S.J., Rome], February, 1938,
Jesuit Archives, St. Louis, Missouri.

BY STEPHEN A. WERNER

691

Early in his career Husslein lamented the dearth of Catholic literature. Ironically, socialist publishing gave him a vision of what Catholics might accomplish.
The large and comprehensive set of Socialist classics—if we may dignify
them with this name—translated from all languages, is bound in uniform
edition and sold at the lowest prices, while we, with all our years of experience and all the grand literature at our disposal, have not yet been able to
issue one single, handy, attractive, inexpensive and carefully exclusive set of
our own Catholic classics of the world, or even of those of our own language—invaluable as such an edition would be for the class-room and library.8
Husslein also stated:
As Catholics we have relied too exclusively on the immediate influence exercised within the walls of our churches and the priestly ministrations in
the home.The time has come when natural prudence, whose demands can
never be safely disregarded, calls for a wider apostolate. The facts we have
quoted show the truth of Bishop Ketteler’s famous saying,that were St.Paul
living to-day he would be conducting a paper.9
In 1918 Husslein described the Catholic answer to “The Great Farm Problem”:
It is necessary, therefore, for every influential agriculturist, and for every
pastor of souls, wherever the country spire lifts up its cross above the waving tree tops and the sound of the angelus floats over the golden fields, to
second the efficacy of prayer and the Sacraments by the systematic introduction of Catholic literature into every home. . . . If Catholic literature
does not reach the farmer, Socialistic and other objectionable literature certainly will.10
In 1917 Husslein published a manual on how to organize Catholics: The
Catholic’s Work in the World: A Practical Solution of Religious and Social
Problems of To-day.11 After a chapter describing a plan to bring converts into
the Church with a “Win My Chum Week,” Husslein included three chapters on
the importance of the Catholic press. He labeled the irreligious press of his day
as “A Modern Delila” while describing the Catholic Press as “A Debbora of Our
Age” calling forth Barak to attack the hordes of Sisera. Husslein’s chapter “The
8
Joseph Husslein,“Socialist Press Propaganda in the United States,” America, 4 (November 19,1910),128.See also his World Problem,pp.169–170,and Church and Social Problems, pp. 201, 206.
9
“Financing Socialist Literature,” America, 6 (February 3, 1912), 393.
10
Husslein, World Problem, p. 169.
11
Joseph Husslein, The Catholic’s Work in the World (New York: Benziger, 1917), pp.
67–71, 95–106.

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JOSEPH HUSSLEIN, S.J., AND THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC LITERARY REVIVAL

Speedometer” described a motivational poster for counting the number sold of
subscriptions to Catholic magazines.
All of these factors—Husslein’s social thought, the lack of Catholic intellectuals, the lack of Catholic literature, and the socialist example—led to the
launching of “A University in Print.”Husslein followed a twofold strategy: to provide a forum to publish American Catholic authors and to make Americans
aware of the Catholic literary heritage going back to the Middles Ages.
Husslein worked out a plan with Bruce Publishing of Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
whereby Husslein would select and edit the books which Bruce would publish
as the “Science and Culture Series.” In 1931 Husslein started his “Science and
Culture Series” by publishing A Cheerful Ascetic by James J. Daly. A historian of
Saint Louis University has written:
It was one of the first well-planned efforts at developing the Catholic Market. The first book was A Cheerful Ascetic by James J. Daly, S.J., of the Department of English of the University of Detroit.The reception of this work
augured well for the entire series. Christopher Hollis’ two books, Thomas
More and Erasmus, Shane Leslie’s The Oxford Movement, Hilaire Belloc’s
The Question and the Answer, Martin C. D’Arcy’s Pain and the Providence
of God, and Donald Attwater’s The Catholic Eastern Churches soon gave
the Science and Culture Series an international flavor.12
Within a year and a half the Cardinal Hayes Literature Committee stated:
The Science and Culture Series . . . has already given to the reading public a
number of useful and pertinent volumes and enriched present-day Catholic
literature with works of unexcelled eminence in their respective fields.13
Husslein desired a university in print with books of biography, history, literature, education, the natural sciences, art, architecture, psychology, philosophy,
scripture, and religion. Most books contained a short preface by Husslein. He
later explained:
It was to be a university for the people,a university for the men and women
with intellectual interests, whether within college walls or outside of them,
offering to all the best scientific and cultural thought of Catholic thinkers,
scientists,and literary men.Each work was intended to be the result of original research while at the same time presenting larger and more familiar aspects of the subjects treated. It was to be popular, but without sacrificing
scholarship.14
What is envisioned throughout was in truth a University in Print, free, wide
and open as the world itself to all who are eager for truth, religion and the
Faherty, Better the Dream, p. 299.
Cited in Husslein,“A University in Print,” Jesuit Bulletin, 15, 1.
14
Ibid.

12

13

BY STEPHEN A. WERNER

693

things of mind and spirit. And all this for the one supreme purpose of developing and inspiring an intellectual Catholic leadership such as now the
world needs to win it back to Christ.15
The faculty of “A University in Print” were notable Catholic authors; their
books were lectures with the world as their student body. Although started in
the Great Depression, the series grew rapidly with such authors as Hilaire Belloc, Donald Attwater, Christopher Hollis, Theodore Maynard, Eva J. Ross, Daniel
Sargent, Padraic Gregory, Joseph Clayton, and Fulton J. Sheen. One hundred and
sixty writers, including twenty-one women, contributed.
Some of Husslein’s books were designed for the college text market. But
more books were published for outside of class reading.Since Husslein believed
his “University in Print”could provide an alternative for those who could not attend universities, the bulk of Husslein’s books were written for those not at colleges and universities (the vast majority of Catholics).
A year and a half after starting the “Science and Culture Series,” Husslein
added the “Science and Culture Texts” series. In May, 1934, Husslein started the
“Religion and Culture” series with The Catholic Way in Education by William
A. McGucken, S.J. Husslein envisioned, but never started, a fourth series of sixteen books on missiology:“The Church Universal Series.”16
The emblem of the “Science and Culture Series,” modeled after the statue of
St. Louis at the St. Louis Art Museum, appeared on the binding and title page of
most books.
The fitting emblem of the series is the heroic figure of the crusader king, St.
Louis, mounted on his straining charger and holding aloft the sword reversed, its hilted handle changed into a cross, humanity’s true sign of
progress.17

Husslein,“A University in Print,” Jesuit Bulletin, 26, 12.
Undated letter draft in Husslein correspondence files (1946) in Saint Louis University
Archives.
17
Joseph Husslein, preface to The Question and the Answer, by Hilaire Belloc (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1932), pp. ix–x.
15

16

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JOSEPH HUSSLEIN, S.J., AND THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC LITERARY REVIVAL

The “Religion and Culture “series had its own emblem.

Avoiding unsolicited books, Husslein preferred to select topics and then
choose expert authors based on their contribution to the field and their ability
to write in good literary English. Husslein also invited qualified authors to suggest topics. For the sake of quality, Husslein gave writers as much time as they
needed. He boasted:
Never has the Science and Culture Series sought popularity at any cost, but
has always insisted upon the cultural worth of any contribution accepted
by it. Nonetheless it firmly sets forth as its ideal an invariable popularity of
treatment, consistent with scholarship and genuine originality.18
Husslein described the requirements for each book:
. . . that it combines in an outstanding way scholarship, originality and
popular presentation, while its subject itself is not too specialized to be of
vital and actual interest to the generality of intelligent readers.19
Working without a secretary, Husslein edited 213 books during a twenty-oneyear period.
Bruce set up a subscription plan offering a 20% discount. New books were
sent to subscribers on a five-day permission. Subscribers had to buy six books a
year. Each new book, usually issued on the tenth of each month, came with a
“Science and Culture Series Forecast” describing the next book. The success of
Husslein’s project helped the Bruce company survive the Great Depression.20
Distributors sold the books in the United States, India, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, England, Ireland, Canada, and Italy. Husslein
cited an assessment by the Irish writer and contributor to the series, Aodth
[Hugh] de Blacam:
Thus,broadcasting from Dublin no later than September 28,1934,Aodth de
Blacam said:“I recommend this remarkable series for more than one reaHusslein,“A University in Print,” Jesuit Bulletin, 26, 12.
Husslein,“A University in Print,” Jesuit Bulletin, 15, 2.
20
Saint Louis University press release, August 8, 1941, Jesuit Archives.
18

19

BY STEPHEN A. WERNER

695

son.The first is that it will appeal particularly to most Irish readers as being
almost the only series of its kind appearing in English that is written from
what most of us regard as the orthodox point of view. . . . The Science and
Culture Series should serve our purpose if we were asked to point to a
really trustworthy example of American culture—of American scholarship,
deep and sound. Here we find that long range of interest, that freshness of
point of view, and yet that reverent attitude towards tradition which together make up the characteristics of American culture.”21
Husslein produced a body of Roman Catholic religious literature within the
context of a broader collection of books. In addition, he provided an important
forum for publishing books of the faculty of Saint Louis University and his fellow Jesuits. Husslein worked on “A University in Print” until his death. Unfortunately, he did not groom a successor, although the Jesuit historian William
Barnaby Faherty was recommended for the task. “A University in Print” died
with Husslein.

II. The Scope of “A University in Print”
Husslein saw “A University in Print” as part of the Catholic Literary Revival
and included several books reflecting this self-consciousness: Calvert Alexander, The Catholic Literary Revival: Three Phases in its Development from
1845 to the Present (1935); Stephen James Meredith Brown and Thomas McDermott, A Survey of Catholic Literature (1945); Elbridge Colby, English
Catholic Poets, Chaucer to Dryden (1936); and Michael Earls, Manuscripts and
Memories: Chapters in Our Literary Tradition (1935). Regarding Katherine
Bregy, From Dante to Jeanne d’Arc: Adventures in Medieval Life and Letters
(1933) a New York Times review stated:
This pleasant and well-made little book of essays upon medievalism is written from the Roman viewpoint primarily for Catholic readers, but that is
not to say that its charm and richness of subject are the exclusive property
of any creed. Any one sensitive to romanticism and the flavor of the past
will find its pages delightful.22
Several books described particular figures in Catholic literature:Terence Connolly, Francis Thompson: In His Paths:A Visit to Persons and Places Associated
with the Poet (1944) and Gerald Walsh, Dante Alighieri: Citizen of Christendom (1946). Other works covered broader ranges of Catholic literature such as
Constance Julian, Shadows Over English Literature (1944); Mary Keeler,
21
Walter Romig (ed.), The Book of Catholic Authors: (First Series) (Grosse Pointe,
Michigan, 1942), pp. 137–138.
22
Betty Drury,review of From Dante to Jeanne d’Arc:Adventures in Medieval Life and
Letters, by Katherine Bregy, in The New York Times Book Review, January 7, 1934, p. 19.

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JOSEPH HUSSLEIN, S.J., AND THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC LITERARY REVIVAL

Catholic Literary France from Verlaine to the Present Time (1938); Inez Specking,Literary Readings in English Prose (1935);and James J.Daly, A Cheerful Ascetic and Other Essays (1931). These books show Husslein’s emphasis on
acquainting American Catholics with their older European heritage. Other figures in the American Catholic Literary Revival were concerned with twentiethcentury Catholic writers.
Although it was called the “Science and Culture Series,”only three books covered science: Victor Allen, This Earth of Ours (1939); James Macelwane, When
the Earth Quakes (1947); and James Shannon, The Amazing Electron (1946).
Two books dealt with art: Frank Brannach [Francis Edward Walsh], Church Architecture: Building for a Living Faith (1932), and Padraic Gregory, When
Painting Was in Glory, 1280–1580 (1941).
For Husslein, a revival of Catholic literature had to deal with the most important Christian literary work: the New Testament. Husslein gave particular attention to books on scripture. (It is a common misconception that Catholic
interest in the Bible began after Vatican Council II.) Husslein sought a middle
ground between the technicalities of critical biblical studies and simple devotional works by providing books for the intelligent reader that presented academic research, such as The Gospel of Saint Mark: Presented in Greek
Thought-units and Sense-lines With a Commentary by James A. Kleist (1936);
The Memoirs of St. Peter, or the Gospel According to St. Mark (1932); and with
Joseph Lilly, The New Testament: Rendered From the Original Greek with Explanatory Notes (1956). Other books on scripture included William Dowd, The
Gospel Guide: A Practical Introduction to the Gospels (1932); C. Lattey, Paul
(1939); George O’Neill, The Psalms and the Canticles of the Divine Office
(1937);and The World’s Classic: Job (1938).Particularly important and well read
was the two-volume translation of Ferdinand Prat, Jesus Christ: His Life, His
Teaching and His Work (1950).
In addition to writings on scripture, another fourteen books covered theology. Of particular importance were Gerald Ellard, Christian Life and Worship:
A Religion Text for Colleges (1933–34); Francis Mueller, Christ (1935); and Piotr
Skarga, The Eucharist (1939). Other works included Hilaire Belloc, The Question and the Answer (1932); C. Lattey, Paul (1939); Emile Mersch, The Whole
Christ: The Historical Development of the Doctrine of the Mystical Body in
Scripture and Tradition (1938); and Bakewell Morrison, The Catholic Church
and the Modern Mind (1933).
Another twelve works in “A University in Print” dealt with Catholic social
teaching. These ran the gamut from Paul Martin, The Gospel in Action: The
Third Order Secular of St. Francis and Christian Social Reform (1932); Albert
Muntsch, The Church and Civilization (1936); John K. Ryan, Modern War and
Basic Ethics (1933, 1940); Thurber Smith, The Unemployment Problem: A
Catholic Solution from the Viewpoints of Ethics, History, and Social Science
(1932); to Thomas Schwertner, The Rosary, A Social Remedy (1934, 1952). A

BY STEPHEN A. WERNER

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Commonweal review by Virgil Michel described Henry Schumacher’s, Social
Message of the New Testament (1937):
Topical expositions go progressively from personality to family, property
and wealth, the state and authority, on the basis of the true Christian concepts of the new creature, the kingdom of God, the fatherhood of God, the
brotherhood of man, the whole scale of virtues emphasized in the New
Testament—all with abundant textual quotations. Many pages are truly enlightening. . . . Without a deep biblical knowledge and without a sympathetic feeling for human needs and social ills, the book could not have been
written.23
Twenty-four books dealt with Christian history including five by Donald
Attwater: The Christian Churches of the East (1947, 1948); The Golden Book
of Eastern Saints (1938); St. John Chrysostom: The Voice of God (1939); The
Catholic Eastern Churches (1935); and The Dissident Eastern Churches
(1937). Describing the last two, The Dublin Review stated:“Single volumes on
so large a subject could hardly be more complete, and they supply a need
which a number of people in England and America have felt for a long time.”24
Other historical works were M. W. Burke-Gaffney, Kepler and the Jesuits
(1944);and four books by Joseph Clayton,viz.,Pope Innocent III and His Times
(1941); The Protestant Reformation in Great Britain (1934); Saint Anselm: A
Critical Biography (1933); and Luther and His Work (1937). Regarding Joseph
Clayton’s book on Luther a New York Times review described it as “a just and
temperate view of Luther,” and “a valuable piece of work.”25 Hilaire Belloc’s The
Crusades: The World’s Debate (1937) received the following New York Times
review:
Mr. Belloc brings all this to life in a book of straight-forward narrative and
exposition which rises every now and then to heights of beauty and dramatic visualization, which grows naturally from the soil of his own scholarship and insight, and beneath which the current of his own earnestness
flows deep and strong.26
Two books reflected the Catholic reappraisal of the Middles Ages: Roy Cave
and Herbert Coulson, A Source Book for Medieval Economic History (1936),
and James J. Walsh, High Points of Medieval Culture (1937).Two dealt with the
history of the American West: Mabel Farnum, The Seven Golden Cities (1943),
23
Virgil Michel,review of Social Message of the New Testament, by Henry Schumacher,
in Commonweal, 26 (May 21, 1937), 108.
24
Review of The Catholic Eastern Churches and The Dissident Eastern Churches, by
Donald Attwater, in The Dublin Review, 203 (December, 1939), 386.
25
Charles F. Ronayne, review of Luther and His Work, by Joseph Clayton, in The New
York Times Book Review, September 8, 1947, p. 9.
26
Katherine Woods,“Hilaire Belloc on the ‘True Crusade,’” review of The Crusades:The
World’s Debate, by Hilaire Belloc, in The New York Times Book Review, June 13, 1937, p. 9.

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JOSEPH HUSSLEIN, S.J., AND THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC LITERARY REVIVAL

and Gilbert Garraghan, Chapters in Frontier History: Research Studies in the
Making of the West (1934).
The Catholic interest in the conversion of non-Catholics can be seen in several works, three of which are autobiographical descriptions of the movement
to Catholicism: Herbert Cory, The Emancipation of a Freethinker (1941);
Theodore Maynard, The World I Saw (1938, 1939); and Dorothy Wayman, Bite
the Bullet (1948). One book told the stories of forty converts from Knute
Rockne to Shane Leslie: Severin Lamping, Through Hundred Gates, by Noted
Converts from Twenty-Two Lands (1939). These books would have been contemporary with Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain. Husslein had his own
disbeliever turned Cistercian: Father Raymond, The Man Who Got Even with
God:The Life of an American Trappist (1941), about a cowboy called “the Kentuckian” who joins the Abbey of Gethsemane. Two books on the Oxford Movement reflect the interest in converts: Shane Leslie, The Oxford Movement,
1833–1933 (1933, 1935), and William Lamm, The Spiritual Legacy of Newman
(1934). A review in America describes Leslie’s book:
Shane Leslie has probably written one of his finest pieces of prose in this
history. On a vast canvas he has attempted, and with conspicuous success,
to give a picture of the Oxford Movement with the lights and shades of its
historic background. With both hands, as it were, he has dipped deep into
the tone coloring of literary artistry, and slapped on his colors in a startlingly brilliant ensemble that makes the Movement stand out with an intense vividness.27
Although Husslein’s series had the goal of promoting Roman Catholic faith, it
still allowed for an honest and sympathetic look at world religions as seen in
two works by George Cyril Ring: Religions of the Far East:Their History to the
Present Day (1950), and Gods of the Gentiles: Non-Jewish Cultural Religions
of Antiquity (1938), and in the five works by Donald Attwater on the Eastern
Christian tradition.
Four books dealt with Catholic education: Francis Crowley, The Catholic
High-School Principal: His Training, Experience, and Responsibilities (1935);
Daniel Lord, Religion and Leadership (1933); and William McGucken, The
Catholic Way in Education (1934–1937) and The Jesuits and Education:
The Society’s Teaching and Practice, Especially in Secondary Education in the
United States (1932).
The series included two books in French and one in Spanish. These were to
be used in foreign-language courses as readers with religious themes: Luis
Coloma, Boy (1934); Lucille Franchere and Myrna Boyce, L’aurore de la Nouvelle France (1934), telling the adventures of French Jesuits in early America,
and Mary St. Francis, Loutil, Edmund (1937).
27
Review of The Oxford Movement, 1833–1933, by Shane Leslie, in America, 50 (December 30, 1933), 306.

BY STEPHEN A. WERNER

699

Six books dealt with the threat of Communism including: Hamilton Fish, The
Challenge of World Communism (1946); Christopher Hollis, Lenin (1938);
Robert Ingrim, After Hitler, Stalin? (1946); and Edmund Walsh, Total Empire:
The Roots and Progress of World Communism (1951).
Over two dozen book dealt with Christian saints and heroes. The long list included Albert the Great, Charles Borromeo, John Baptist de La Salle, Boniface,
Bridget of Sweden, Gemma Galgani, Joan of Arc, Margaret Mary, Philip Neri, Pius
V, Teresa of Avila, and Thérèse of Lisieux. Hugh De Blacam contributed Saint
Patrick, Apostle of Ireland (1941), and The Saints of Ireland:The Life-Stories of
SS. Brigid and Columcille (1942). Theodore Maynard added three works: Too
Small a World:The Life of Francesca Cabrini (1945); Mystic in Motley:The Life
of St. Philip Neri (1946); and A Fire Was Lighted: The Life of Rose Hawthorne
(1948).These books were not merely pious saint stories as is seen in a Saturday
Review of Literature review of Margaret Routledge Yeo’s, The Greatest of the
Borgias (1936):
What qualifies the historical value of this well-written biography is that it is
written from the Catholic point of view, in a science and culture series
edited by Joseph Husslein, S.J. That need not, however, interfere with one’s
pleasure in Mrs. Yeo’s vivid descriptions, her excellent painting in of background, and her knowledge of the Italian Renaissance in all its blood and
mysticism. . . . It is the book of a deft research student and of an author
who can write with vividness and charm.28
Within the category of saints and heroes came several works on Jesuit figures: Robert North, The General Who Rebuilt the Jesuits (1944); a translation of
Paul Dudon, St. Ignatius of Loyola (1949); Francis J. Corley and Robert J.
Williams, Wings of Eagles: The Jesuit Saints and Blessed (1941); and Robert
Harvey,Ignatius Loyola:A General in the Church Militant (1936).Other works
on famous Jesuits described Peter Claver, John Francis Regis, and Father Tim
Dempsey, famous for his work among the poor in St. Louis.
The single largest category was religious living or devotional. This included a
translation of Chanoine Casimir Barthas, Our Lady of Light (1947); Hugh Blunt,
Life With the Holy Ghost: Thoughts on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit (1945); The
Quality of Mercy: Thoughts on the Works of Mercy (1945); The Heart Aflame:
Thoughts on Devotion to the Sacred Heart (1947); translations of Alexandre
Brou’s Ignatian Methods of Prayer (1949) and The Ignatian Way to God
(1952); and a translation of Leonard Lessius, My God and My All: Prayerful Remembrances of the Divine Attributes (1948).
Several works dealt with the Holy Family: Francis Filas, The Family for Families: Reflections on the Life of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph (1947); The Man Near28
Review of The Greatest of the Borgias, by Margaret Routledge Yeo, in The Saturday
Review of Literature, 14 ( July 18, 1936), 21.

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JOSEPH HUSSLEIN, S.J., AND THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC LITERARY REVIVAL

est to Christ: Nature and Historic Development of the Devotion to St. Joseph
(1944); and Husslein’s The Golden Years (1945).
Six books covered Latin America: Edwin Ryan, The Church in the South
American Republics (1932); James Magner, Men of Mexico (1942); John White,
Our Good Neighbor Hurdle (1943); Joseph Privitera, The Latin American
Front (1945); Peter Dunne, A Padre Views South America (1945); John Bannon
and Peter Dunne, Latin America, an Historical Survey (1947).
Four books covered history: a translation of Joaquin Arraras, Francisco
Franco, the Times and the Man (1938–39); Daniel Sargent, Christopher Columbus (1941); Richard Pattee, This is Spain (1951); and Mariadas Ruthnaswamy,
India from the Dawn: New Aspects of an Old Story (1949).
The series included twelve books on philosophy with Vernon Bourke’s Augustine’s Quest of Wisdom: Life and Philosophy of the Bishop of Hippo (1945)
the most important. A reviewer wrote:
The width of Dr. Bourke’s Augustinian scholarship is seen in this, that he
takes up the Saint’s thought on several topics in the passages where the primary discussions are found, not in those where they are conveniently gathered together. This gives a fresh vividness and clarity to many matters
which the casual reader of a few of the writings has come across.The merit
of the book is in part that of good selection, both of incidents for biographical treatment and of passages for analysis. The analyses are clear and
never too heavily loaded. It is by means of them chiefly that the author
opens St. Augustine’s mind to the reader.29
Other works included Charles Bruehl, This Way Happiness. Ethics:The Science
of the Good Life (1941); Louis Mercier, American Humanism and the New Age
(1948); Thomas Neill, Makers of the Modern Mind (1949); four books by Henri
Renard: The Philosophy of Being (1943); The Philosophy of God (1951); The
Philosophy of Man (1948); and The Philosophy of Morality (1953) prefaced by
Jacques Maritain; and Fulton Sheen, Philosophy of Science (1934). The Dublin
Review described André Bremond’s, Religions of Unbelief (1939) as “profoundly interesting, and very easy to read. [Bremond] deserves congratulations
on the result.”30
Twelve books on psychology and psychiatry included Hubert Gruender, Experimental Psychology (1932); Francis Harmon, Principles of Psychology
(1938, 1951, 1953) and Understanding Personality (1948); William Kelly, Educational Psychology (1933, 1945) and Introductory Child Psychology (1938);
29
“The Adam of Christendom,” review of Augustine’s Quest of Wisdom: Life and Philosophy of the Bishop of Hippo by Vernon Bourke, in The [London] Times Literary Supplement, October 27, 1945, p. 415.
30
Review of Religions of Unbelief, by André Bremond, in The Dublin Review, 206
( June, 1940), 384.

BY STEPHEN A. WERNER

701

Charles McCarthy, Training the Adolescent (1934) and Safeguarding Mental
Health (1937); and John Cavanagh and James McGoldrick, Fundamental Psychiatry (1953).
Nine books dealt with sociology and social work. Works of note included
Charles McKenny, Moral Problems in Social Work (1951), and two works by
Clement Mihanovich, Current Social Problems (1950) and Principles of Juvenile Delinquency (1950). Eva Ross provided three works in the early period of
“A University in Print,” to wit, A Survey of Sociology (1932); Rudiments of Sociology (1934); and Fundamental Sociology (1939). A work from the later period is Nicholas Timasheff and Paul C. Facey, Sociology: An Introduction to
Sociological Analysis (1949). These books on sociology were regularly reviewed by such journals as American Journal of Sociology, Sociological Analysis, Sociology and Social Research, and Social Forces. A review of James F.
Walsh, Facing Your Social Situation (1946), in Sociology and Social Research
states:
It is very well written and is successful in making the psychologic thought
of real value to the student. There is ample evidence that the author has a
scholarly grasp of the field. . . . The injection of Catholic theology into the
subject matter has been accomplished with considerable tact and unobstrusiveness, although in several instances the author chides some social
psychologists for their ignorance on certain religious and church matters. . . . The book is engagingly written too. . . .31
Eight works dealt with living a devout Christian life: Martin D’Arcy, Pain and
the Providence of God (1935); Marguerite Duportal, A Key to Happiness: The
Art of Suffering (1944); and six works by Bakewell Morrison: Marriage (1934);
Revelation and the Modern Mind: Teachings from the Life of Christ (1936);
Character Formation in College (1938); In Touch with God: Prayer, Mass, and
the Sacraments (1943); Personality and Successful Living (1945); and God Is
Its Founder: A Textbook on Preparation for Catholic Marriage Intended for
College Classes (1946).
Husslein included four religious novels: Marie Buehrle, Out of Many Waters
(1947); Alice Curtayne, “House of Cards” (1939); Arthur McGratty, Face to the
Sun (1942); and Helene Margaret, Who Walk in Pride (1945).
In the miscellaneous category are the influential works of the Rural Parish
Worker Movement: Luigi Ligutti and John Rawe, Rural Roads to Security:America’s Third Struggle for Freedom (1940); Albert Muntsch, Cultural Anthropology (1934–36); Herbert Thurston, The Church and Spiritualism (1933). Helen
Eden’s Whistles of Silver and Other Stories (1933), a collection of medieval stories, was reviewed by the New York Times:

31
Melvin J. Vincent, review of Facing Your Social Situation, by James F. Walsh, in Sociology and Social Research, 31 (September–October, 1946), 71.

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JOSEPH HUSSLEIN, S.J., AND THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC LITERARY REVIVAL

Mrs.Eden has the pen of a poet,the finish of a scholar,and she is acquainted
with the magic of words. . . . A sparkling contribution to literature alike of
priest and layman.32
According to the The Saturday Review of Literature:
For those whose taste demands something delicate and lots of it,“Whistles
of Silver” will provide a feast. A feast, too, served up in admirable style, with
side-dishes elegant and appetizing.33
Also in the miscellaneous group would be two works on religion and culture:
John Bannon, Epitome of Western Civilization (1942), and Ross Hoffman, Tradition and Progress, and Other Historical Essays in Culture, Religion, and
Politics (1938).
Husslein began this work at the age of 58 and continued it during his 60s and
70s. Five of the books in “A University in Print” were written by Husslein.
Husslein published The Christian Social Manifesto:An Interpretative Study
of the Encyclicals Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno of Pope Leo
XIII and Pope Pius XI in 1931. This book systematically examined Rerum novarum as supplemented by Quadragesimo anno. Described as one of the best
books of Catholic sociology of the period, it gave the definitive American treatment of Quadragesimo Anno. Husslein based this book on radio broadcasts he
had made on Catholic social teaching. A reviewer wrote:
These encyclicals of Leo XIII and Pius XI Dr. Husslein submits to a masterly
study in his book. He points out with great clearness the solution of the
vexing problem as offered by the Catholic school of economic thought.
Every situation is met in a practical way and every difficulty is answered.34
In 1934 Husslein published The Spirit World About Us. This work provided
a biblically-based defense of angels, guardian angels, archangels, and spirits, defending the existence of the spiritual world against attacks from rationalistic
and materialistic thinkers. Husslein attacked materialism because he saw it as
the ultimate cause of social problems, since social injustice sprang from the failure to recognize transcendent moral principles.
For Heroines of Christ, published in 1940, Husslein edited a collection of stories on fourteen women saints such as Joan of Arc and Thérèse of Lisieux who
had been either beatified or canonized in the previous ten years.This book presented these new heroines of the Church as models for women and as alternatives to the “new woman” described by socialists and radical feminists.
32
Laura Benet,“Helen Parry Eden’s Stories and Poems,” review of Whistles of Silver and
Other Stories, by Helen Eden, in The New York Times Book Review, August 6, 1933, p. 8.
33
Aline Kilmer,“Delicate Erudition,” review of Whistles of Silver and Other Stories, by
Helen Eden, in The Saturday Review of Literature, 10 (December 9, 1933), 334.
34
Philip H. Burkett, S.J., review of The Christian Social Manifesto, by Joseph Husslein,
in The Annals of the American Academy, 163 (1932), 242.

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In 1940–1942 Husslein published the two-volume Social Wellsprings. Volume I consisted of fourteen documents of Leo XIII on social issues, each with a
short commentary by Husslein. Volume II presented eighteen encyclicals of
Pius XI on Social Reconstruction. Husslein believed it critical to provide readable translations of papal social writings.
In 1945 Husslein published The Golden Years:A Story of the Holy Family, by
a Wife, Mother, and Apostle of Christian Charity and Joseph Husslein, S.J.,
Ph.D., Coauthor and Editor. This book was originally a spiritual journal written
by a woman from a prominent American literary family. Husslein never identified the woman. Husslein reworked the journal and added several chapters.
Also in 1945 a controversy developed over the publication of A Padre Views
South America. The book “was severely criticized by certain persons in
Rome.”35 Father Husslein wrote a three-page defense of the work, claiming that
the critics had not even read the book.

I I I . Evaluation
Hundreds of reviews were made of Husslein’s books. More than eighteen
books were reviewed by the New York Times; several were reviewed in The
[London] Times Literary Supplement and The Dublin Review. Series books
were reviewed in Time, The New Yorker, and frequently in academic journals in
history, economics, sociology, philosophy, and psychology. Of course, the books
were reviewed extensively by Catholic journals and magazines such as Commonweal, The Catholic Historical Review, and America. The majority of
Husslein’s books were given serious consideration when they were published.
Five or more reviews for a book were not uncommon.Very few books were not
reviewed at all.
The vast majority of the reviews of Husslein’s books were positive. This was
due in part to Husslein’s selection of books but also due to the market of the
books. Catholic journals were sympathetic to Husslein’s project. The books reviewed by secular journals tended to be those that stood out, attracting the secular press. Only a few books were criticized as being too apologetical.
The Menace of the Herd by Francis Stuart Campbell received the harshest
and most varied reviews. The American Sociological Review stated:
These three-hundred pages of intellectual muddles, logical contradiction,
historical distortion, and sheer misrepresentation of contemporary fact
defy summarization and detailed criticism.36
The Political Science Quarterly gave an equally blunt review:
Husslein to his provincial [ Joseph P.Zuercher,S.J.],November 9,1945, Jesuit Archives.
Howard E. Jensen, review of The Menace of the Herd, by Francis Stuart Campbell, in
American Sociological Review, 8 (August, 1943), 482.
35

36

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JOSEPH HUSSLEIN, S.J., AND THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC LITERARY REVIVAL

The author is a man of many opinions—all of them avowedly conservative,
monarchist, Catholic and antidemocratic. He does not like democracy and,
with a great show of learning, he is anxious to explain the grounds of his
distemper. He displays a grotesque ability to bend facts to his will.37
Yet a review in The Annals of the American Academy had this to say:
On the whole, this is a highly readable book, that should be read precisely
because of the sting and spur it puts into the flank of democracy. Democracy, to use the Socratic simile, is a very big and strong horse which, just because of its strength and bigness, tends to become lazy.38
According to William Barnaby Faherty, the best-selling book in “A University
in Print” was The New Testament by James Kleist and Joseph Lilly. The most influential books were Christian Life and Worship by Gerald Ellard and Husslein’s
The Christian Social Manifesto. Theodore Maynard’s Queen Elizabeth and
Henry the Eighth received high praise in the secular press.39
William Holub, President of the Catholic Press Association, gave this evaluation of Husslein’s work:
The average Catholic’s interpretation of the purpose of a university is essentially different from that which was prevalent several decades ago; the
contribution of Catholic letters to the treasury of the world’s great literature is being recognized today; social service is being stressed in the United
States as a study important to cultural and economic progress. These accomplishments are traceable, in various degrees to the activities of Father
Husslein.40
This assessment by Holub may be a bit exaggerated. George Higgins suggested “none of his books will be required reading a generation hence, but all of
them are characterized by solid scholarship.”41 That only a few of these books
would be read sixty years later is not surprising. That is the lot of the vast majority of all books. Husslein shared the fate of most publishers: some of his
books did well; some did not, and a few books deserved more recognition than
they received.
As one looks at the individual books in “A University in Print,” a few seem
dated or overly enthusiastic in their Catholicism, but only a few. Even today,
none of the books published seem embarrassing or silly. The thing that makes
37
Robert K. Merton, review of The Menace of the Herd, by Francis Stuart Campbell, in
Political Science Quarterly, 58 (December, 1943), 637.
38
Wladimir Eliasberg, review of The Menace of the Herd, by Francis Stuart Campbell, in
The Annals of the American Academy, 230 (November, 1943), 239.
39
Faherty, Dream by the River, p. 299.
40
Ibid., p. 300.
41
George G. Higgins,“Joseph Caspar Husslein, S.J.: Pioneer Social Scholar,” Social Order,
3 (February, 1953), 53.

BY STEPHEN A. WERNER

705

some of these books, especially the devotional works, seem dated is that they
were written for their time. Their very timeliness in the 1930’s or 1940’s guarantees their lack of appeal sixty or more years later. As for the high-quality
books, most were simply superseded in later generations with equal, better, or
more up-to-date books.
Husslein described an effort of over twenty years with “A University in Print”:
This was my contribution to the Catholic Literary Revival throughout the
world. It consists of a series of original volumes, written at my request or
voluntarily submitted by competent literary men or authorities in their various fields, thus carrying on the Catholic tradition in letters and in the various scientific and cultural areas. Its object is to present to the world this
tradition in its best and highest modern interpretation.42

Romig, op. cit., p. 137.

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G e neral and Miscellaneous
Women & Christianity,Volume One: The First Thousand Years. By Mary T. Malone. (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books. 2001. First published in 2000 in
Ireland by the Columba Press. Pp. 276. $20.00 paperback.)
Malone’s indictment of the patriarchal, kyriarchal church and its historiographical conventions, which have conspired both institutionally and discursively to marginalize and silence Christian women, is a powerful and accessible
example of feminist consciousness-raising. Now retired after what must have
been a successful teaching career, a still unjaded Malone conveys both feminist
joy at discovering the historical centrality of women to Christian beginnings,
and feminist outrage at the androcentric church’s progressive ejection of women
from ministerial service. Malone offers no scholarly breakthroughs, and sometimes gives short shrift to recent scholarship, particularly in chapters 8–10
(“Into the Dark Ages (Sixth to Tenth Centuries)”), but she does report (with engaging clarity) the most significant insights of Rosemary Radford Ruether, Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Elizabeth Clark, Peter Brown, and others. Unfortunately,
much in the “Dark Age” chapters could be skewered. Examples of Malone’s misinformation are her claims that Hugeberc, “Abbess of Hildesheim’s” [recte nun
of Heidenheim] Latin biography of St. Willibald, the Hodoeporicon, “is one of
the first travelogues in the German language” (p. 206), and that “Benedict of
Aniane, the great tenth-century abbot” (p. 217) [recte ninth-century] “legislated
canonesses out of existence” (p. 235) when in fact Benedict legislated
canonesses into existence with the Institutio sanctimonialium Aquisgranensis (816), companion piece of the Institutio canonicorum. Malone’s acceptance of the historical reality of Pope Joan (pp. 231–135) is highly debatable.
Malone’s own expertise lies in the earlier period,and she seems to be out of her
depth once the “Patristic Age” (subject of her unpublished doctoral dissertation) is left behind. The fact that the later chapters are rife with errors means
the book must be used with caution, but should not diminish the potential impact of this synthetic treatment on current public conversations over women
and the ministry; after all, if a successful historical warrant is to be found for
breaking the male monopoly on the Catholic priesthood, it will certainly not
come from eighth-century Francia but rather from non-sexist re-readings/revisionings of the words and deeds of Jesus,and of the biblical and “apochryphal”
portraits of female disciples and apostles, all topics which Malone treats thoroughly, responsibly, and very, very well. This volume will be a Godsend for lay

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Christian women who are dissatisfied with their churches, but do not know
how to mine Scripture for validation or ammunition on their own, let alone
how to practice a “hermeneutics of suspicion” on purportedly authoritative
patriarchal-kyriarchal exegesis and historiography. Those women are the target
audience of Malone’s book, as the following quotation demonstrates: “It might
be interesting to check back to the pictures of [Pentecost] that we all drew in
preparation for our confirmation. It is highly likely that, apart from Mary, the
mother of Jesus, there is not a woman in sight . . . . the lives of contemporary
women need to be touched again and again by the stories of [Mary Magdalene,
Martha, Mary of Bethany, et al.], so that the news of the coming of Jesus may indeed be experienced as good” (pp. 56–57).
FELICE LIFSHITZ
Florida International University

Encyclopedia of Monasticism. Edited by William M. Johnston. 2 volumes.
(Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. 2000. Pp. xxxiv, 797; xii, 799-1556.
$295.00.)
The torrent of research in many disciplines over the last thirty-five years has
brought us to the age of synthesis or synopsis. In the last two decades we have
been given dictionaries or encyclopedias of the Middle Ages,of Byzantium,of the
Christian Church (revised 1997),of the Renaissance,the Reformation,of Islam,of
World History (promised for September, 2001), of the Elizabethan World, of the
North American Indians, and an Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas, to mention just a few. The two hefty volumes under review here originated in the “publisher’s intuition that the time is right to undertake a conspectus of monastic life
past and present . . .” (p. ix). To undertake so colossal an enterprise as a summary
or synopsis providing an overall view (conspectus) of world-wide monasticism
past and present without rational thought and influence (intuition) strikes this
reader as disingenuous; don’t publishing houses exist to make profits?
The publishers proceeded to gather an international body of scholars and advisors from twenty-five countries, decided to focus on three great strands of
monasticism: the Buddhist, the Eastern Orthodox, and the Western Christian,
and then to take special pride in the work’s (supposed) comparisons among
those forms of monasticism. Comparisons would have been very welcome, but
they are difficult to find. For example, while the Editor’s Introduction promises
comparisons between Buddhist and Eastern Orthodox monasticism in an article on “Monasticism, Definitions of: Buddhist Perspectives,” one searches that
essay in vain for any comparisons. A comparison of the motives behind the
Japanese samurai Nobunga’s destruction of the great Buddhist schoolmonastery-fortress on Mt. Hiei near Kyõto in 1571 and, say, Henry VIII’s dissolution of the English monasteries in 1536–1539 could have provided fascinating
cross-cultural insight into the two societies. The Introduction notwithstanding,
editors and advisors seem to have resisted such opportunities.

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This project was planned as a reference tool for scholars; as such it generally
succeeds. In addition to the usually sound articles on such well-known persons
and topics as Pachomius, Anselm, Bernard, Symeon the New Theologian, Boniface Wimmer, and Zen, there are useful entries based on recent research, such
as food, death, transvestite saints, and sexuality. On the latter issue, Richard M.
Price’s “Sexuality: Christian Perspectives” provides a very good overview of
post-Vatican Council II teaching, though the article is only marginally related to
monasticism and on homosexuality it lacks the directness and honesty of Rita
M. Gross’s “Sexuality: Buddhist Perspectives.” As a collaborative project, the interests, approaches, and value of contributions vary widely. Some entries focus
on the evidence of archaeology (Spain: Sites); many concentrate on spiritual
ideals to the neglect of practical results; a (very) few articles place their topic
within the social and economic contexts of their times; and some entries use
the essay to explore the current state of the scholarly literature: see the provocative but controversial article on the “Cistercians: General or Male” by Constance H. Berman, where she holds that most previous scholarship is “wrong.”
With so many methodologies and interpretations, the advanced student can
glean some of the complexities of issues relating to monasticism in its many
forms, cultures, and over many centuries. On the other hand the novice-student
should approach these volumes with caution. He is apt to become confused by
the many inconsistencies and contradictions, some of which informed editorial
work might have eliminated. As an example of widely divergent understandings
of the origins of coenobitic life, contrast John McGuckin, “Pachomius St.,” and
Hieromonk Alexander Golitzin,“Spirituality: Eastern Christian.”
What is a monk? What is monasticism? It is difficult to arrive at a fairly concise and useful definition from these volumes. For example, in his entry on
“Monasticism, Definitions of: Christian Perspectives,” Hugh Feiss, O.S.B., casts
his interpretation in terms of the revised (1983) Roman Catholic Code of
Canon Law. Why the 1983 Code, rather than Gratian’s Decretum, or the postTridentine ius novissimum? especially since Feiss says that Western Christian
monasticism today “suffers a decline in numbers”? Using the Roman Catholic
Code, Feiss ipso facto ignores the various forms of Protestant monasticism, the
pervasive social, economic, and political influence that Western monasticism
exerted in the period ca. 600–1600, and, following the Code includes such religious institutes as the mendicant Franciscans and Dominicans, the Jesuits, the
Christian Brothers, and (which God forbid) Opus Dei. So elastic an interpretation makes the term “monk” virtually meaningless. Phyllis G. Jestice’s “Monastics and the World, Medieval,” treats theoretical, i.e., spiritual attitudes toward
“the world” (meaning?); of monastic commercial interests, such as iron mining
(Furness in Lancashire, Igny in Champagne), coal mining (Newcastle in Scotland, Grünhaim in Bohemia), silver mining (Altzelle in Saxony), viticulture
(Cîteaux in Burgundy, Eberbach in the Moselle valley), sheep farming (Rievaulx
in Yorkshire, Poblet in Spain), fruit culture (Lyse in Norway), banking (Savigny in
Normandy, Poblet in Spain); of the hundreds of monks such as Samson of Bury
Saint Edmund’s who served as papal and royal judges and officials—in short, of

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monasticism’s central role in medieval and early modern public or “worldly” affairs, the reader learns nothing. Since there is no follow-up entry for Jestice’s
piece on Monastics in the Modern World, her article can be considered misleading: in 2001 three Benedictine monks serve as archbishops in metropolitan
sees, and several monks as bishops in the United States alone. Doesn’t the
diocesan ordinary have considerable material cares and contact with “the
world,” just as monk-bishops did in the Middle Ages? The entry by Paschal
Baumstein, O.S.B., “Economics: Christian,” casts monastic economic activity in
terms of poverty and aid to the poor and states, “It is now [emphasis added]
common practice for monks to use their property for external, even commercial, enterprises,” thereby revealing an appalling lacuna in his knowledge of a
thousand years of monastic economic, and capitalistic, activity.
Aside from Getatchew Haile’s excellent article on “Ethiopia,” whose monasticism predates that of most of Europe and whose fiercely nationalistic Christianity suggests that of nineteenth-century Ireland or twentieth-century Poland,
Africa, the world’s second largest continent and in recent decades the focus of
much of the Benedictine Abbots’ Primate attention, is mentioned only in passing; there is no full entry. This is a most regrettable omission, reflecting a Eurocentric habit of thinking of Christianity in strictly Western terms.
This reader found Luis O. Gomez’s articles on “Latin America” and on “Buddhist Spirituality” truly outstanding: written with exceptional clarity, nuanced,
and reflecting full awareness of the socio-economic milieux in which forms of
monasticism flourished. Likewise, the entry of Bernard Green, O.S.B., on “Benedict of Nursia, St.,” and the article by James Wiseman, O.S.B.,“Church Councils,
Recent Catholic,” show rare levels of understanding as well as wisdom about
their subjects.
Each article includes a short bibliography. Each volume contains twenty-two
pages in color and many black and white photographs; the persons and places
are identified, but the lack of any descriptive information suggests that the illustrations were added for decorative, rather than enlightenment, purposes. Volume 2 contains a highly selected glossary of Buddhist terms and one of
Christian terms; a lengthy index, and brief notes on the contributors and advisors.
BENNETT HILL, O.S.B.
Georgetown University

The Diocese of Elphin: People, Places and Pilgrimage. Edited by Francis
Beirne. (Blackrock, Co. Dublin: Columba Press. 2000. Pp. 403. £30.)
Recent years have seen a spate of Irish diocesan histories. In 1995 Oliver
Curran produced her substantial, but largely unusable, update of Dean Cogan’s
classic nineteenth-century diocesan history, which itself was reissued by Four
Courts Press in 1992, accompanied by Alfred Smith’s interesting biography of

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Cogan. Ignatius Murphy’s remarkable three-volume work on the diocese of Killaloe from the eighteenth century (Dublin,1991–92) has come to constitute the
modern model for diocesan histories. Also very impressive is James Kelly and
Dáire Keogh’s History of the Catholic Diocese of Dublin (Dublin, 2000), which
contains some of the most important essays written on religion in Ireland in recent years. Henry Jeffries and Ciarán Devlin co-edited and published an important but uneven collection of essays under the title History of the Diocese of
Derry from Earliest Times (Dublin, 2000). To this rich production has recently
been added the present work, edited by Francis Beirne.
This is a substantial book but is neither a conventional chronological history
(who would attempt that today!) nor is it a collection of essays by specialists. It
is rather a mixed bag of primary and secondary historical sources, with no consistent organizing theme apart from the celebration of the identity and achievement of this West of Ireland diocese. Because of this, the book is of limited use
to historians. True, they will find some interesting source material reproduced.
There is, for instance, a taxation list from 1306, some bishops’ reports to Rome
from the early-modern period, and a list of registered clergy of 1704, supplemented by a report on the state of popery in the diocese, prepared in 1731.
However, all of this material is already available elsewhere, and there is neither
a proper introduction nor a scholarly apparatus. However, it is useful that these
documents have been made available to a wider audience.
In fact, there is much to interest the casual, non-specialist reader, and a worthy effort has been made to reproduce a few articles which would ordinarily be
difficult of access. The most interesting of these is Canice Mooney’s essay on
Elphin,published in the Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques
in 1963. This has been nicely re-edited by Ignatius Fennessy, O.F.M. Also included in the book is a gazetteer of parishes, potted histories of orders of religious, and lists of contemporary clergy. Unfortunately, the index is not very
substantial, and consequently the book is rather difficult to use. The major redeeming feature of the work is the very good use of illustrations. These pepper
the text and give the history an important visual dimension. This is a popular
‘history,’ aimed at a wide audience, painting an absorbingly varied picture of an
ancient diocese.
THOMAS O’CONNOR
National University of Ireland, Maynooth

Wider den Rassismus. Entwurf einer nicht erschienenen Enzyklika (1938).
Texte aus dem Nachlaß von Gustav Gundlach SJ. Edited by Anton
Rauscher. (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh. 2001. Pp. 208. DM 39.90 paperback.)
On December 15, 1972, the Kansas City weekly, National Catholic Reporter,
published fragments of a draft, prepared in 1938 at the request of Pope Pius XI

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by the American Jesuit John LaFarge and others, of an encyclical condemning
racism. LaFarge had come to the Pope’s attention through the Jesuit’s book Interracial Justice (1937). Pius XI commissioned LaFarge in a private audience on
June 22, 1938, to draft an encyclical on this topic. No intellectual, LaFarge felt
unequal to the task. At his request the Jesuit General Wladimir Ledóchowski assigned two European Jesuits to assist LaFarge: the German Gustav Gundlach
and the Frenchman Gustave Desbuquois. Both had helped draft the encyclical
Quadragesimo anno (1930). The three labored in Paris throughout the summer of 1938, completing their work in September. Pius XI died on February 10,
1939, without publishing the encyclical. His successor Pius XII did not revive
the project.
LaFarge died in 1963. The material published by the NCR in 1972 was taken
from drafts in French and English found among LaFarge’s papers. An article in
L’Osservatore Romano for April 5, 1973, by the German Jesuit Burkhart Schneider, one of the four Jesuits then working on the Actes et documents du SaintSiège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, disclosed the existence of a
somewhat different third draft in German, written by Gundlach. In 1995 the
Belgian Benedictine Georges Passelecq and the Jewish sociologist Bernard
Suchecky published L’encyclique cachée de Pie XI. Une occasion manquée de
l’église face á l’antisémitisme. Translated into English in 1997 under the title
The Hidden Encyclical of Pius XI, this contained the full French and English
drafts from LaFarge’s papers, but not the German version. The Augsburg professor Anton Rauscher has now published Gundlach’s German draft, letters
from him to LaFarge which clarify the chronology, an analysis of this material,
and a discussion of the reasons for the non-appearance of the encyclical.
Gundlach’s text, over a hundred single-spaced typed pages, is dense: in
Rauscher’s words, “as difficult to read as all of Gundlach’s writings.” The draft
emphasizes the unity of the human race, commends patriotism, and condemns
nationalism and racism. The final paragraphs (170–183) declare anti-Semitism
incompatible with Christian faith. “The Church today views with indignation
and pain measures affecting Jews which, because they violate natural law, do
not deserve the honorable name of laws. The most fundamental claims of justice and charity are violated without hesitation or limit.” The draft concludes by
reaffirming the condemnation of anti-Semitism by the Holy Office on March 25,
1928.
Why was the encyclical never published? Rauscher argues convincingly for
the simplest explanation: time ran out. Encyclicals require lengthy scrutiny.
There were significant differences, especially in the treatment of anti-Semitism,
between the English and French drafts on the one hand, and the German text
on the other. Deciding which to adopt required further time. The editor of
Civiltà Cattolica, charged with evaluating the drafts, died before completing
the task.
Pius XII, elected on March 2, 1939, shared his predecessor’s rejection of
Nazism. With the political situation in Europe rapidly deteriorating, however,

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the new Pope devoted all his efforts in the spring and summer of 1939 to averting the outbreak of war. A flaming denunciation of Nazi racial policy would
have eliminated whatever chance still existed that his pleas for peace would be
heeded in Berlin. Had Pius XII issued the planned encyclical, his present-day
critics might well charge him with recklessly extinguishing the last slender
chance for peace.
Nor is it likely that a papal denunciation of Hitler would have found the ready
response outside Germany which the Pope’s critics assume today. In 1939 there
was little willingness anywhere to receive Jews who wished to flee Germany. At
an international conference in Evian in 1938 no less than thirty-two nations politely declined assistance.
Rauscher’s work, an example of German scholarship at its best, is an important contribution to history of the Church’s role in events preceding the Holocaust.
JOHN JAY HUGHES
Archdiocese of St. Louis

A Journey into Christian Art. By Helen de Borchgrave. (Minneapolis: Fortress
Press. 2000. Pp. 223; 103 color, 2 black-and-white illustrations. $35.00.)
Although it looks and feels something like a textbook, this beautifully illustrated volume has neither academic ambitions nor utility. It is more like a personal retelling of a once-standard form of art history survey, illustrating many of
the same masterpieces but discussing them only in relation to their biblical content and ability to make that content come alive for the devout. In the author’s
own words, the goal of her book is to “stir the imagination, encourage contemplation, and stimulate wonder and praise to ‘Ponder anew all the Almighty can
do.’” To this end she has selected more than 100 works of art made between the
fourth and the twentieth centuries, most of which are reproduced to accompany her own reflections on Christian values and the contemporary saeculum.
The style is homiletic and the tone is elegiac,saturated with nostalgia for a quiet
and tranquil time before the contemporary one, which is considered ruined by
money, materialism, noise, and speed. Lost or threatened social traits of peaceability, harmony, and simple, black-and-white morality are equated with the
essence of Christian experience, and believed to be still accessible in works of
art like those presented in her book.
The book is written from an Anglo-Catholic point of view and evidently for a
British audience. Protestant art and artists are acknowledged, but the book contains no Christian art from North, South, or Central America, and none from
Africa or Asia. More surprisingly, there is not a single work from the European
Middle Ages—not a pane of colored glass or an illuminated book page—nor any
from the Christian East. The icon, arguably the most perfect vehicle for con-

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templation and devotion ever conceived by makers of Christian art, is bypassed
on the limited route of this “journey,” which sticks mostly to the terrain of narrative painting from Giotto through the pre-Raphaelites and ends with excursions to some twentieth-century works in England and Poland.
DALE KINNEY
Bryn Mawr College

The Politics of Religion in an Age of Revival: Studies in Nineteenth-Century
Europe and Latin America. Edited by Austen Ivereigh. [NineteenthCentury Latin American Series, No. 5.] (London: Institute of Latin American Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. Available
through the Institute of Latin American Studies, 31 Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9HA. 2000. Pp. viii, 223. £12.00 or $19.95 paperback.)
The Institute of Latin American Studies promotes closer investigation into
what it feels is a neglected period in Latin American Studies, the nineteenth
century. The focus in this collection of essays from a symposium presented by
the Institute is on the Church/State conflict and does indeed suggest that much
work remains to be done on this important subject. Dynamic leadership and bold
initiatives experienced by the Catholic Church in its Revival made Catholics determined to play a prominent role in the development of their respective countries. This was not viewed benignly by secular-minded liberals. The standard
interpretation of the ensuing conflict is derived from the republican position:
liberalism advanced all that was positive and desirable, religion was a hindrance. Such is far from the whole truth.
Margaret Lavinia Anderson lucidly describes important characteristics of the
Revival in Europe, beginning with the vigorous assertion of papal authority.
Other elements including schools, associations, and Catholic participation in
politics are described as “the divisions of the pope.” James F. McMillan cogently
argues that in France republicans precipitated the quarrel with their anticlerical measures to circumscribe the role of religion in national life, then were
infuriated by the Catholic opposition liberals termed “clericalism,” meaning “illicit interference on the part of the clergy in the sphere of politics and public
life.”
Religion and French political philosophy both constituted major influences
in Latin America. However, Eric Van Young illustrates how indifferent or ignorant of the true desires of the masses their purported leaders were during the
struggle for independence in Mexico and later. Indians were motivated by traditional and spiritual attitudes which may be traced back to pre-Columbian origins, not the French Revolution. (Still, it is curious that there is no discussion of
the influence of the sixteenth-century missionaries and their millenarian ideals
in the evolution of the Indian concept of a messiah-king.) In the new republic
one bishop,Clemente de Jesús Munguía,is described by David Brading as an “in-

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transigent” advocate of the Mexican Church’s prerogatives and totally opposed
to the anticlerical Reform; neither side in this war benefited the Indians.
Catholics and liberals also differed over the relation of the state to society, as
Austen Ivereigh discusses in his analysis of the Argentine debate over education
in 1884. While the Church asserted that the state should reflect society and its
values, including the religious, liberals contended that the state was an entity
above its society with the responsibility to unify and to mold its citizens through
such methods as a public education that was rational and wholly secular in nature.
Because conservative politicians held views similar, although not identical, to
the Church’s, their relationship was usually more harmonious. In Spain, Frances
Lannon notes, this meant that the clergy concentrated their efforts on institutional,cultural,and pastoral activities rather than political. The situation changed
in the steady political disintegration after 1898. When the state proved inadequate to defend them in that volatile environment, Catholics became involved
in both regional and national movements that were part of the effort to define
a new national identity.
These activities were not necessarily directed and certainly not dictated by
the Church’s hierarchy as J. Samuel Valenzuela and Erica Maza Valenzuela demonstrate in a most instructive revisionist study challenging the view that the Conservative party in Chile was a “clerical” party controlled by the Church. Devout
laymen in the party and organizations advocated a profoundly Christian order in
every aspect of national life and opposed proponents of secularism. Moreover,
they, not the liberals, championed essential social and political reforms to make
Chile a genuine democratic republic. In like manner, as Patricia Londoño proves
in her study of data from Antioquia, Colombia, dynamic dedicated priests and orders through their pastoral activities,schools,and associations contributed toward
the development of an egalitarian society and stimulated material progress there.
LORETTA SHARON WYATT
Montclair State University

A ncient and Medieval
The Emergence of Monasticism: From the Desert Fathers to the Early Middle
Ages. By Marilyn Dunn. (Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell. 2000. Pp. viii,
280. $64.95.)
What’s in a name? Sometimes, a lot, actually. In the preface to The Emergence
of Monasticism, Marilyn Dunn explains that her volume will follow “the broad
trajectory of the most important aspects of monastic development from the
fourth to the seventh centuries rather than being an exhaustive or region-byregion survey” (p. vi). This is true, however, only if she means the development
of western monasticism. After an introductory first chapter,the second chapter,
“The Development of Communal Life,” leapfrogs from Saint Shenoute in Egypt

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to Saint Basil in Asia Minor. Thus Dunn skips the vitally important development
of monasticism in Palestine and Syria. Then, following a chapter on women
(which interrupts the narrative flow), chapter four, “The Meaning of Asceticism,” is essentially a history of earliest western monasticism;Dunn is interested
in eastern Christian monasticism only as it influenced the West. Chapters five
through nine then survey early medieval monasticism in the West, from Lérins
in the fifth century to England in the seventh century. Three-fourths of The
Emergence of Monasticism, therefore, is on western monasticism and roughly
half the book deals with Saint Benedict or later. (With chapter six, on Benedict,
one can clearly see that Dunn is standing comfortably on her home turf.) Thus
a more accurate title for this volume would have been “The Emergence of Western Monasticism” or “The Emergence of Early Medieval Monasticism,” similar to
Peter King’s Western Monasticism: A History of the Monastic Movement in the
Latin Church (Cistercian, 1999).
Chapter one of The Emergence of Monasticism offers a nuanced and up-todate look at the rise of early Christian monasticism in Egypt. Starting with Egypt
while subsequently omitting Palestine and Syria, however, may leave the unsuspecting reader with the impression (now discarded in scholarly circles) that the
beginning of monasticism was solely an Egyptian phenomenon. The author
does a good job of alternating sections on history with discussions of monastic
spiritual life and theology although, for this non-medievalist, the later chapters
tended to bog down with too many unfamiliar proper and place names (maps
would have helped) and with discussions of the minutiae of monastic Rules.
More troubling, for being so avoidable, is the egregious copy-editing or proofreading of the volume. In addition to eccentric use of commas, the book has
dozens and dozens of printing errors: misspelled words, dropped words, repeated words. There are thirty such errors in the first four chapters, after which
I quit counting, but they continue to pile up (there are two on the last page),
crashing into one another throughout the volume.
For those who care about the ancient and modern monastic hope and impulse, The Emergence of Monasticism will not prove to be optimistic reading.
Which, of course, is not the author’s fault: she is chronicling what occurred,
not engaging in wishful thinking. “By the seventh century,” she concludes,
“monasticism, which had originally arisen from the desire for self-mastery, selftranscendence and union with God,embracing the ideal of the voluntary removal
of the individual from society, had become closely identified with land-owning
and the interests of royalty and aristocracy” (p. 207). On the final page,however,
Dunn does look ahead with optimism to the “more modest, contemplative and
eremitic” reforms and orders that would arise in the eleventh century. Those
monks, like many monks and “lay” monastics today, looked back for inspiration
“to the literature of the Egyptian desert and the early monastic life” (p. 208).
TIM VIVIAN
Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church
Bakersfield, California

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The Architectural Setting of the Cult of Saints in the Early Christian West, c.
300–c.1200. By John Crook. [Oxford Historical Monographs.] (New York:
Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press. 2000. Pp. xxv, 308. $85.00.)
This book is, in its author’s words, a “survey” of “the architectural forms deriving from the cult of saints.” Beginning with a lucid exposition of the cult of
relics in the early Middle Ages (for example, burial ad sanctos and the relationship between relics and altars, as well as ideas of virtus and praesentia), the
book moves on to consider physical arrangements for the cult down to c. 750
(for example, the construction of churches over the tombs of saints). There is
then an interesting chapter on the influence of earlier Roman architecture on
the crypts of the Carolingian renaissance, followed by a survey of rather different developments (notably the appearance of radiating chapels) from the ninth
to the eleventh centuries. The focus of the book then becomes more English,
with a chapter on relic cults in Normandy and England in the tenth and
eleventh centuries, and another on relic cults in England in the twelfth century.
A final chapter deals with the development of shrines across the whole period.
This is a well-written, well-researched, and notably well-presented book. The
plans and plates, which are generally Crook’s own, are of a very high standard.
Moreover, Crook is often deploying firsthand knowledge of the sites discussed,
and brings to bear on them the expertise of a specialist architectural historian.
He brings into discussion a number of neglected or less well-known sites,
which deserve the prominence given to them by his work. As a survey,the book
is therefore a very useful contribution, and provides a mine of information. It
nevertheless has limitations. Its underlying method is to interpret archaeological and architectural remains in terms of literary sources for the cult of saints,
with the result that it tends to reinforce rather than modify existing interpretations. The aim seems often to be to explain the remains in question, rather than
to seek to use them as evidence in their own right. Admittedly, Crook takes a
step in this direction when he deals with England, and here he is at his best reevaluating the impact of the Norman Conquest on the English church in terms
of the extent to which the cult of saints was—or was not—accommodated in
churches constructed shortly after the Conquest, and the apparent resurgence
of interest in English saints’cults in the twelfth century. Even here,however,the
reader often feels the lack of a real synthesis, as Crook delves into example after
example, handling some in a very detailed although admittedly fascinating way
(his discussion of the ‘Holy Hole’ at Winchester, for example). His discussion of
Carolingian crypts and their relationship to earlier Roman architecture is another good example of the author really using his material to re-evaluate history, although in fact he here moves little beyond the work of R. Krautheimer
on Carolingian basilicas. In the end, we are left with “the persistent architectural influence of the cult of saints,” involving “a compromise between the
needs of the clergy and those of the people who flocked to the body of the
local saint.” This is not a revelatory conclusion, and it is to be hoped that
Crook’s book will now stimulate scholars to come to grips with the material remains it surveys as free-standing evidence for the beliefs and attitudes of the

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early Middle Ages, rather as Maureen C. Miller has recently done so brilliantly
for another type of architectural survival (The Bishop’s Palace in Medieval
Italy [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000]).
DAVID ROLLASON
University of Durham

The Early History of Greed: The Sin of Avarice in Early Medieval Thought and
Literature. By Richard Newhauser. [Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, 41.] (New York: Cambridge University Press. 2000. Pp. xiv, 246.
$64.95.)
Professor Newhauser begins his study by setting up two principles. First,
concern with avaritia was not the late medieval by-product of a burgeoning
money economy, but reflected an ancient and long-lasting preoccupation, as
much with “the forcefulness of yearning” as with “the object of desire” (p. xii).
As the author puts it later, “the broad contours of avarice’s definition” were
“clearly products of late antique culture” (p. 95). Second, “the pressures of asceticism asserted a transformative power on the definition of the vice throughout the early Middle Ages” (p. xiii).
The two principles do not prove easy to reconcile; and it is the first, eventually,that comes to dominate the argument. Reaching back to Hermas,the author
chronicles a broadening of concern,a shift from philargyria to pleonexia,from
a delight in money to an addiction to surfeit, a shift boosted considerably by
Clement’s enthusiasm for the figurative, and by Origen’s search for the psychological roots of vice. From the same early period, however, writers were aware
of “the social consequences of sin” (p. 23). The results of that double focus are
admirably unfolded. First, indignation at acquisitive greed did not always encourage radical social reform; it was more a matter of encouraging the rich to
help the poor. “Thus, the seeds for a future justification of wealth were contained already in the early condemnation of greed” (p. 9). Motive began to
count for more than possession—a compromise associated with the distinction
between precepts and counsels. We are invited to recognize the development
of a lay church, within which ascesis was tempered by pastoral demands and
opportunities.
Church leaders in the fourth century, after the impact of Constantine, were
affected by new anxieties. Here,Ambrose is made a key figure, deeply disturbed
by the runaway destructiveness of wealth. (Neil McLynn’s study of Ambrose,
now more than six years old, is not, however, mentioned.) I would have contrasted him less with Basil; but Professor Newhauser documents in interesting
ways Ambrose’s alarm at the economic disruption of the Balkans under pressure from barbarians, and his concern that loyalty to property and inheritance
was inhibiting the conversion of the élite. He and his Italian colleagues seem to
have been less worried by their own impact on the economic system—as the
author points out, it took a Jerome to uncover that contradiction—and I was

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surprised to find virtually no reference to Paulinus of Nola (and, perhaps more
forgivably, none to Dennis Trout’s 1999 biography).
It is interesting that the attack on avarice should have been tied up with so
many other theoretical preoccupations. The chief of them may have been the
development of a history of avarice, which affected one’s understanding of the
Fall, of the prior situation in Paradise (not to mention the Golden Age), and of
the changing impact of greed in all its guises throughout the chronicled past.
Augustine, of course, is given greatest prominence here, although the author is
astute in his assessment of Gregory of Nazianzus, and pays due attention to several earlier stages in the process of historicizing vice. It was a pity, however, to
restrict the analysis of Augustine’s thought to his engagement in the Pelagian
controversy and with the so-called “Sicilian Briton.” “Orthodox” figures also
showed a characteristic readiness to link anything undesirable with error and
“heresy”; and the bugbear in the fourth century was not so much material excess in general but the dangerous (and partly ascetic) notion that one need not
work in order to guarantee one’s material support.
All that leads one to question whether a specifically ascetic motive could
have underpinned much of the response to reprehensible possessiveness. Professor Newhauser is forced to make Evagrius and Cassian, for example, part of
another story, markedly separated from the lay and pastoral world. It has become increasingly clear in recent years that such distinctions are not easy to
maintain. (The author has little to say about the social history of asceticism, and
does not refer, for example, to Robert Markus’s The End of Ancient Christianity.) Cassian is particularly problematic, since his declared attachment to a
withdrawn life was belied by so much in his own career. There is no doubt that
some saw in the coenobitic movement a genuine freedom from individual care;
but one would have gained from more than a few phrases on the impact of
monasticism’s growing corporate wealth (pp. 67–68).
The final stages of Professor Newhauser’s account are the least satisfactory.
Having documented an extension of the attack to the problem of vainglory (especially, of course, at the hand of Chrysostom), he suggests a slow move away
from the primacy of greed to the primacy of pride—an emphasis he finds characteristic of Benedict. However, it is difficult to see how that should be associated with the subject of his fifth chapter, “Secularizing Avarice and Cupidity.”
The author himself supposes a connection with Gregory the Great, faced with
Lombard incursion—faced with the disturbance, in other words, of his ascetic
contemplatio. “An early medieval audience outside the monastery must have
found it immediately easier to comprehend the need for obedience to authority, secular as well as divine . . . than to grasp the importance of suppressing
natural appetites” (p. 102). But the need for obedience to authority, secular as
well as divine, would have applied just as much, surely, in the age of Ambrose
and Augustine. The rest of this final chapter lapses into a hurried synopsis of
this later writer and that, without any apparent feeling that further argument is
required.

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719

For a professor of English, the author’s style is not always as smooth as it
might be. He is particularly prone to lengthy inversions within a sentence, separating too many actors from their actions. However, the book may well force
adaptation on some later medievalists; and, although there is little here that will
surprise a late antique or Patristic historian, several connections are well made
and provoking. There is a splendid appendix, listing all the “imagery surrounding avarice,” with detailed reference to the texts in which each image is used.
PHILIP ROUSSEAU
The Catholic University of America

The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages. Edited by Yitzhak Hen and
Matthew Innes. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 2000. Pp. x, 283.
$64.95 hardback; $23.95 paperback.)
The old saw that every generation writes its own version of history has been
recast. The past is “invented,” memory is “constructed,” even “socially constructed,” and the past is “used” in a variety of ways. Viewed from these perspectives, history writing, formerly an arid topic dominated by Quellenkritik,
now emerges as an exciting field with virtually limitless possibilities. Even the
most prosaic source needs a fresh look. Modern historians need to be mindful
that, to paraphrase Matthew Innes (p. 228), all pasts existed in the present of
those who set about to fashion representations of the past. The eleven essays
gathered in this volume drive that point home with abundant clarity and from
a variety of perspectives beyond formal history writing.
Two themes predominate among the essays: how the past justified political
power and how the Bible influenced the present’s view of the past. Walter
Pohl’s sophisticated analysis of Lombard sources explores how Lombard memory and identity were formed, especially after the Carolingian conquest of Lombardy. Refreshingly, Pohl offers no simple model of how Lombards constructed
their past and reminds his readers that the past was not “infinitely malleable”
(p. 27). Mary Garrison’s carefully nuanced examination of the Franks as the
“New Israel” argues that that equation evolved only gradually and was propelled by non-Franks, popes and insular scholars especially.Yitzhak Hen turned
to a seemingly banal document, the Annals of Metz, to argue that it was inspired
by Charlemagne’s 806 division of the kingdom and painted a picture of Frankish history in which the aristocrats needed (and therefore should support) the
Carolingian dynasty. Rosamond McKitterick considered collections of historical
texts gathered in manuscripts. Rather than mere records of events, the texts
represented carefully considered efforts on the part of political elites to construct self-serving ideologies of power. Matthew Innes also showed how seemingly timeless sources could be molded by contemporary needs and cautioned
modern historians to note that Germanic oral traditions developed symbioti-

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cally with Latin sources and should not be read as unalloyed remnants of a remote Germanic past. Many users of the past almost instinctively drew on visions
of the past conjured by the Bible. Dominic James reminds readers that prior to
750 history writing was influenced by a spiritual allegorizing tradition rooted in
the Bible that led writers to value the universal over the specific. Thus, as Rob
Meens describes, the Old Testament was especially useful to early medieval
canonists because its books contain the rules and laws they needed to achieve
ritual purity. In a remarkable essay, Mayke De Jong shows how the biblical commentaries of Hrabanus Maurus drew on the scriptural past to educate and edify
royal readers. De Jong underscores the contemporary resonances of the Bible
in ninth-century court culture and the creativity of Hrabanus’s achievement.
Other essays examined uses of the past in other contexts. Marios Costambeys
looked at how conceptions of monastic life changed in Italy between the sixth
and eighth centuries to argue that monasticism in the latter period was animated not so much by the concept of a sovereign deity as it was by the notion
of purgation through gift-giving and proximity to the saints. Catherine Cubitt,
on the other hand, found very little change from the seventh to the ninth centuries in the narrative structures of four lives of Anglo-Saxon saints. The routine
of monastic life with its emphasis on imitation seems to account for the stasis.
Cristina La Rocca presented the volume’s most spectacular example of medieval ingenuity in constructing usable pasts. Almost everything known about
Pacificus of Verona († 846), accounted a major intellectual figure before La
Rocca’s 1995 book on him, turns out to have been invented in the twelfth century by Verona’s cathedral chapter to create a documentary past for its property
rights.
Inevitably unevenness intrudes in the collection. Brief, general essays appear
alongside more thoroughly researched and wide-ranging studies. Where several
authors suggest “one size fits all” models, others adopt a more agnostic tone.
The question of how these uses of the past were themselves used needs to be
addressed more persistently and not assumed. In the final analysis, the important questions and lessons this volume prompts need to be taken seriously by
modern historians when they use the past.
JOHN J. CONTRENI
Purdue University

The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages: Methodology and Source Studies,
Regional Developments, Hagiography. Edited by Margot E. Fassler and Rebecca A. Baltzer. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2000. Pp. xxiv, 632.
$65.00.)
Liturgy frequently figures in scripture and sacred literature as a heavenly banquet or royal feast. Margot Fassler and Rebecca Baltzer have brought to the fes-

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721

tal board a cornucopia full of rich and varied offerings. This book presents
twenty-three essays by internationally renowned medievalists and liturgical musicologists on the liturgy of the hours in the medieval Latin West. The essays are
arranged as chapters under six general headings: a methodological introduction,the pre-Carolingian office,manuscript studies,regional developments from
the Carolingian era to the later Middle Ages, hagiography, and the use of computers in research on the divine office.
The intended readers, or rather invited guests, range from the novice in liturgical studies to the adept in the more specialized fields of musical palaeography
and the performance of Latin verse. In other words, there is something for
everyone at this bountiful table.
As a prelude to the feast,Lila Collamore welcomes the reader to the study and
arrangement of the liturgy of the hours as the means par excellence of sanctifying time with scriptural prayer over the course of the day,the night,the week,
the year. Margot Fassler then lays out the common source materials for the
study of the office and its history, using Advent as a test case for dealing with
the various tools and indices available to today’s liturgical scholar. László Dobszay explains how to read an office book.
Leading the second section, on the pre-Carolingian office, James MacKinnon
(d. 1999) lays out the origins of the western office. Joseph Dyer comments on
the office in the Rule of the Master. Peter Jeffery identifies eastern and western
elements in the Irish monastic hours.
The third section contains four chapters on manuscript studies. Ritva Jacobsson
discusses the office of St. Andrew in the oldest extant Latin office book, the Antiphoner of Compiègne (ca. 870). James Grier treats the office at St.-Martial in
the early eleventh century. Michel Huglo examines the Cluniac Processional of
Solesmes. Susan Rankin studies the presence of non-liturgical songs in some
liturgical offices.
The fourth and largest section, on regional development from the early ninth
century to the later Middle Ages, includes a treatment by Terence Bailey on the
development and chronology of the Ambrosian sanctorale. Wulf Arlt presents
the clerics’ office for the feast of the Circumcision from Le Puy. Craig Wright describes the Palm Sunday procession in medieval Chartres.
The fifth part, devoted to hagiography, explores offices of particular saints.
Gunilla Iversen shows how the office of King Olav of Norway transformed a
viking into a saint. Janka Szendrei examines the prose historia of St. Augustine,
whose liturgical cult enjoyed surprisingly limited and uneven currency in the
Middle Ages. David Hiley explores the music of the office of St. Julian of Le
Mans, identifying nontraditional and nonstandard turns of phrase in Létald of
Micy’s historia of the saint. Rebecca A. Baltzer shows how the little office of
the Blessed Virgin, performed by clerics for clerics in the renowned cathedral
of Notre Dame de Paris, renewed the sense of mission and Marian devotion of

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those who celebrated it on a regular basis. James John Boyce discusses the
source material of the Carmelite feast of the Presentation of the Virgin, demonstrating how the Carmelites of Mainz adapted established melodies, particularly
from the well-respected and widely disseminated office of St. Thomas of Canterbury, in order to concentrate on theological rather than musical considerations.
The sixth and final section deals with the liturgy of the hours and computers.
Andrew Hughes, blending musical expertise with a facility for handling stateof-the-art computer technology, reports on his late-medieval liturgical offices
project. Hesitant about the usefulness to the average medievalist of such specialized programs as Nota Bene, TACT, Library Master, and others, Hughes is
hopeful about a number of large projects in music and liturgy now being developed despite the very limited financial resources available to projects in
the humanities. Using the CANTUS project pioneered by Ruth Steiner, Lora
Matthews and Paul Merkley demonstrate the usefulness of the CANTUS files in
the study of modal assignment, in identifying melodies and melodic variants,
and in compiling liturgical information.
The volume is dedicated to Professor Ruth Steiner on the occasion of her retirement after an eminent career of nearly four decades in medieval musicology
at The Catholic University of America. The tome stands therefore as a tribute “in
gratitude for her scholarship and her generous spirit, which have shaped not
just this book but the field of chant studies as a whole.” Among the most celebrated achievements of Steiner is the foundation and directorship of CANTUS,
the vast electronic database of surviving evidence surrounding the medieval office and its praxis. CANTUS is now housed at the University of Western Ontario.
Nearly all the essays individually acknowledge the authors’ indebtedness to
Steiner’s prodigious work and their personal esteem for her as a reliable and
gracious colleague. A bibliography of writings by Steiner follows the essays.
In assembling this impressive collection of essays, Fassler and Baltzer merit
high praise for three chief reasons. First, the liturgy of the hours has received
surprisingly little attention from scholars in proportion to its vast influence on
the literature, arts, and general culture of the western Middle Ages. Second, the
community of musicologists and researchers in the field of musical palaeography sometimes fails to engage other medievalists and liturgists who do not enjoy specialization in music, particularly medieval plainsong. At major colloquia,
even at such large international congresses as Kalamazoo, medieval musicologists frequently find themselves in the ironic situation of preaching to the choir.
This book makes a deliberate attempt to reach out and to offer ready access to
non-specialists in music. Such a friendly gesture is all the more welcome as relatively few scholars in the field today have any firsthand contact with the office
performed as an habitual exercise of liturgical prayer. Even clergy and religious,
who do continue to pray the hours,are likely to be using the Liturgia Horarum
revised and promulgated by Paul VI in 1971, rather than the office issued in
1568 by Pius V and only slightly modified by modern popes. Hence the need for

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a general introduction to the medieval office. Third, at a time when publishers
are wary of sponsoring Festschriften, it calls for vision, astute business sense, resourcefulness, and good taste to present what is essentially a Festschrift in the
more marketable form of a book. This tome could easily serve as the pivotal text
in a graduate course on the office in medieval Europe.
The articles are of a uniformly high quality. The tables are helpful, clearly setting forth the data in a format pleasant to the eye and easy to read. The musical
examples are handsomely presented on five-line staves. The few black and white
illustrations reflect judicious selection and display superior reproduction.
This basic reference tool will long serve the research needs of a wide range
of scholars in religious studies, art history, musicology, institutional history, and
theology. For this reason the book stands as a worthy tribute to an indefatigable
pioneer and a much cherished colleague. Such a sumptuous banquet calls for a
toast!
NEIL J. ROY
The Catholic University of America

Dreams, Visions, and Spiritual Authority in Merovingian Gaul. By Isabel Moreira. (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. 2000. Pp. xiii, 262.
$49.95.)
“Your old men will dream dreams,” according to the prophet Joel. But he had
not said anything about bishops and clerics. As a result, in the Christian tradition dreams and visions were both liberating and dangerous. They promised
healings and offered advice about the construction of shrines. They also bestowed prestige and influence, which might challenge the standing of bishops.
Isabel Moreira’s book is an excellent survey of the functions of visions in early
medieval Gaul, and of their capacity to resolve the very tensions they created.
One of her primary arguments is that Gallic clerics found a way “to permit a
Christian culture of dreaming to develop and flourish, while maintaining episcopal authority” (p. 80).
The core of Moreira’s book is early Merovingian society, as described especially in the writings of Gregory of Tours during the later sixth century. The introductory chapters discuss the different interpretations proposed by earlier
Christian writers. Some had promoted fully open access to dreams for all believers, while others, like Augustine, preferred to restrict access. In Gregory’s
Gaul visions and dreams had become integral components of the religious
rhetoric that shaped communities. Moreira’s central chapters discuss bishops,
pilgrims, and travelers to the imaginary otherworld. Gregory himself relied
upon visions to resolve family crises and enhance his own episcopal standing.
Dreaming was especially common at saints’ shrines. If ill people could imagine
themselves to be healthy,then often they were in fact healed. One crippled man

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dreamed that he had stretched out his foot, and awoke to find he could walk
again. Some monks and clerics were privileged to receive visions of the afterlife. Sometimes that other world was terrifying, with rivers of fire, sometimes
comforting, with a mansion of gold. The concluding chapters discuss the visions of Radegund of Poitiers and Aldegund of Maubeuge. Joel had also announced that “your daughters will prophesy,” and Merovingian clerics were
prepared to admit that women too could become visionaries. “A flexible approach just made sense” (p. 226).
Such a fine survey as Moreira’s book is wonderfully suggestive for future projects about dreams and visions. One is the linkage with art, and especially the
decoration of churches and shrines. At Tours Gregory recorded many of the visions of St. Martin that ill people received in their sleep. Since there is a recurring sameness about these descriptions, perhaps people dreamed a St. Martin
whom they had already seen depicted on the walls of the saint’s church. The
similarities among the various visions of particular saints,particular episodes,or
particular places,including heaven and hell,might suggest a background of portraits, frescoes, and mosaics in churches. Visions and dreams are important for
art history, as well as for discussions of authority and identity and rhetoric.
Another future project would consider the ineffectiveness of dreams and visions. Moreira discusses how visions might resolve conflicts among bishops,
kings, heretics, and Jews. But visions too faced competition as a means of channeling authority. Books became one important rival. Gregory of Tours was once
healed after he remembered a story he had already recorded, rather than after a
fresh vision. Visions of the future increasingly had to compete with accounts of
the past. Even when people did receive visions, they did not always act. Gregory had at least three visions that instructed him to start recording miracle stories. But he did not actually become a historian until his mother pointedly told
him to start writing.
RAYMOND VAN DAM
University of Michigan

The Scriptorium and Library at Monte Cassino, 1058–1105. By Francis Newton. [Cambridge Studies in Palaeography and Codicology,Volume 7.] (New
York: Cambridge University Press. 1999. Pp. xxvi, 421; 4 color plates, 212
plates, 82 figures. $175.00.)
In 1914, Elias Avery Loew [Lowe] published The Beneventan Script, a landmark in palaeographical studies. Since 1914, and especially since the re-edition
of The Beneventan Script by Virginia Brown in 1980, an impressive body of
scholarship has been and continues to be devoted to Beneventan-script manuscripts, as is attested by the list of titles and references in the bibliography published each year since 1993 by the Scuola di specializzazione per conservatori
di beni archivistici e librari della civiltà monastica of the Università di Cassino.

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Such studies have led to occasional revisions of Lowe’s conclusions; Brown has
shown, for instance, that the script was used in some locales into the sixteenth
century, more than two hundred years after Lowe had thought it abandoned.
Nonetheless, Lowe’s methods of analysis and his broad conclusions remain
canonical.
Although the scriptorium of Montecassino, from which almost half the Beneventan MSS known to Lowe originated, was central to Lowe’s study, and the
MSS written at Montecassino under the abbot Desiderius (1058–1087) marked
the highest achievements of the script, Lowe’s work was the history of a regional script, not the history of the script’s most prominent scriptorium. Francis Newton’s impressive study of the scriptorium and library of Montecassino
in its golden age under the abbots Desiderius and Oderisius (1087–1105) fills
the gap with the first monograph to examine book production in one Beneventan center in its most productive decades, a center which happens also to
be central to the history of the regional script. Lowe’s fundamental conclusion
about the importance of Montecassino is not challenged by Newton’s study,but
our understanding of the monastery,its culture in the second half of the eleventh
century,and the specific developments of the script is enriched greatly by Newton’s detailed and definitive examination of Montecassino’s MSS. Newton argues, for instance, that the development of the “classical” Desiderian script was
not the result of decades of incremental modifications, as Lowe claimed, but occurred in a short period early in Desiderius’s abbacy. Using book inventories in
the Chronicle of Montecassino, internal references, and contextual arguments,
Newton first establishes a list of datable MSS, many of which are here dated for
the first time; for others, Newton’s dates are convincing revisions of former assessments. Newton then describes clearly and precisely how in a few years between ca. 1066 and 1071, some scribes changed their angle of writing, letters
became more clearly tied to the head and baselines, and the systems of punctuation and abbreviation were simplified and regularized. The result was an
unmistakable new look presented first in a series of liturgical display MSS commissioned by Desiderius to “ornament” the monastery’s new basilica dedicated
in 1071. Again working from the firm foundation of dated MSS, Newton identifies palaeographical and codicological developments over the next generation,
including the preference for more compact books and a smaller script under
Oderisius.
Even more remarkable than Newton’s elegant new outline for the script’s development are the detailed and insightful comments on the scores of individual
Cassinese MSS that Newton uses. In many cases, MSS are re-dated; the famous
Tacitus MS now in the Laurentian library of Florence (Flor. Laur. 68.2) is identified,for instance,as Desiderian,not pre-Desiderian,as Lowe held. In other cases,
close study of the MSS reveals formerly unrecognized layers of meaning; the
Desiderian Lectionary now in the Vatican Library (Vat. lat. 1202) is dated, for instance, to 1075, and the dedication of the chapel of St. Bartholomew, not to
1071 and the dedication of the monastery’s new basilica, and Newton presents

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a nuanced reading of its famous dedicatory image by analyzing the image in
conjunction with the poem by Alfanus on the facing page. Newton’s rich comments on the great variety and diverse appearances of the works written at
Montecassino in the period make his study a cultural history,albeit with a palaeographic emphasis. Cassinese monks are shown to have sought out varied and
rare texts, especially those of authors associated with their region, such as Varro,
or for whom the monks had a special affinity, such as Augustine. Newton’s reconstruction of the values and tastes of a monastic community taking its cue
from its bibliophile abbots will benefit students of monastic culture, palaeography, and the transmission of classical and patristic texts.
The extensive citations, the codicological commentaries, the abundant and
well-produced plates, and the rich analysis make Newton’s book the most complete published record of the scriptorium of Montecassino, an outstanding
contribution to understanding medieval monastic culture, and a model continuation of Lowe’s palaeographic method, in which script is a register of culture.
RICHARD GYUG
Fordham University

The Cathars: Dualist Heretics in Languedoc in the High Middle Ages. By Malcolm Barber. [The Medieval World Series.] Pearson Education. (Harlow, Essex: Longman, Pearson Education. 2000. Pp. xvi, 282 £17.99.)
This is a remarkably succinct account of the rise and fall of Catharism in its
most famous milieu, coupled with an initial chapter on the heresy’s origins,
bringing forward recent revisionary views on dualism in eleventh-century European heresy, a chapter on the Cathar Church per se, with reference to its
literature and Italian developments, and a concluding, gently ironic chapter on
Cathars after Catharism, exposing the lack of research and historical sense of
neo-Cathars and romantic writers and showing how they use Catharism and
Languedoc as a peg for preformed ideas and ideologies. Shrewd realism, understanding of the social structure, especially in the fine second chapter, and mastery of the chronicle evidence underpin narration and explanation. The author
keeps close to his originals and the reader is taken firmly into well-chosen extracts, integrated into his story. There are twelve pages of further reading, with
comments on primary and secondary material and six maps, including one illustrating a reconstruction of the field of work of the late perfect, Bernard
Acier. Barber is a clear-headed guide through the thickets of modern writing
and offers corrections and original observations, aided by unpublished Doat
and the theses of Claire Dutton and Andrew Roach. He is cautious on the
Béziers massacre, notes how southern atrocity at Puisserguier preceded Simon
de Montfort’s better-known terror at Bram, spots the role of simple souls in the
Liber de duobus principibus, and sees the lightening role of humor at the end

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of an Autier sermon. Portraits of the protagonists are well drawn—Innocent III,
surprisingly, in Languedoc vacillating and open to lobbying, Simon with his energy worn down by thirty-nine sieges. Barber answers the major question: what
impact did Simon’s campaigns have on Catharism? His answer is that Simon cut
the infrastructure,checked proselytizing,and changed the environment but still
left many centers untouched. The author’s touch is most certain when he deals
with noble attitudes, explaining, for example, the link between rendability and
Aimery of Montréal’s rebellion and the true basis for Raymond Roger of Foix’s
attitude to the Church and heresy. He is less at ease in some passages on doctrine, where the book would have benefited from the depth supplied by the
third and fourth volumes of Gerhard Rottenwöhrer’s Der Katharismus. The
Toulouse MX 609 supports the appearance of transmigration of souls in 1245–
6. He brings over ably the attitudes of patron and rank-and-file believer but does
not adequately convey the driving passion associated with the position of the
perfect, witnessed in the steely determination of Arnaude de Lamothe or the
decision of some at Montségur to seek consolamentum at the end of the siege,
even at the cost of life. But the integrity and perspective of the book illuminate
its subject.
MALCOLM LAMBERT
Eastcombe, Stroud, England

La Guerre sainte: La formation de l’idée de croisade dans l’Occident chrétien.
By Jean Flori. (Paris: Aubier. 2001. Pp. 406. FF 159.)
The title of this most most important and challenging book announces Professor Flori’s purpose of demonstrating that the emergence of the idea of crusade as proclaimed by Pope Urban II at Clermont in 1095 must be understood
in the light of the gradual development in the Christian West of the concept
and practice of holy war. Its origins must be traced back to the Christian Roman
Empire of Constantine and his successors and to how early medieval people
understood the writings of St. Augustine of Hippo. It underwent a remarkable
development in the tenth and eleventh centuries before becoming the principal determinant of Crusading ideas. In so arguing, Flori is concerned to renew,
though not without some criticisms, the emphasis upon the centrality of holy
war that Carl Erdmann set in his masterly monograph Die Entstehung des
Kreuzzugsgedankens (1935). In Flori’s view, much recent inquiry has unduly
played down the character of the crusade as holy war in favor of such aspects
of it as pilgrimage and especially as armed pilgrimage: holy war is a fundamental dimension of the crusade which is nowadays too much neglected. Flori
therefore offers a comprehensive study of holy war in the West up to the beginning of the twelfth century and of the First Crusade as standing in the direct
line of its long evolution, whatever other characteristics it may also have possessed.

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In his positive purpose of reasserting the cardinal importance of the idea of
holy war in the formation of the crusade and consequently the long and manyfaceted maturing of this idea, Flori is, in my opinion, successful. This is in no
small measure the result of his penetrating and comprehensively informed discussion of the idea of holy war over the centuries. It is worth drawing attention
to two subjects in particular of which Flori’s treatments are highly original and
entirely convincing. The first is Augustine’s teaching about the just war. Flori
rightly dismisses the widely canvassed view that Augustine elaborated a doctrine of the just war which in course of time evolved into holy war and the crusade as a reversal of the true development. Augustine’s scattered remarks about
the just war were far from constituting a clear and coherent theory of it which
was known and received before the crusade;only from the thirteenth century onwards was such a theory elaborated, partly in the light of the crusade. Strictly
speaking, Augustine was not concerned with holy war either, but with the conditions under which a Christian might take an active part in the military operations of the Empire without peril to soul as well as to body. But much of
Augustine’s discussion of war was set in the context of the divinely sanctioned
wars of the Old Testament: thus, eleventh-century citations of his genuine and
pseudonymous writings were used to warrant warfare that was in character
holy rather than just, as writers like Aquinas would understand it. Second, Flori
offers a full and perceptive estimate of the Peace of God both as it developed
in France and as it may have led to the crusade. He duly notices the extent of
lay sponsorship of Peace councils from an early date; he compellingly argues
that the purpose of the Peace was not to limit a supposed ‘feudal anarchy’ but
to protect the ecclesiastical patrimony. There was no direct line of development from the Peace of God to the crusade.
The centuries-long crescendo of the holy war itself is tellingly presented as
culminating in the crusade. Flori adroitly shows that crusaders’ charters of the
1090’s make clear their perception of it as a holy war to free Jerusalem as well
as a pilgrimage to secure the remission of sins; he is well aware of the new as of
the old in the crusade and especially of its aspect as an armed pilgrimage. However, doubt remains about whether the balance is quite firmly struck. When the
military and pilgrimage aspects are compared to the two sides of a single coin
(p. 317), one warmly agrees. But the definition of a crusade with which the
book closes,“a holy war having as its objective the liberation of Jerusalem” (p.
357), is probably too narrow either for the First Crusade or for the crusades in
general. Nevertheless, it makes the valid point that the archetypal crusade was
the expedition to Jerusalem; there was no single genre of crusades, but all other
such expeditions are rightly so called in so far as in major respects they approximate to the model of 1095–1099.
H. E. J. COWDREY
St. Edmund Hall, Oxford

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How to Recover the Holy Land.The Crusade Proposals of the Late Thirteenth
and Early Fourteenth Centuries. By Antony Leopold. (Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate. 2000. Pp. x, 231. $79.95.)
By the third quarter of the thirteenth century it was becoming increasingly
apparent that Jerusalem, lost by the crusaders in 1187 and reoccupied for just a
few years after 1229, was not going to be won back easily. Indeed, the continued threat to the Christian presence in the Levant and the loss of territory, especially after 1260, convinced most western observers that only a major military
effort could re-establish Christian rule in the Holy Land. It was against this background that a number of authors drew up proposals for how this might be
done. Many of these texts have long been in print and have been considered by
previous writers such as Atiya and Schein. Dr. Leopold’s study, however, makes
a significant advance. He rightly stresses that these texts do not form a homogeneous genre but vary considerably depending on the circumstances in which
they were written. Several authors were responding to requests for advice from
the popes, notably Nicholas IV and Clement V; others were writing unsolicited
advice for particular rulers who were known to have been interested in planning a crusade. Only rarely were the treatises themselves written as crusade
propaganda. The authors were men of differing backgrounds and had contrasting degrees of information and experience of conditions in the East. Accordingly some were more practical than others. Opinions varied on preparations
and strategy, with some writers more attuned to the problems to finance and
recruitment, while comparatively few seem to have given much thought to
how their conquests should be governed and defended following a successful
campaign. After the 1330’s and the outbreak of the Hundred Years’ War, the
prospects for a major expedition receded and the proposals dwindled correspondingly, although it appears that the view of the late thirteenth- and early
fourteenth-century writers were still of interest to the fifteenth-century dukes
of Burgundy.
This study is well written and well researched, although I am surprised to
find continued reliance on LaMonte and Runciman in preference to more recent scholars (e.g., at p. 181). I am not entirely sure that the crusades of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries had “demonstrated that legates had very little
authority over the expeditions they accompanied” (p. 67). Certainly the role of
legates on crusade and in the Latin East deserves further consideration. The
claim that the initiative for later fourteenth-century expeditions “tended to
come from the Christians of the eastern Mediterranean rather than the papacy
or the courts of western Europe” (p. 189) similarly may not stand up to scrutiny.
But these are peripheral points, and Dr.Leopold is to be congratulated on a fine
piece of work.
PETER W. EDBURY
Cardiff University, Wales

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‘In the Footsteps of the Ancients’: The Origins of Humanism from Lovato to
Bruni. By Ronald G. Witt. [Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought,
Volume LXXIV.] (Leiden: E. J. Brill. 2000. Pp. xiii, 562. $162.00.)
Ronald Witt’s new book, recipient in 2000 of the Renaissance Society of
America’s Phyllis Goodhart Gordan Book Prize, represents the culmination of
decades of research on the emergence and development of humanism. In it he
self-consciously aims to challenge, indeed to upend, conventional assumptions
about the origins of humanism. Readers discover that they should no longer
think of humanism springing fully formed from the mind and pen of Petrarch
in the fourteenth century or of Florence as humanism’s birthplace. The emergence of humanism required a lengthy process, and its earliest origins lie in the
thirteenth century with the Paduan poet Lovato dei Lovati (1240/41–1309). Lovato broke with the northern Italian tradition of producing chivalric poetry in
Provençal to write classicizing verse in Latin. His principal inspiration was
Seneca, and his outlook was decidedly secular. The use of Latin, the study and
imitation of classical authors, the choice of secular themes: these are the essential ingredients of what Witt calls “the new aesthetic.” That this aesthetic
first manifested itself in poetry makes perfect sense when one considers that
the ars dictaminis, the medieval formal style for Latin composition, concerned
itself with prose, not with verse.
Compared to Padua, early fourteenth-century Florence was “something of a
cultural backwater for study of the ancient Latin writers” (p. 173). In the first
half of the Trecento, Florence witnessed a growth in vernacular literature,
which “in the short run hindered the development of humanism in Florence”
(p. 229) because it detracted from Latin learning.Yet the many vernacular translations of classical literature familiarized Florentines with ancient culture and
helped them value it, thus paving the way for the emergence of humanism in
the second half of the Trecento.
The process of humanism’s origins comes to a close with Leonardo Bruni
and his generation at the beginning of the Quattrocento. Several developments
indicate that humanism was by then fully formed. Dictamen, which “had to be
dislodged from one genre of prose after another in something like a house-tohouse campaign” (p. 443), experienced its complete demise with the emergence of a classicizing oratory.With the revival of oratory Cicero replaced Seneca
as the principal source of inspiration and imitation. Under the auspices of Bruni
“the first Ciceronianism” forged powerful links between classical oratory and
political ideology in Florence. Cicero and his literary aesthetic served as the basis for the support of the city’s republican constitution, contributed to the elaboration of a civic ethic independent of religious influence, and won over the
Florentine patriciate for humanism.
Not surprisingly, Hans Baron’s interpretation of Bruni’s Laudatio Florentinae Urbis and the response of Baron’s critics frames Witt’s discussion of the

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ties between a new humanist aesthetic and Florentine politics. While Witt acknowledges that the Florentine oligarchy adopted the language of republicanism in its own interest to prevent popular challenges to its authority, he argues
for another source that shaped the ruling elite’s conception of government:
“extended contact with ancient literature and history,wherein the ancient civic
ethic and republicanism were extolled” (p. 426). Witt denies that the Laudatio
simply functioned “as a kind of rhetorical flourish” (p. 430) and, with Baron, believes that Bruni was genuinely committed to republicanism. Baron’s “great
flaw,” however, was to see Bruni “primarily as a political man,” not as a scholar
(p. 431).
‘In the Footsteps of the Ancients’ is without a doubt an authoritative and erudite book. It fastens upon a topic that had previously escaped sustained scholarly attention. It combines the appeal of a fresh interpretation with a thorough
and methodical approach, grounded in a grammatical and rhetorical textual
analysis conscious of the relevant social and political contexts. Witt’s analysis of
the emergence of humanism, generation by generation, successfully conveys
the longue durée of humanism’s origins.
The way in which Witt traces the development of humanism, however, runs
the risk of being overly teleological. Witt effectively demonstrates the gradual
abandonment of dictamen, but why must the process necessarily lead to the
secularism of Bruni and the first Ciceronianism? Petrarch’s status as the “father
of humanism” comes into question not only because his stylistic eclecticism
discouraged the study of individual classical styles but also because he combined pagan and Christian language. His attempt at reconciling classical culture
and Christianity “forged a prose style capable of dealing broadly with issues
confronting contemporary Christian society,” but it also “delayed the process of
classicizing” (p. 270). Witt writes of Petrarch’s “reorientation of an essentially
secular movement already underway” (p. 246). Coluccio Salutati tried to translate Petrarch’s Christian humanism to the urban context of Florence, but this
led to a “dead end,” from which humanism was—had to be?—“rescued” by
Bruni and Poggio Bracciolini (p. 392). Witt clearly articulates Petrarch’s and
Salutati’s contributions to humanism, but his analysis evinces an undertone of
criticism of these humanists for deflecting humanism from its supposedly ordained secular path. Given that Witt acknowledges that Petrarch’s blending of
classical culture and Christianity helped humanism attain broader relevance in
western Europe and that “had the first Ciceronianism not come to terms with
the Christian faith, its impact on western thought would never have been as
profound as it was” (p. 503), it seems appropriate to allow for a more complex
trajectory in which religious and secular outlooks both constitute genuine components of humanism.
Whatever one’s definition of humanism—and the debate will surely continue—Witt has convincingly established that the movement’s beginnings lie in
the thirteenth century. As a major contribution to the delineation of humanism’s origins, ‘In the Footsteps of the Ancients’ deserves the close attention of

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all serious Renaissance scholars. Its influence will no doubt stimulate further research, especially, one may hope, on the development of a broader European
synthesis of classical antiquity and Christianity out of Quattrocento Italian humanism.
HILMAR M. PABEL
Simon Fraser University
The People of the Parish. Community Life in a Late Medieval English Diocese.
By Katherine L. French. [The Middle Ages Series.] (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press. 2001. Pp. ix, 316. $59.95.)
In one way or another, this book has been in the making for over a decade,
but it was well worth waiting for. Building on her doctoral work, Katherine
French offers a coherent, well-written, and stimulating survey of parish life in
the diocese of Bath and Wells, covering the county of Somerset in England’s
West Country. Parochial activities, to summarize the main thesis, reflected distinct communal identities composed of a complex blend of secular and religious components. Far from being mere objects of clerical directives, parishes
evolved varying types of liturgical, administrative, and convivial practices
informed by particular topographical, economic, and social parameters. Substantiated from a variety of perspectives, French’s contention is entirely convincing.
The argument rests on a range of primary sources, most notably churchwardens’ accounts, wills, and devotional literature. The lack of church court evidence is compensated by an original analysis of Chancery records. After an
initial concern with definitions (the controversial term ‘community’ being understood as “repeated interactions over time of a group of people with shared
goals, interests, concerns and ideals,” p. 24), subsequent chapters deal with
record-keeping, parochial leadership, fundraising, church architecture, and liturgical practices. French draws on extensive familiarity with academic scholarship in various disciplines and a number of maps (admirably produced by
Stephen Hana), graphs, tables, and photographs. Readers also benefit from a
valuable appendix of pre-Reformation parish endowments throughout the diocese, a substantial bibliography, and a general index. Less convenient is the absence of a list of illustrations and the arrangement of references—many of which
with additional information—as endnotes.
Only the briefest impression of content can be provided here. Differences
between urban and rural settings were important variables in the formation of
communal identities. While country parishes encouraged broad participation
through fundraising devices based on seasonal festivals and entertainments,
town churches like St. Mary’s, Bridgwater, developed a more hierarchical and
less inclusive atmosphere. From the mid-fifteenth century,seating arrangements
and processional order expressed the superiority of municipal office over parochial service, while the financial regime relied on individual benefaction rather

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than communal collections. Gender, too, affected parish involvement. Male
householders formed the pillars of local society, but widows occasionally
served as churchwardens; maidens’ guilds made monetary contributions, and
women developed congenial ways of spiritual expression, ranging from mending of church ornaments to gifts of jewellery. Some of the most striking insights, however, emerge in the chapter on parish records. Over and above their
mundane administrative functions, churchwardens’ accounts were instrumental in creating “textual communities,” incorporating both literate and—through
public rehearsal—illiterate parishioners. As records of communal history, they
became sources of power and local pride.
While offering opportunities, particularly the identification of local varieties
within a shared framework, the focus on one diocese has its drawbacks. How
representative is the bishopric for other late medieval English contexts, given
its relative prosperity and lack of major cities? This, of course, would be an entirely different topic, but more explicit reference to comparable work on neighboring dioceses—Andrew Brown on Salisbury and Robert Whiting on Exeter—
might have been illuminating. Similarly, how advisable is the deliberate cut-off
point before the Reformation? As French rightly argues, it does allow us to examine parishes in their own right, without the distractions of mid-Tudor politics, but it makes it difficult to judge how much of the ‘communal’ spirit was
due to doctrinal stimuli such as the cult of saints or prayers for the dead.
The parishes of Bath and Wells emerge as Christian communities with a distinctly local flavor. Interaction between laity and clergy, men and women, gentry and cottagers, townsfolk and peasants generated idiosyncratic patterns of
fundraising, social relations, ritual activities, and decision-making. United before
God and through their institutions, but divided by internal differences, parishes
offer unique insights into the rich texture of late medieval localities. This book
exemplifies just how much can be discovered.
BEAT KÜMIN
University of Warwick

Die Kanoniker von S. Giovanni in Laterano und S. Maria Maggiore im 14.
Jahrhundert: Eine Prosopographie. By Andreas Rehberg. [Bibliothek des
deutschen historischen Instituts in Rom, Band 89.] (Tübingen: Max
Niemeyer Verlag. 1999. Pp. viii, 565. 162.00 DM.)
Andreas Rehberg’s study of the canons of S. Giovanni in Laterano and S.
Maria Maggiore grew out of the author’s interest in the Colonna and their use
of ecclesiastical benefices as a tool for maintaining their position as one of
Rome’s most powerful families.1 Rehberg’s work on the Colonna called his attention to the basilicas of S. Giovanni in Laterno and S. Maria Maggiore, where
the Colonna competed with other baronial families for control. As Rehberg is

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careful to point out, this study of S. Giovanni and S. Maria is not a history of the
two basilicas. Rather it is a prosopography primarily aimed at illuminating the
way in which baronial families used benefices to exercise power in Rome
through clientage networks. Given the competition among Roman aristocratic
families for access to the wealth and prestige that these basilicas afforded, this
prosopographical study of S. Giovanni and S. Maria offers an important contribution to the growing body of literature on the social and economic structure
of fourteenth-century Rome. This study will be useful to historians interested in
the place of urban collegiate churches in the political and social landscape of
the Italian city-states as well.
By supplementing the relatively small proportion of fourteenth-century documents that have survived from the archives of S. Giovanni and S. Maria Maggiore with information from papal registers,notarial protocols,inscriptions,and
other sources, Rehberg has compiled a wealth of information concerning 325
people (174 for S. Giovanni and 151 for S. Maria) who either held benefices or
were candidates for prebends in the two basilicas. This information is presented in two distinct sections of the book. Part One is a social history of the
two chapters during the fourteenth century. Part Two presents the data upon
which the social history in the first section is based. It begins with the actual
prosopographical study, which contains biographical information for each of
the above-mentioned 325 canons and candidates. Following the prosopographical section are charts and graphs based on the prosopographical study. In addition to providing an overview of the social composition of both chapters, the
charts highlight the importance of papal provisions, client networks, social status, and provenance in gaining ecclesiastical benefices.
Rehberg discusses the social history of the two basilicas in terms of four social groups: barons, the old aristocracy (nobilies mediocres), the new aristocracy and popolani (largely those who became members of the ruling elite
during the mid-late fourteenth century), and foreigners (non-Romans). Three
developments shaped the relations between these four social groups and the
basilicas of S. Giovanni and S. Maria. First, in 1299 Pope Boniface VIII changed
the relation between S. Giovanni and Rome’s ruling elite when he removed the
basilica’s regular canons and replaced them with secular canons. Before 1299
the regulated lifestyle of the common life had scared away the sons of the nobility. The abolition of the common life opened the chapter to rivalries among
the urban elite. Although S. Maria remained a chapter of regular canons, it became a prey to urban rivalries as well. The second important development was
the emergence of papal provisions,or the right of the papacy to assign benefices,
which reached its culmination during the fourteenth century. Approximately
two-thirds of the canons in both basilicas received their benefices from papal
provisions. Finally, the popolani revolution in Rome marks the third important
1.
Andreas Rehberg, Kirche und Macht im römischen Trecento. Die Colonna und ihre
Klientel auf dem kurialen Pfründenmarkt (1278–1378) (Bibliothek des Deutschen
Historischen Instituts, Band 88 [Tübingen, 1999]).

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development that shaped the history of both chapters. In 1360 the popolo excluded baronial families from participation in communal government. While
the old aristocracy was not completely excluded, their participation in the commune was greatly reduced. Until 1360 baronial families, particularly the Colonna
and Annibaldi, dominated S. Giovanni. The Colonna exercised tremendous influence in S. Maria as well, although more indirectly through their clients among
the old aristocracy. After 1360 both chapters saw the growing presence and influence of wealthy popolani families, who were in the process of fusing with
old aristocratic families to form a new Roman aristocracy.
One of the most interesting and important aspects of this study is Rehberg’s
analysis of the way in which papal provisions benefited baronial families that
sought to maintain their power through private patronage networks. The necessity of going to Avignon to petition for a prebend positioned baronial families like the Colonna to function as brokers in the prebend market, by virtue of
their representation in the Curia as cardinals and curial officials. As Rehberg
demonstrates, before 1360, one had little chance of gaining a prebend without
the support of a powerful family. Several developments diminished the role of
baronial families as brokers of papal provisions during the latter decades of the
fourteenth century, thereby weakening the patron-client connections upon
which baronial power depended. When the papacy returned to Rome, the Curia became more accessible to lesser Roman families. Moreover,the growing bureaucratization of papal administration made it more difficult for the barons to
use the Curia as a tool for personal politics, that is, for building and maintaining
their own client networks.
For the most part, the religious life of the canons is beyond the scope of this
study. Rehberg uses capitular statutes to present an informative description of
the institutional structure of both chapters and to describe some of the most
common disciplinary problems that troubled the religious life of the basilicas,
such as the difficulty of enforcing residency requirements. Nevertheless, the
primary focus of this book is the social structure of fourteenth-century Rome,
or more particularly, the factors impinging upon the ability of baronial families
to use benefices as tools for constructing the private patronage networks that
played such an important role in the life of the Italian city-states.
DAVID FOOTE
Mississippi State University

Early Modern European
Francisco de Borja, Grande de España. By Enrique García Hernán. [Colección
Biografía, 29.] (Valencia: Diputació de València, Institució Alfons el Magnànim. 1999. Pp. 302.)

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La acción diplomática de Francisco de Borja al servicio del Pontificado
1571–1572. By Enrique García Hernán. (Valencia: Organismo Público Valenciano de Investigación. 2000. Pp. 562. Paperback.)
Enrique García Hernán offers two important new studies of St. Francis Borgia (Borja in Spanish,1510–1572),third general of the Society of Jesus. Both emphasize the work of Borgia in the wider world, rather than narrowly focus on
his administration of what was then the Company of Jesus, and his spiritual life
and devotional works. A diocesan priest of Madrid, Padre García Hernán has
worked the relevant archives in Spain, Italy, Lisbon, London, and Fulda, the many
pertinent collections of documents in print, and the vast secondary literature
in Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, German, and English. Both books carry
extensive footnotes that attest to the level of research undertaken. Both also
carry useful genealogies, and La acción diplomática, maps that detail Borja’s
travels.
The entrance of Don Francisco de Borja, duke of Gandía and grandee of
Spain, into the Society of Jesus, created a great stir at the time, an age caught up
in the controversies of Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Borja’s greatgrandfather was Pope Alexander VI (Borgia), and his mother was a granddaughter of King Ferdinand the Catholic through his bastard, the Archbishop of
Zaragoza, in an age when the mighty placed their illegitimate offspring well.
García Hernán details the family history before taking up with Borja’s service as
marquis of Llombay to Emperor Charles V. Borja’s family connections tied him
to top families in Spain, Italy, and Portugal, a subject García Hernán treats with
a sure hand: his brother David García Hernán has written a major study of the
early modern Spanish nobility. At age nineteen Borja entered the household of
Empress Isabel and attended Prince Philip, later King Philip II. Borja campaigned with the emperor in 1536. The death in 1539 of the empress had a
deep effect on him, but he continued to serve, now as Governor General of Catalonia,until his father’s death in 1543 forced him to return to his family domains
centered on Játiva, near Valencia. He had fathered eight children. When his wife
died in 1545, he decided to become a Jesuit. A year later, after a spiritual conversion, he took his first vows, and in 1548, professed as a Jesuit. In 1550 he
journeyed to Rome for the Jubilee and to meet Ignatius Loyola. On his return he
abdicated his titles and domains to his eldest son, Carlos, and less than two
weeks later was ordained priest.
Soon appointed commissary of the Jesuits in Spain, he enjoyed, given his station and experience, full access to the highest circles of the court. The devout
Princess Juana, regent of Spain during the absence of Philip, under Borja’s guidance secretly became a Jesuit, and after Philip’s return in 1559, she resided for
the most part in the seclusion of a convent.
The year 1559 proved difficult for Borja. The Inquisition unearthed nests of
purported Lutherans, including clergy and nobles, in Valladolid and Seville. Fer-

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nando de Valdés, Inquisitor General, a man of rigid orthodoxy and, arguably, political grudges, persuaded the regent and king, who linked heresy with rebellion,
to clamp down on anything that seemed less than entirely correct. In two great
autos de fe dozens of heretics were burned or punished. The archbishop of
Toledo was arrested for ambiguities in his works and some pirated editions of
Borja’s writings were put on the Spanish Index. Borja decided it prudent to visit
Portugal, whence he continued via France to Rome. García Hernán handles the
case well and stresses the ambivalence of Philip in it. In 1566 Philip replaced
Valdés as Inquisitor General with Diego de Espinosa, a friend of Borja.
While García Hernán treats well Borja’s election in 1565 as general of the Society of Jesus, and his achievements in the order, he focuses on Borja’s role in
the diplomacy of Pope Pius V, with whose pontificate Borja’s generalship coincides. La acción diplomática, based on a doctoral dissertation that won the
Robert Bellarmine prize of the Gregorian University, goes into extraordinary detail for the years 1571–72, when Borja accompanied Pius’s nephew, Cardinal
Alessandrino, papal legate on a mission to Spain, Portugal, and France. García
Hernán provides a refreshing look at the scope of papal interests in the affairs
of Catholic Europe and the monumental struggle with Protestantism and Islam.
It reminds us how different the mind-set of that age is from our own. The Holy
League and battle of Lepanto loom in the background. (With his brother David,
García Hernán collaborated on the important study Lepanto: el día después
[Madrid: Actas, 1999].) Pope Pius V—and Philip II—wanted that King Sebastian
of Portugal marry Marguerite de Valois, and they opposed her marriage to
Henry of Navarre. Many feared that Sebastian’s Jesuit tutor and confessor had
persuaded his change to a life of celibacy. For Borja, it proved a delicate matter.
Sebastian agreed to marry, but on terms the French would not accept. Borja did
persuade Catherine of Austria, Sebastian’s grandmother, to remain in Portugal
until Sebastian married, to look after Habsburg interests. In France Borja had little success with Catherine de’ Medici, who had already decided on Navarre, and
who had sons in pursuit of Elizabeth of England, while proposing that one
might marry a Spanish infanta. What Borja and Alessandrino found in France
was inordinate Huguenot influence and a web of intrigue against Spain that endangered the Holy League. Not long after their departure the St. Bartholomew’s
Day Massacre ensued, for which some blamed Borja. García Hernán offers his
own thoughtful conclusions regarding the reasons for the massacre. Ailing,
Borja, whom García Hernán exculpates, was about Jesuit business in Italy. Pius
V had died in May; Borja would die early on 1 October.
Both books belong in serious Catholic and Jesuit collections, and any research library with an interest in early modern diplomacy should hold La acción diplomática de Francisco de Borja, to which the biography is a useful
appendage.
PETER PIERSON
Santa Clara University (Emeritus)

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Irlanda y el Rey Prudente. By Enrique García Hernán. [Colección Hermes,
No. 2.] (Madrid: Ediciones del Laberinto, S.L. 2000. Pp. 286; 5 maps. Paperback.)

An Irish Prisoner of Conscience in the Tudor Era: Archbishop Richard Creagh
of Armagh, 1523–1586. By Colm Lennon. (Dublin: Four Courts Press. Distributed in the United States by ISBS, Portland, Oregon. 2000. Pp. 166.
$39.50.)
Those Irish who resisted Tudor centralist and Reformation policies based
their appeals to France, Spain, and Scotland now on religious grounds, now on
the advantages to be gained by England’s foreign enemies in a military diversion
in Ireland. As the sixteenth century wore on, they increasingly played the card
of Ireland as the “English Netherlands,” where Philip II might trump Elizabeth
by supporting revolt, at reasonable cost and with prospect of incalculable gain.
Other Irish, of course, accepted royal supremacy and, if clergy, ecclesiastical
preferment, if laity, English ennoblement. Still others like Archbishop Creagh
sought to combine loyalty to the pope in spirituals with loyalty to the crown in
temporals.
Until 1571 Philip,as García remarks,was chiefly engaged in the Mediterranean,
against Turks and Moriscos. Victory at Lepanto allowed him to turn to the
north, keeping in mind that removal of Elizabeth might result in a hostile union
of France, England, and Scotland (the latter two ruled by Mary Queen of Scots).
He thus gave but limited encouragement to English or Irish revolt and made no
undue effort to save Creagh (poisoned by his gaolers in 1586) or Mary (beheaded in 1587). Mary’s death, however, cleared the way for him to venture the
Armada. Afterwards the struggle reverted to land, with action in France and
the Netherlands. A northern Irish confederacy of bishops and chiefs appealed
to Philip in 1593, but he allowed them to battle on their own until, provoked
by Essex’s attack on Cadiz, he launched two armadas which failed because
of adverse weather, one destined for Ireland in 1596, the other for England
in 1597. O’Neill and O’Donnell won a great victory at the Yellow Ford on August 15, 1598. Did Philip, before death released him in September, perhaps reflect that had a tercio made up of exiles from Elizabeth’s dominions been there
in support of the Irish chieftains the English might have been driven from
Ireland?
It is good to see a young Spanish historian bringing his perspective to bear
on the story of Philip’s relations with Ireland. García has an enviable command
of archival sources and has read widely in secondary works. Como’s dispatches
are calendared in Archivium Hibernicum, VII (1918–1922), not IV (1915). It is
hyperbolic to speak of Irish ‘wars’ of 1565–1578 and 1578–1593. García’s remarks on Irish communities in Spanish dominions and their organization are
suggestive. That Creagh was ever involved in plots (García, p. 74; Lennon, pp.

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101–102, 140–141) is most unlikely. Plotters, Irish, English, and Scottish, regularly claimed support that was more hoped for than actual. In García’s monograph it is at times hard to see the wood for the trees. Long ago (1966) the
Dublin Historical Society allowed this reviewer thirty pages in which to exhibit
the wood, but he pleads not guilty to a 1970 Captain Juan Aguila. Given some
necessary corrections in Irish geography and history, García’s volume would
merit a second edition and an English translation.
Lennon’s is a thoroughly professional study, comprehensive as to title, which
has grown out of his work on Creagh’s cause for beatification. Here Lennon
aims to place Creagh in “the new historiographical context” of Irish Reformation studies. He eschews confessionalism and hagiography, but the picture that
emerges is of one who put principle before worldly advancement and who during a lengthy incarceration was an inspiring influence on many of his contemporaries. Lennon follows Brendan Bradshaw, for whom Creagh, a member of
the urban Old English elite who was yet proud of his Gaelic origins and who
used the Irish language in evangelization, was a key figure in the process which
would eventually give Old English and Old Irish communities a sense of a common national Catholic identity. Creagh, it is worth noting, is one who contradicts the famous thesis of Alice Stopford Green that, apart from the Franciscans,
Irish writers became denationalized from living abroad.
Lennon traces Creagh’s journey from Limerick merchant to Tridentine bishop,
imbued with the conviction that in the desired Catholic reform pastoral care
must include teaching. Harsh circumstance made it impossible for him to establish his papally approved university, but he was a pioneer in the movement
which established Irish seminaries abroad. In Studies in the Renaissance, XX
(1973), 1791–80, some time apparently before “modern Irish Reformation studies” began, this reviewer sought to situate Creagh in his religious and humanist
context. At Louvain he came to know Polanco, and he placed great hopes in the
Jesuits. But in choosing Armagh as his see he was giving hostages to fortune.
There was never going to be a meeting of minds with Shane O’Neill, although
Lennon might have observed that Shane too could on occasion see himself as
Catholic champion. Because Creagh rejected the queen’s spiritual supremacy,
she treated him barbarously. Most of his pontificate was spent in vile, at times
nauseating, durance, and eventually, Lennon argues, Elizabeth and her ministers
could not allow him to live, any more than they could Mary Stuart, as a focus
of 1Catholic resistance. But from prison he conducted a remarkably effective
apostolate. From his cell in Dublin Castle he emboldened citizens to profess
their faith openly and delegated priests to apply his special faculties from Rome
in the service of Catholicism. All the time his reputation for holiness was increasing. He so hindered the Protestant archbishop’s “godly endeavors to promote religion” that he was removed to custody in London. But his cells in
Gatehouse and then the Tower became centers for the stiffening of Catholic resistance, the while his European reputation grew. Lennon’s account of this is
dispassionate but moving. Indictments for both treasonous and immoral con-

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duct both collapsed, and in the end he was poisoned. His treatment is an indictment of Elizabeth and her leading counsellors, Burghley, Walsingham, and
Leicester.
JOHN J. SILKE
Portnablagh, Co. Donegal

Alle origini dell’Università dell’Aquila. Cultura, università, collegi gesuitici
all’inizio dell’età moderna in Italia meridionale. Atti del convegno
internazionale di studi promosso dalla Compagnia di Gesù e dall’Università dell’Aquila nel IV centenario dell’istituzione dell’Aquilanum
Collegium (1596). (L’Aquila, 8–11 novembre 1995). Edited by Filippo
Iapelli, S.J., and Ulderico Parente. [Bibliotheca Instituti Historici S.I., Vol.
LII.] (Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu. 2000. Pp. 824. Paperback.)
Soon after Ignatius of Loyola established the College of Messina, the Society
of Jesus began to expand its educational apostolate across Europe at a remarkable rate. This growth was also apparent throughout southern Italy,which is the
focus of the volume under consideration. Originating from a conference held in
1995 commemorating the four hundredth anniversary of the founding of the
Collegium Aquilanum, thirty-two papers are published in this volume that reflect four basic themes: the diffusion of Jesuit colleges throughout the kingdom
of Naples in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the presence of the Jesuits in Abruzzo, the educational philosophy or paideia of the Jesuits in southern Italy, and the artistic and architectural expertise of many within the Society
of Jesus focusing on the work of the architect and painter Giuseppe Valeriano,
a native of Aquila. These essays demonstrate that the colleges reflected the
basic features characteristic of Italian cities during the early modern era. Perhaps more importantly, the essays seek to examine the role that Jesuit colleges
assumed in the formation of a Western cultural identity.
The volume opens with a brief essay by the Superior General of the Society
of Jesus, Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, on the origins of the University of Aquila. Father Kolvenbach highlights the fact that many of the universities and secondary
schools of southern Italy originated from the colleges established by the Society of Jesus. For Kolvenbach, southern Italy represents not only the place of origin for the Society’s pastoral work, but also the place where the Jesuits
developed their approach to education that enabled them to become a presence within Europe’s cultural life (p. 15).
Following this introductory piece, a series of essays focuses on the Jesuit colleges within the political and cultural context of the Kingdom of Naples. Of
special interest are the essays by Cosimo Damiano Fonseca and Bruno Pelle-

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grino. Fonseca examines the relationship between the college and the city
within the overall plan of the Society’s educational work, arguing that the Jesuits deliberately chose urban centers for their schools so as to safeguard the
fundamental values of a Christian society (p. 105). Pellegrino’s essay also focuses on the strategy of the Society of Jesus, emphasizing the impact of the colleges in the Kingdom of Naples on the surrounding rural areas. The author
contends that the colleges were part of a strategy of religious acculturation, if
not Christianization, among those individuals who inhabited the rural regions
of southern Italy (p. 116).
The second section of this volume focuses on the paideia of the Society of
Jesus, highlighting the richness of Jesuit education. The contribution of Manuel
Ruiz Jurado is especially important since it gets to the heart of Jesuit education—the spiritual formation of students. Jurado contends that all of the other
features of Jesuit education are meaningless without the spiritual element,
which is the principal reason for their existence. An interesting essay is presented by Ferdinando Taviani, examining the place of theater in the Jesuit college. Taviani challenges the widely held theory that Jesuit theater is an
expression of the Spiritual Exercises. In a related essay on music, Giancarlo Rostirolla challenges the widely held opinion that the Jesuits showed little interest
in music, particularly liturgical music. Rostirolla argues, based on a variety of
sources, that sacred music was never absent from the liturgical celebrations of
the Society. While there may be debate regarding Jesuit involvement in theater
and music, there is no doubt that the Jesuits were pioneers in the area of astronomy. Juan Casanovas examines the involvement of the Jesuits in the field of
astronomy. While not disputing this phenomenon in any way, Casanovas argues
that the Jesuits were not unique since astronomy held an important place in
many of the universities of the time (p. 251).
The third section of this volume focuses on the Jesuits in Abruzzo. Of interest is the essay by Filippo Iappelli, who examines the failures and successes of
the Jesuit colleges in this region. The final section of the book contains essays
that highlight the artistic and architectural works of Giuseppe Valeriano. Technical in nature, these essays examine the restorations that have taken place, as
well as the architectural styles and methods utilized on Jesuit buildings.
This volume is an important contribution to the continued study of the Society of Jesus. The essays published allow the reader to grasp the diverse and
comprehensive involvement of the Jesuits in the fields of art, music, architecture, theater, to name a few. Not only is the reader given a sense of the pervasive
presence of the Jesuits in southern Italy through their educational institutions,
but also the cultural roles played by the Jesuits in the early modern period.
FRANCESCO C. CESAREO
John Carroll University

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Nuntiaturberiche aus Deutschland nebst ergänzenden Aktenstücken: Die Kölner Nuntiatur, Vol. 4: Nuntius Atilio Amalteo, Part 2: 1607 Oktober–1610
Oktober. 2 Sections (Halbbände). Edited by Stefan Samerski. (Paderborn:
Ferdinand Schöningh. 2000. Pp. lxiii, 480, 481–589. 236,– DM paperback.)
In 1584 following the War of Cologne, which saw the defeat of the attempt
of Prince-Archbishop Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg to secularize this crucial Rhenish ecclesiastical territory, Pope Gregory XIII established a nunciature
in Cologne. Like Lucerne (1579) and Graz (1580), Cologne was considered one
of the “small” nunciatures, whose principal concern was church reform, as opposed to the older nunciatures in Vienna, Paris, and Madrid, where high politics
was more at issue. The nunicature at Cologne was responsible for the three
archbishoprics of Cologne, Mainz, and Trier, as well as a number of other bishoprics in the north and west including Liège, the apostolic vicariate of the
north, and until the establishment of the nunciature at Brussels in 1596, the
Netherlands and even England. It continued to exist until the French Revolution, but its importance diminished substantially after the Peace of Westphalia
in 1648. Now that these two hefty tomes have seen the light of day, the GörresGesellschaft has successfully sponsored the publication of the Nuntiaturberichte
from Cologne for the years 1584–1596, 1606–1614, and 1621–1634. There
seems to be nothing further in the pipeline at the moment. The two tomes
under review constitute part two of the volume devoted to the nunciature of
Atilio Amalteo. (Each nuncio is given his own volume which is first broken
down into parts and then when necessary into sections or Halbbände.) The
first part of the volume for Amalteo covered the period from September, 1606,
to September, 1607; it was edited by Klaus Wittstadt and appeared in 1975 (reviewed ante, LXIII [April, 1977], 320–321).
These two tomes maintain the high editorial standards of the Nuntiaturberichte, and their notes are a mine of information and bibliography. Altogether
they comprise 1317 documents. Nearly all of these are communications between Amalteo and the cardinal-nephew under Paul V, Scipione Borghese. Since
their correspondence has survived almost completely, there was little room for
complementary documentation. Most of these communications are published
in their entirety apart from salutation and conclusion; a brief synopsis in German precedes the Italian original. Samerski provides a helpful introduction to
the correspondence including a biographical sketch of Amalteo which summarizes his brief monograph, Atilio Amalteo (1545–1633). Diplomatico pontificio di impronta tardohumanista al servizio della Riforma cattolica (Venice,
1996).
Born in 1545 to a family of the minor nobility in the Veneto, where his father
was both a poet of some note and a medical doctor in Oderzo, Amalteo received a humanist education and then studied civil and canon law at Padua. In
1570 he moved to Rome where he studied theology at the Roman College, an
experience which helped forge a bond with the Jesuits that continued into his
period as nuncio. He was ordained a priest in 1582. Meanwhile an uncle helped

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him to make contacts in the city, and gradually he rose in the curial bureaucracy. He secured a post in the secretariat of state in 1578, where Cardinal
Tolomei Galli, secretary of state under Gregory XIII, served as his mentor. Cardinal Ippolito Aldobrandini, the future Clement VIII, took him on a mission to
Poland in 1588, and in the following years he twice was part of papal missions
to Transylvania. The year 1596 found him accompanying Cardinal de Medici on
a mission to France that eventually helped in the conclusion of the Treaty of
Vervins (1598). So Amalteo was sixty-one-years old and a man of considerable
experience when he was appointed to the nunciature in Cologne.
Paul V probably chose him for the post because of this experience as well as
for his tact and his reserve. Already the Rhenish archbishops were beginning to
resent the papal presence on the Rhine. In contrast to his predecessor,Amalteo
tended to keep a low profile. His often detailed reports dealt with three principal issues: negotiations leading up to the Twelve Years’ Truce of 1609 in the
Netherlands, the conflict over the imperial succession (Brüderzwist), and the
crisis over Jülich-Cleves after the death of Duke Johann Wilhelm in 1609, which
threatened to generate a European war. His activity looked more to the mediation of disputes involving the clergy, as in Liège or Aachen, to the selection of
suitable candidates for ecclesiastical office, as in the coadjutorship in Paderborn, and to reform, as in the great monasteries of Fulda and especially of Saint
Maximin in Trier, to which he devoted much time and energy.
Despite his fragile health, which he used as an excuse to avoid travel, Amalteo died in 1633 back in Italy at the ripe old age of eighty-eight.
ROBERT BIRELEY, S.J.
Loyola University Chicago

Jansenism: Catholic Resistance to Authority from the Reformation to the
French Revolution. By William Doyle. [Studies in European History.] (New
York: St. Martin’s Press. 2000. Pp. x, 109. $11.95 paperback.)
For the larger public Jansenism is moral rigorism; for a religious historian it is a
movement that disrupted post-Tridentine Catholic renewal;for a secular historian
it is what the subtitle of the work announces: resistance to authority. From whatever angle, its history is complex: many participants, many books and pamphlets,
and a lot of ideological side-tracks/digressions. What was it all about? A book, of
course, Augustinus by Cornelius Jansenius, and five “propositions” or excerpts,
that were or were not in this book. The book was condemned; the five propositions were condemned, but the Janenists said that the book could not be condemned because it represented the thought of St. Augustine, that the five
propositions could be censured, but since they did not appear in the book it did
not matter. Rome evidently did not appreciate this arrogant attitude, nor did the
French monarchy,which could not bear such an independence of thought.Therefore, more condemnations came, followed by more resistance. Another book was

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condemned, Quesnel’s Reflexions morales, and 101 propositions in it. This time
the Jansenists said that they were in the book, but they could not be condemned
as they represented the authentic Catholic tradition. They appealed to public
opinion; they denounced the Pope and bishops who had betrayed the faith; they
secured the elimination of their arch-enemies the Jesuits; they also destabilized
the monarchy since it had sided with their opponents. Then came the Revolution
and Jansenism disappeared with the entire Ancien Régime church.
This is the story told by William Doyle, in more details, of course, that display
excellent research and good pedagogical sense. There are a few minor mistakes, that only a specialist will notice, or object to. In sum, this small but useful
book delivers what it purports to: a clear presentation to the English-speaking
readership of the present state of research on Jansenism and its political influence in Ancien Régime Europe.
This having been said, since I am writing from the perspective of a religious
historian in a Catholic historical journal, I wonder if such a book does justice to
Jansenism. After all, more than a religious and political movement, it was a spiritual and theological one. This perspective, which was well defended by the late
Louis Cognet, is increasingly overlooked by contemporary French historians
who do not especially care for these issues. The result is that Jansenism is much
more politicized than it deserves to be, and the real theological issues are given
a political twist that they probably do not have. In other words there is a need
for a book equal in quality to the one under review that will give us a presentation of Jansenism in its natural context: the Catholic renewal by whatever name
one wishes to call it.
JACQUES M. GRES-GAYER
The Catholic University of America

Le catholicisme classique et les Pères de l’Église. Un retour aux sources
(1669–1713). By Jean-Louis Quantin. [Collection des Études Augustiniennes, Série Moyen-Age et Temps modernes, 33.] (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers. 1999. Pp. 667. 170 FF; 986.29 BEF; 24.45 Euros.)
The “Classical Catholicism” of the title refers to French Catholicism in the
“classical period,” roughly the age of Louis XIV. Though the devotion, if not obsession, of the French Church with the Early Church is well documented, no
one had previously dared to treat it as a subject in itself. The requirements to
successfully reach this goal are indeed tremendous, since to a very extensive investigation into the massive literary production of the French, one has to associate the ability to judge its quality, evaluate its impact, and assess its influence.
This is what in less than 650 pages J.-L. Quantin masterfully accomplishes.
When,in response to Protestant challenge,the Council of Trent decided to invoke the consensus Patrum, it merely meant a general reference to the Tradi-

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tion of the Church, but soon in the hands of the controversialists, this reference
became an objective rule of faith. It was Cardinal Du Perron, an Ultramontane
as Quantin reminds us, who established the rationale of this appeal to the Fathers. Since his French opponents accepted a debate where in addition to Holy
Scripture early church history was considered significant, he developed the
dogmatic theory of their authority: they were the undisputed witnesses of the
faith of their time, therefore a sure criterion for discerning truth from error.
Hence the wealth of historical research in seventeenth-century France concerning the first Christian centuries and the particular success of positive theology elaborated on these sources.
Divided in two parts of seven chapters each, Quantin’s book exposes first
how the Church Fathers took such a prominent place in French theology and
scholarship; then it examines what type of influence they exerted over the Gallican Church. After showing how the notion of “Church Father” was slowly established (chap. 1), the author studies how French Protestants and Catholics
considered them (chap. 2), a perspective that placed the Gallican Church at
variance with Tridentine positions (chap. 3), especially the Jansenist faction
with its obsession with St. Augustine (chap. 4). The next two chapters carefully
present and evaluate Gallican Patristics, edition of texts, writing of history; the
last offers a general evaluation.
In the second part,Quantin shows not only the deep influence exerted by Patristics over the life of educated French Catholics, especially through translations (chap. 11) and preaching (chap. 12), but also how the constant model of
an idealized and abstract early Church produced a strong clerical drive to purify
and reform post-Tridentine religious practice (chap. 13 “Épurer,” chap. 14
“Restaurer”). Before the dazzling demonstration, vibrant in erudite analysis and
intelligent judgments, two chapters, centered on an analysis of religious controversy through the prism of Port-Royal’s influential Perpétuité de la foi, raise
what is probably the major point of this study. That this methodology was more
than historical theology: since it was based upon the principle that the Church
never changed, it claimed to be the exposition of immutable doctrine. It allowed the Gallicans to reconstruct a form of Catholicism that in many ways
clashed with the rest of Christendom. Quantin revisits these well-established
observations by producing a wealth of illustrations and many perceptive comments; he also shows the deep consequences of the position. From witnesses
of the faith, with a special qualification on the theological issues, e.g.,Augustine
on grace, the Holy Fathers became the collective source of church Tradition.
This tradition, contained in the writings of the different authors, had to be reconstituted through a careful examination of the sources and the application of
a scientific method of analysis and construction. The consequences are clear: in
addition to a rationalistic approach to the sources of Christian faith, it practically yielded total control of the exposition of this faith to the specialists, i.e.,
the theologians, to the prejudice of the hierarchy.

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Quantin’s conclusions are rather pessimistic; in his eyes, the French church
was slowly drifting away from the rest of Christendom and detaching itself
from popular religion, the “religion of the Poor.” He also points to the harm
done to Christianity by scholars who unwittingly furnished its enemies with
the weapons to attack it. All this is true, as the failure of “Enlightened Catholicism” in the next century sadly demonstrates. But why did French Catholics
take this particular path? To convince their Protestant brethren and themselves
of the certainty of their faith? Undoubtedly. To resist or at least moderate Tridentine Catholicism with a counter-model? Probably. It might also be, as Quantin suggests, a spiritual quest: the desire to find in the reconstitution of pristine
Christianity, the emotional experience that will trigger conversion. After all, as
he reminds us, St. Augustine, their great paragon, was as much the doctor of
God’s love as of grace. This may explain the fascination we still feel today for
this “Classical Catholicism,” not only because of their culture but because of
their faith.
JACQUES M. GRES-GAYER
The Catholic University of America

Church and Society in Eighteenth-Century France. Volume 1: The Clerical Establishment and its Social Ramifications; Volume 2: The Religion of the
People and the Politics of Religion. By John McManners. [The Oxford History of the Christian Church.] (New York: Oxford University Press. 1998.
Pp. xviii, 817; xiv, 866. $155.00, $165.00 clothbound; $49.95, $45.00 paperback.)
The British are renowned travelers. An innate sense of curiosity seems to
take them to every possible place on earth, to visit, to observe, and to report.
These travel stories have taken many shapes from Dr. Burney’s European musical journeys to A Year in Provence, but they share a common perspective: a
keen attention to the details, especially the whimsical ones, and a slightly
amused way of describing their experience. This view, I suspect, has also influenced British historians, who have with the same flair visited the past and come
back with reports that are both comprehensive and entertaining. Since his
1960 dissertation, dedicated to the city of Angers in the eighteenth century,
John McManners has proven himself to be the master of this type of historical
exploration. With his deep attachment to the Ancien Régime tempered by a
very British sense of humor, the future Regius Professor of ecclesiastical history
at Oxford gave us the most readable work of social history. The book under
scrutiny, written after his retirement from teaching, represents the magnum
opus that many academics dream of, but few actually produce. Its well-filled
1700 pages present a complete survey of the French church from Louis XIV’s
reign to the eve of the French Revolution. Divided into two volumes available
separately, it presents successively the clerical establishment (vol. 1) and religious life and politics (vol. 2). In exactly fifty chapters the author offers a com-

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plete, up-to-date, and precise description of every aspect of the life of the
French church: three chapters on the bishops, three on the parish priests, two
on canons and chapters, four on male and female religious orders, preceded by
five on Church and State, and followed by a last one on “the Art of Obtaining a
Benefice,” constitute the first volume. In the second one,nine chapters cover religious practice, including “The Dark Side of the Supernatural” (chap. 30), followed by four very engrossing studies of clerical interventions on moral issues:
usury, sexuality, and entertainment. More political, the second part of the book
describes the Jansenist conflict that followed the crisis of Unigenitus and the
relations of the established church with religious minorities, Protestants and
Jews. Entitled “The Crisis of the Ancien Regime,” the final three chapters analyze the situation that represented the prodromes to the French Revolution: the
political role of the Jansenists, of the bishops, and of the curés.
Being a professional historian and a devoted admirer of John McManners, I
must confess that long before being asked to review this book I had bought it.
I first read it slowly, usually one chapter at a time in a quiet moment of the day,
preferably in the evening, and always put it aside with a smile. What a pleasure
to learn and be entertained at the same time! In a research that has taken a lifetime this author has collected an enormous amount of details, anecdotes, and
observations that illuminate and enliven the facts he so aptly reconstructs. His
knowledge of past and current literature is superb, as is, of course, his talent as
a story teller. I was, however, put off by the presentation of the book. In this
case the absence of a complete bibliography is a sin, aggravated by the placement of the notes at the end of each volume. Clearly Oxford University Press
surmised that a potential buyer of this $320 book would be frightened by the
sight of (rather modest) footnotes and alarmed by a bibliography. They may
have made a mistake, though, for who, I wonder, is going to invest in this expensive book, even at its paperback price, but dedicated historians? Of course,
there must be in England and elsewhere an educated elite who still enjoys, as I
did, an occasional evening with such a gratifying book. For this readership the
footnotes and bibliography would announce a scholarly work,which it is. Despite
its anecdotal style and lively presentation, Church and Society in EighteenthCentury France is a heavy book, and not only in the material sense. Written by
one of the best English-speaking historians of France, it accumulates a density
of information that may be hidden to a cursory reading but soon becomes apparent, often overwhelming. Some reviewers have been baffled by the fact that
McManners does not seem to have an agenda. He does not take a position on
the issue he deals with; he simply relates what is known and then illustrates but
also nuances it with a particular instance. This is puzzling indeed,because more
historians are eager to offer their own interpretation of facts and select their examples accordingly. In McManners’ book I suspect, though, a hidden and subversive agenda. The details he has so patiently collected in his reading of every
possible source, particularly all these hard to find Bulletins of local historical
societies, are not there only to amuse and entertain but also to challenge. They
slowly but surely induce the reader to correlate the facts of an institution, the

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French church, with the reality of the men and women in that institution. He
does not judge but invites us to conclude; he does not decide but compels us to
make up our own mind. Not a book for passive reading therefore,but a book for
historians, professional, novice, or amateur, written by a master.
JACQUES M. GRES-GAYER
The Catholic University of America

Bibliografische Inleiding tot de Belgische Kloostergeschiedenis vóór 1796. 23
fascicles. [Brussels: Algemeen Rijksarchief. 1996–1999.]
This handy collection of twenty-three bibliographical studies will be of greatest use to specialists in the history of Netherlandish monasticism (especially
what is now Belgium) before the French Revolution.
One can divide the studies into two sorts: those which approach the subject
of monasticism rather broadly, and those which focus on a particular order. The
former includes separate volumes on these topics: journals about monasticism,
basic publications about each religious order, a basic bibliography in monastic
history (subdivided into separate volumes on “Internal Structures,” “Monastic
Community,” and “Seals”), published series on monasticism, encyclopedias and
biographical dictionaries related to monasticism, archives of religious orders in
Rome, and Netherlandish manuscripts on monasticism in the libraries of Paris.
Although the focus is on Netherlandish experience, the editors have thoughtfully placed this in larger context by listing a significant amount of material on
other areas of Europe as well.
The more specialized volumes pay greater attention to Netherlandish history,
but these too include helpful introductions which set each order in context.
These volumes treat the following topics: the Annunciation Sisters, the monastic institutions of East Flanders, the same for West Flanders, the Wilhelmites, the
Augustinians, the Augustinian Black Sisters, the Order of the Visitation of St.
Mary, the Order of the Immaculate Conception, a collection of papers on various orders delivered at a 1997 conference in Brussels, and a slightly out-of-place
study (because not primarily bibliographical) of a lawsuit involving the Black
Sisters of Brussels between 1737 and 1741. Each volume has its interesting
points,but because of the importance of these orders in the Low Countries and
the skill with which they are presented the volumes on the Augustinians and
the Black Sisters deserve special mention.
Apparently still more volumes, especially those of the specialized sort, will
appear in the future, again with the National Archives in Brussels playing a leading role, so that anyone venturing into the field will soon have even more help
than the generous amount offered here. Clearly these volumes reflect the longstanding interest in, and importance of, monastic and quasi-monastic orders in

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749

the Low Countries, and well-organized lists of orders, houses, and primary and
secondary materials (plus detailed indices) will help the curious become
quickly oriented to the state of the field,both in the Low Countries and beyond.
One might wonder whether the series would ultimately be better served by
some kind of electronic format, which would allow for regular, convenient updates. One might also quibble with the (probably unavoidable) repetition between volumes, and ask whether some of the subdividing of topics is a bit
overdone. But these are not major objections: one can be sure to find what one
is looking for, and much more.
CRAIG HARLINE
Brigham Young University

I Gesuiti e l’Illuminismo. Politica e religione in Austria e nell’Europa centrale (1773–1798). By Antonio Trampus. [Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia,
Fondo di studi Parini-Chirio, Università degli Studi di Torino, Nuova Serie,
5.] (Florence: Casa Editrice Leo S. Olschki. 2000. Pp. 386. Lire 77,000 paperback.)
The author’s aim is to examine the situation of the ex-Jesuits in the German
provinces of the Austrian Empire, from their suppression in 1773 to 1798. How
did ex-Jesuits conduct themselves after suppression? Did they survive as more
than dispersed fragments? What role did they play in the intellectual and political life of the time? Dr. Trampus approaches these questions on the basis of a
careful examination of an impressive array of archives, with results that are
often surprising.
After a detailed survey of the flourishing state of the Society in these
provinces at the time of suppression, he traces the fate of the ex-Jesuits. Their
numbers slowly declined, but only from the effects of age, mortality, and the end
of recruitment; few laicized. Equally few left the Empire. Most remained in their
former locations, often their former abodes. Surprisingly, they usually continued
to live a common life according to their old rules; and they did so with the tacit
consent not only of the bishops and civil magistracy, but that of Joseph II. Thus
the Jesuit community survived, despite the dissolution of the Society. The ex-Jesuits, aside from those who from age or infirmity had to survive on government
pensions, followed various activities: in 1780 over 30% were teachers, 15%
parish priests, others librarians, preachers, confessors, a few even bishops.
But the ex-Jesuits were not content merely to survive. Despite their dissolution, they did not sink into apathy and despair, but continued to take an active
part in cultural and intellectual life. They sought in particular to carry on the
struggle against the radical Enlightenment that had caused their suppression
and sought to undermine Christianity. They were not hostile to the Enlightenment as such, favoring the effort to improve society by the application of rea-

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son and science, but only to the efforts of its radical wing, which saw the destruction of Christianity as a necessary step to that end. They hoped rather to
reconcile the Enlightenment and Christianity, a project far more plausible in
central Europe than in France.
Of the ways in which they sought this reconciliation, perhaps the most unexpected was their presence within the masonic lodges, which the author’s
archival research documents in great detail. Though this has been noted before,
it has usually been dismissed as simply an example of the seductive appeal of
the Enlightenment. The reality was different. The archives show them taking an
active part in the debates within the lodges, especially on the possibility of reconciling faith and reason, the Enlightenment and Christianity, perhaps through
reform in the Church. They had temporary successes, but the advocates of the
radical Enlightenment were too well entrenched, and after a bitter contest,
which the author describes in detail, by the end of the 1780’s they had managed to marginalize the ex-Jesuits.
Meanwhile, the ex-Jesuits were fighting the same battle in the press, whose
new importance they fully grasped. They were fully engaged in the typical activities of the period—journalism, books, projects for encyclopedias—all with
the same aim, of combating the radicals and reconciling the Enlightenment and
Christianity. Their works had considerable influence in central Europe. This
compensated for the loss of their former role in the censorship, when Joseph II
introduced press freedom, primarily in hopes of stimulating the publication of
works supporting his policies. Some of the ex-Jesuits denounced this as harmful to religion and morality, but others took full advantage of it to advance their
own ideas. The restoration of censorship in 1789 was in any case due to the impact of the French Revolution, not to Jesuit efforts.
But by 1789, the ex-Jesuits were turning their efforts to another and exciting
idea—that of reviving their Society. With the spread of revolution, European
opinion became increasingly favorable to an idea that a few years earlier had
been unthinkable. Proposals in that sense multiplied, and received increasingly
favorable consideration from the Austrian government, inclined to ascribe the
spread of revolution to the influence of the philosophes. These efforts would
eventually bear fruit in 1814, but at a price which the author considers too
high, for the revival of the Society also spelled the end for decades of Jesuit efforts to reconcile the Enlightenment and Christianity. Restored under the auspices of Restoration conservatism, the Jesuits increasingly subscribed to its
tendency to demonize the Enlightenment, to see it not merely as disbelief but
as a new religion. The author deplores this, feeling that it cut short a promising
effort to bring the Church into greater harmony with the post-revolutionary
world. Such a development would certainly have been desirable, but it must be
recognized that in the circumstances after 1789—the increasing radicalization
of the Enlightenment, the revolutionary assault on Christianity, the polarization
of European society—its success was hardly likely.

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Despite this caveat, this book can be highly recommended. Well written and
based on impressive research in a wide array of archives, rich but often little
used,it offers a novel and provocative look at a topic around which many myths
and misconceptions have too long lingered. Anyone interested not only in the
Jesuits, but in the encounter between Catholicism and the Enlightenment, will
find this work of value.
ALAN J. REINERMAN
Boston College

Johann Ignaz von Felbiger und Kardinal Johann Heinrich von Frankenberg:
Wege der Religiösen Reform im 18. Jahrhundert. By Winfried Romberg.
[Arbeiten zur schlesischen Kirchengeschichte, Band 8.] (Sigmaringen: Jan
Thorbecke Verlag. 1999. Pp. 191. Paperback.)
Is the term “Catholic Enlightenment” an oxymoron? It all depends on one’s
choice of definitions. In this brief work, originally presentations by the author
at the University at Würzburg, it would appear that the definitions used exclude
the possibility of a genuine Catholic Enlightenment.
The reader is presented with two essentially independent sketches of the life
and outlook of Felbiger and Frankenberg, Silesian prelates who, after the conquest of their homeland by Prussia, found favor and an outlet for their talents at
the hand of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. Although both subjects were Silesian by birth and background, only Felbiger, who served as abbot of the Augustinian monastery at Sagan for many years, worked in his home province.
Frankenberg established himself in the Habsburg Monarchy immediately following his return from studies in Rome as a young man.
Romberg presents short sketches of the careers of the two men, then considers the outlook of each, and his relationship to the Habsburg state under
Maria Theresa and Joseph II. In so doing, the author implicitly utilizes definitions of both Jansenism and Enlightenment which exclude his subjects a priori. Jansenism is treated as a purely theological movement, with the extreme
predestinarian soteriology of Augustine’s later years as its foundation, and as
best exemplified in Antoine Arnaud’s De la fréquente Communion. Enlightenment is seen as a process of secularization and state-building. One might object
that these usages are too rigid, too exclusive, for the realities of the eighteenth
century, when one ideological position merged gradually into another, and
there were few pure Jansenists or enlightened figures by these definitions.
These categories serve Romberg’s purpose in these sketches, however. Both
Felbiger, known for his work in Silesia and Austria as a reformer of schools, and
Frankenberg, the Archbishop of Mechelen (Malines) who fought the seminary
reforms of Joseph II and who was exiled by the invading armies of the French
Revolution, were devout clerics and genuine reformers. However, utilizing the

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definitions he does, Romberg denies to either the category of Jansenist or enlightened figure. Instead,he sees these two Silesians as continuations of the Catholic Reformation codified by the Council of Trent. Their essentially Scholastic
mind-set, their deep personal piety, and their devotion to improving the pastoral
functioning of the Church, no less than their insistence on the independence of
the Church from secular authority, mark them off from all identification with
the Enlightenment as defined by Romberg.
While some might quibble with Romberg’s categories, all can profit from this
opportunity to examine further the mind-set of two significant Catholic reformers of the eighteenth century.
WILLIAM C. SCHRADER
Tennessee Technological University

Late Modern European
Entstehung und Entfaltung der theologischen Enzyklopädie. By Leonhard
Hell. [Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte Mainz,
Abteilung abendländische Religionsgeschichte, Band 176.] (Mainz: Verlag
Philipp von Zabern. 1999. Pp. ix, 233. DM 58,00.)
An encyclopedia in the modern period can mean an ordered collection of information as it does from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries, but it can
also mean a kind of intellectual system,a philosophically directed approach to an
area like natural science or history, a genre of the German idealists. The topic of
this book is the theological encyclopedia,and Leonhard Hell,author of a previous
book on Catholic theologians of the Enlightenment,focuses on the time when the
lexical encyclopedia becomes the intellectual system. He looks at the prior forms
of the theological encyclopedia, both Protestant and Catholic, and then at the
process (forms of tradition and reception, pedagogical and cultural stimuli) by
which they yield to the more philosophical form, a final transition occurring at
the beginning of the nineteenth century. At that time both Romanticism and
idealism have inserted their dynamic directions into a post-Enlightenment culture;theology is divided into biblical,historical,systematic,and practical and yet
exists within the context of an all-encompassing philosophy. Much of Hell’s
book, however, considers in detail the prior encyclopedic realizations in religion
from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century and is a valuable survey of
early humanistic works and programs. Jean Gerson, Erasmus, Bullinger, and
Melanchthon are followed by the Ratio studiorum of the Jesuits, by August Hermann Francke and Jean Mabillion. Into this history come the preliminary stages
of the more philosophical encyclopedic form for theology in the works of the
Protestants at Göttingen and of Catholics like Stephan Wiest (†1797) and Franz
Oberthür (†1831). A methodological introduction to theology is followed by a
description of the areas of theology and of the auxiliary fields assisting that “discipline of disciplines” (p. 179). The stimulus for a final, innovative stage at that

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time is F. W. J. Schelling’s lectures on the academic world from 1803, the Vorlesungen über die Methode des akademischen Studium (similar works by Fichte
and Schleiermacher come later). Schelling offered a new understanding of Wissenschaft and its university, an overview of various faculties, and an interpretation of theology and its subject, revelation. The rational and symbolic approach
of the Enlightenment is over. Religion must be concerned directly with the absolute; the highest ideas of the divine being are manifest in nature, history, philosophy as the revelation of God, the realizations of the ideal. The Schellingian
pattern of the realization of the ideal modes and directions of natural and cultural history in concrete forms influences the expression of Christianity.
With the idealists “the theological encyclopedia is not only a text describing
the foundations of theology but is theology itself, theology in a basic summary”
(p. 186). That kind of work had not only a theological format but a theological
content. Thus the German modification of a referential encyclopedia finds its
orientation in the form and content of a philosophy. “On the basis of the philosophy of German idealism,in its form of the first years of the nineteenth century
as its appeared in Schelling’s system of identity the history of the theological
encyclopedia executes its final important step” (p. 187).
The positive reception of Schelling’s book by Catholics is given through its
earliest figures, Carl Daub and Ignaz Thanner, and not through its climax in J. S.
Drey and the early J. A. Möhler.
Hell’s book is a richly researched but readable,insightful study of a significant
segment of the history of theology in the modern period. It reaches from Renaissance scholars to figures of Romantic idealism. It even goes beyond its intended historical framework to today’s modern issues, since an interesting
concluding essay shows the importance of this history of a formalization of
theology for understanding the background to some contemporary issues, particularly for the too neglected history of moral theology.
THOMAS F. O’MEARA, O.P.
The University of Notre Dame

Educating the Faithful: Religion, Schooling, and Society in Nineteenth-Century
France. By Sarah A. Curtis. (De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press.
2000. Pp. xii, 255. $38.00.)
The current historiography of nineteenth-century French education, Sarah
Curtis informs us, includes more myth than reality. In her study of congregational schools in the diocese (it should be archdiocese) of Lyon from 1801 to
1905, Curtis claims to correct the mythology by showing that congregational
schools were dynamic agents of social, cultural, and religious change that
helped spawn a modernized France.
Curtis’ book is divided into two parts, the first of which explains how and
why a congregational school system worked. She argues that congregational ed-

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ucation largely succeeded because of three factors: personnel was plentiful,
they taught for next to nothing, and the schools themselves derived much of
their funding from affluent Catholics instead of a fiscally beleaguered state. The
author also describes Catholic pedagogy in this part, showing that perhaps the
most valuable congregational contribution was instilling the mental discipline
and physical control so necessary in a modern society.
The second part discusses “Catholic schooling on the defensive,” meaning
the struggles of congregational schools during the Third Republic. Curtis explains that congregations often met the new challenges that republican politicians imposed upon them, above all the requirement that instructors possess a
brevet de capacité. However, she also contends that the laws forced Catholic
schooling to become more centralized, thus shifting power over them away
from congregations and toward the church hierarchy and prominent lay
people. The author adds that while many members of teaching congregations
left the country or the orders themselves after passage of the associations laws
in 1901 and 1904, many other religious discarded their habits, continued their
teaching in Catholic schools, and lived out their vows clandestinely.
Curtis deserves to be both commended and criticized on several levels. Her
findings are based on skillful research and copious records found at an impressive number of archives, and she uses these well to provide a more “bottom up”
appraisal of Catholic education. Her argument about the vital role of religious
congregations in the development of a nineteenth-century French educational
system, moreover, is quite convincing, thus offering a new angle on the subject.
But at the same time Curtis delivers less than she alleges. Although she holds
that congregational schools were key to the feminization of Catholicism, the
book shows little as to how this was done in the schools. Most importantly, Curtis fails to present a more poised account of the guerre scolaire during the
1880’s and 1890’s. Indeed, one gets the impression from the book that the expulsion of religious from public schools consisted of a few doctrinaire politicians imposing their unpopular will upon a people all but in love with religious
congregations. Contrary to claims, such a depiction adds to the polemics of this
subject rather than diminishes it.
Curtis concludes that her study “has sought to add perspective to a contentious subject and to return Catholic primary schools and their teachers to
the historical agenda.” In this she both succeeds and fails. To be sure, any study
of Catholic education in nineteenth-century France is a welcomed contribution
to what we currently have, especially a well written and researched one like
this. But sometimes the perspective provided here makes for only more contention, not less. The fault, however, is not so much an unbalanced treatment of
the subject as it is the author’s naïveté that historians—herself included—are
capable of transcending the interminable guerre scolaire.
EDWARD J.WOELL
Marist College

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Jean-Claude Colin, Marist: A Founder in an Era of Revolution and Restoration: The Early Years, 1790–1836. By Donal Kerr. (Blackrock, Co. Dublin:
The Columba Press. 2000. Pp. 349. £20.00.)
Donal Kerr has written a very informative and valuable biography of a man
whose life and work deserve to be more widely known, Jean-Claude Colin
(1790–1875), founder of the Society of Mary, the Marists. It is a work of thorough and meticulous scholarship by a Marist professor emeritus of church history at St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth. Every new biography adds to our
knowledge of the events and developments of the era in which the person
lived, and this work contributes much specific information about a person,
really a number of persons, who experienced the post-revolutionary era in
France. Unfortunately for the historian, in 1841Colin methodically burned the
papers he had accumulated up to that time. Fortunately, there are abundant
other sources that are available to scholars, including some 400 contemporary documents, eleven volumes of memoirs by Marist chronicler GabrielClaude Mayet, and about a thousand documents in the collection Origines
Maristes.
Colin’s father was a farmer in Haut Beaujolais about thirty miles north of
Lyon, a devout man whose courageous unwillingness to comply with the dictates of anticlerical Jacobin forces in the area brought considerable hardship to
the whole family. In 1804 Colin entered a minor seminary in the diocese of
Lyon. Though Napoleon’s concordat with Pius VII (1801) had returned a measure of relative peace and stability to Catholic life in France for a few years, his
wars and attempted recruitment/harassment of seminarians, and his imprisonment of Pius (1809 to 1814) caused distress and heartache that affected Colin
along with other Catholics. In 1813 he entered the major seminary of Saint
Irénée in Lyon. Kerr’s account includes a wealth of interesting information on
these years of study, during which Colin conceived the idea of founding an
apostolic society dedicated to Mary.
A group of twelve gathered around him pledged on the day after their ordination to begin the Society of Mary, considering this date of July 13, 1816, as the
founding of the Marists. Being all diocesan priests, they went to parish assignments in various villages, and Colin’s work in very poor parishes reinforced his
sympathy for poor, humble people. The beginning of the women’s branch of
the Marists dates from 1817. Colin actually projected a large order of four divisions: priests, women religious, brothers, and lay members. This ambitious
scope of the order was one of the factors that caused misgivings in the Roman
officials who examined his proposal, but Gregory XVI at length gave formal approval (for the priests’ division) on April 29, 1836. He appreciated their willingness to undertake a mission to remote Pacific islands of Oceania. The book ends
with the departure in September, 1836, of the first group of inexperienced but
brave Marists for the south Pacific. Only one of them ever returned. Besides a
bibliography the book includes a very useful glossary of names of persons and
places and three maps. This is a biography and church-historical study of great

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merit, especially because of the very competent integration of Colin’s life work
with the political and ecclesial history of the time.
RICHARD F. COSTIGAN, S.J.
Loyola University of Chicago

Rival Jerusalems. The Geography of Victorian Religion. By K. D. M. Snell and
Paul S. Ell. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 2000. Pp. xiv, 499.
$74.95.)
The returns that were made on Sunday, March 30, for the 1851 Census of Religious Worship provide a unique picture of religious practice in England and
Wales—comparable material for Scotland has survived less well. The Census
has been the subject of an extensive literature, and a number of editions of the
original returns, which survive in the Public Record Office in London, have
been and continue to be published for various English counties. Those for
Wales are also in print.
The authors of this book have taken this unique snapshot and turned it into
a richly nuanced portrait of religious practice in England and Wales. Much attention has been focused on the significance of the attendance figures recorded
in the Census,but the official report on its findings was also concerned with the
provision for religious worship in terms of the amount of accommodation that
was available, and the material on this is used to good effect in this book. The
returns of Sunday scholars, often a problem because of the lack of clarity with
which they were made, have also been exploited to provide a convincing analysis of this important aspect of nineteenth-century religious life, although the
lack of surviving returns for the census of educational provision, which was
taken at the same time, makes this a more problematical exercise. Sunday
schools were part of a wider pattern of provision which included a growing
number of predominantly Anglican day schools. It should also be borne in mind
that while the Religious Census covered the large number of Sunday scholars
who attended worship at the church or chapel to which they were attached, often in accordance with the rules of the school, Sunday schools were also, as is
pointed out in the book, held in a variety of premises unattached to places of
worship.
Nonetheless, it is a merit of this lucid and well organized book, which is distinguished by its excellent maps, that the sophisticated statistical techniques
that are employed in it take full account of, and explore the vagaries of a set of
material that emanated from a variety of local circumstances. These techniques
are fully explained in text, footnotes, and appendices, but the regional emphasis, which is a strength of the book, means that its authors remain fully alert to
the varieties of experience as well as behavior that lie behind the figures, and

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which are as important an influence on religious life as the social and economic
conditions that they also discuss.
The Census of Religious Worship occurred at a time of considerable change
within the Catholic Church in England and Wales. The parish level comparison
of the Census returns with earlier official counts of nonconformist and Catholic strength is particularly valuable for the firm context that it provides for developments in the period. There can be no doubt that the migration of Irish
Catholics into England, which is given its due emphasis, had a considerable impact on the statistics of church attendance, but despite the degree of continuity in rural Catholicism that can be demonstrated through the use of earlier
material, English Catholic congregations were, as the returns of Papists made in
the eighteenth century demonstrate, no less immune to the attractions of developing towns than their Protestant neighbors. Here there was the opportunity to develop new patterns of worship organized in new ways. The nature
and range of these devotions brought new experiences to Catholic worshipers
that are not immediately apparent in the census returns, but which are of profound importance in their interpretation, and which can be lost in an analysis
that has, of necessity, to give equal value to the varied types of worship that lie
beneath the Census statistics.
The final chapter discusses the significance of regional factors in an understanding of the growth of secularization. A more extended discussion of this
process is promised from a member of the team that has labored to such good
effect on the Religious Census. If they are able to furnish a similarly comprehensive framework for a discussion of this important issue they will have provided another singular service to the history of religion.
R.W.AMBLER
The University of Hull

Zeitzeichen: 150 Jahre Deutsche Katholikentage, 1848–1998. Edited by Ulrich
von Hehl and Friedrich Kronenberg. Mit einem Bildteil: “150 Jahre Katholikentage im Bild.” (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh. 1999. Pp. 252. 39.80
DM.)
The German Catholic Conference passed a milestone in 1998, commemorated in this fine collection of speeches, essays, photographs, and documents by
a group of Germany’s leading Catholic scholars. With nineteen separate contributions, including Bundespräsident Roman Herzog’s speech at the sesquicentennial celebration in Frankfurt am Main, this volume provides a clear overview
of the established historical consensus.
Between the opening laudatory speeches and the closing photographic collection and documents is a series of critical essays reflecting on the social his-

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tory of modern German Catholicism. Contributions from Hans Maier,Karl-Joseph
Hummel, Heinz Hürten, and Ulrich von Hehl among others reach beyond a narrow study of the Catholic Conference to discuss the importance of the 1848
Revolution in German Catholic history, the ongoing struggle with the Zeitgeist
and national identity, and historical periodization. Essays by Karl Gabriel and
Monika Pankoke-Schenk examine the contemporary Catholic response to social welfare, women’s rights, and human rights. Wilhelm Damberg provides a
theological and historical analysis of the rise and fall of the Catholic milieu. The
final section includes four biographical essays: Adolf Birke on Bishop Wilhelm
Emmanuel von Ketteler’s social and political thought; Victor Conzemius on
Robert Schuman and his personal relationship to German Catholicism and
the Catholic Conference; Ursula Pruss on Margarete Sommer’s work in Berlin
during the Nazi Era and the 1950’s; and Heinz Dietrich Thiel on Monsignor
Johannes Zinke’s service to East German Catholics through the Catholic Conference and Berlin’s diocesan Caritas office. Unfortunately for the reader, the book
includes only a short bibliography and the essays have no scholarly apparatus.
This collection is a fine tribute to the German Catholic Conference and a mirror of the present consensus in scholarship at established Catholic institutions.
With its glossy photo section and lack of citations, the book may be intended
for a broader audience in Germany. American scholars seeking a conspectus
will benefit from the quality and selection of essays in this volume.
ERIC YONKE
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point

Il Mezzogiorno d’Italia e le Istituzioni Educative Salesiane. Richieste e Fondazioni (1879–1922). Fonti per lo studio. By Francesco Casella. [Istituto
Storico Calesiano, Studi—15.] (Rome: LAS [Libreria Ateneo Salesiano].
2000. Pp. 831. Lire 80.000 paperback.)
Interest in the Salesian Society was spurred by Vatican Council II (1962–
1965), which led to the formation of the Salesian Historical Institute and the
calling of international conferences in Rome, in 1991, 1995, and 2000. The
socio-economic context for the emergence of the Salesian movement was set
by Liberal Italy’s failure to cement political unification with the promotion of
social cohesion, only attainable through a vast reform program encompassing
every major facet of southern life. Absence of national initiative and concerted
effort worsened the ill effects of diseases, droughts, earthquakes, emigration, illiteracy, unfair taxation system, inequities in land ownership, wars, technical
backwardness, lack of capital and foreign investment, and problems of water
supply, health care, and sanitation. With the confiscation of church properties
and educational facilities, communities in the South were left without schools
and seminaries. Apparently, the Risorgimento, climaxed by territorial unification in 1859, had no redeeming value worth mentioning, while the Church, its
attitude and policies, does not merit criticism.

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Confronted by desperate conditions, prelates of every rank, laymen, private
citizens, municipal authorities, a prefect or two, directed appeals for assistance
to Don Giovanni Bosco in Turin, first capital of United Italy. Sanctioned by Pius
IX in 1869, its constitution approved in 1874, the Salesian Society had its headquarters in Turin, with a General Chapter (Capitolo Generale) as the governing
body, and a Chief Rector (Rettore Maggiore) serving for twelve years, the term
renewable. The stated mission was evangelical, educational, and pastoral.
Casella’s study concentrates on the second proviso. The Bollettino Salesiano
(Salesian Bulletin) was the official mouthpiece boasting of wide circulation in
and out of Italy.
Installed in 1876, Bosco, with his keen sense of history, mandated that all
records, local, regional, national, and international, be meticulously kept, enabling future historians to pursue scholarly investigations into the work of the
charitable association. Protocol required that all petitions be endorsed by the
local bishop. Each establishment (fondazione) was to be personally examined
by the Chief Rector or by a “visitor” of his designation. Inspectorates were
eventually set up in Rome and Naples. Upon Bosco’s death in 1888, he was succeeded by Don Michele Rua (two terms, 1888–1910), Don Paolo Albera (1910–
1921), and Beato Filippo Rinaldi (1922–1931). By the end of the 1800’s, the Society had expanded in France,Spain,Great Britain,and the Americas. Permanent
and temporary personnel stood at 1,035 in 1888 and 3,816 in 1901.
Casella’s formidable undertaking serves three distinct purposes. The first is to
make scholars aware of the many depositories of source materials which could
be readily tapped for a long overdue comprehensive synthesis of the far-flung
activities of the missionary order. The second objective consists of descriptive
enumerations of the hundreds of requests received, emanating primarily from
the Italian Continental South, and the results. The final goal is to bring the
reader in close contact with the real Mezzogiorno, not the fictionalized versions, but the South of the Southerner in his daily troubles with an absentee
government, insensitive ruling classes, and an improvident Nature.
The volume is structured in terms of parts (five), including many charts. Although it is understandable for the management of a complex subject, this reviewer experienced difficulty in identifying and correlating appeals and
dispositions in the textual narrative with the illustrated details submitted in the
graphs. Each part is introduced by a brief analysis of the historical background.
Most rewarding are the biographical-professional summaries placed in footnotes at the bottom of the page. The General Bibliography lists the Salesian
Central Archive in Rome, local and regional collections, minutes of the General
Chapter sessions, private correspondence, and secondary works.
What is most compelling are the numerous appeals for Salesian creation of
schools, colleges, seminaries, convents, orphanages, hospices for destitute children, deaf and mute institutions, retreat houses, art, design, and fashion centers,
holiday/weekend stations, science laboratories, etc. The requests generated
considerable discussion, correspondence, and protracted negotiations with

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prospective patrons as well. Lengthy excerpts from records add a dimension of
immediacy and urgency. Pity that the vast majority of the petitions were denied
because of the reputed lack of personnel. Missing from the account is information on the Society’s income, possible governmental or church subsidies, the
role of private philanthropy, and general donations, if any.
Also arresting is the dedication of the Salesians. A typical report of a “visitor”
contained many elements, depending on the nature of the foundation. Applicable to a learning establishment would be environmental location, physical conditions of buildings, transportation facilities, quality of those employed (moral,
spiritual, technical), instructional methods, religious teaching, state of student
and teacher morale, and relations with civil authorities and the general public.
In conclusion, Casella has furnished us with a valuable and readable study, one
that enhances our knowledge of the Salesian Order.
RONALD S. CUNSOLO
State University of New York at Nassau

Pius XII und Deutschland. By Michael F. Feldkamp. [Kleine Reihe V & R 4026.]
(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 2000. Pp. 236. DM 29,80 paperback).
Michael Feldkamp is the author of scholarly works about relations between
Germany and the Holy See from World War I onwards, and editor of post–World
War II documents of the German Foreign Office and Bundestag. This brief
work, an attempt at objective scholarship rather than advocacy, draws on primary sources and secondary literature in German, Italian, French, and English.
Feldkamp devotes a chapter to each of the four periods of Pacelli’s relations
with Germany: his work as nuncio in Munich and Berlin (1917–1929); as papal
Secretary of State (1930–1939); as wartime pope; and his postwar efforts to restore Germany to a place in the family of nations.
“The pope’s alleged wartime ‘silence’ [sic],” Feldkamp writes, “was due neither to concern for his personal safety, nor the desire to maintain strict neutrality in order to preserve his chance of being a future peacemaker. The pope’s
policy reflected his judgment that a public protest would not only fail to deter
the Nazis, but would provoke even greater atrocities. . . . The pope’s decision
to remain ‘silent’ cost him dearly.” By limiting himself to private protests, while
initiating rescue efforts behind the scenes, Pius XII “saved thousands of lives.”
Moreover, Feldkamp writes, one must ask how free the pope was, dependent as
he was on Mussolini for food, water, and electricity—and with the constant
threat of kidnaping. Hitler actually ordered this on September 12, 1943, but was
frustrated by subordinates.
Feldkamp’s narration of the roundup of Roman Jews on October 16, 1943, refutes the account given by Susan Zuccotti in Under His Very Windows. Vigor-

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ous papal protests, unpublicized because the German ambassador to the Holy
See, von Weiszäcker, warned that this was the only way to help the victims, resulted in “the deportation to Auschwitz of somewhat more than 1,000 Jews
rather than the 8,000 ordered [by Hitler]. Some 200,000 Italians, many Jews
among them, were hidden in more than 200 extraterritorial religious houses
during the months-long German occupation of Rome. . . . In addition, during
the closing years of the war the Vatican distributed thousands of passports
from the Argentine and Brazilian governments, and from the Swiss Red Cross.”
In his final chapter Feldkamp writes: “The question separating Pius XII’s accusers and defenders in the future will continue to be whether he should have
done more to publicize his moral condemnation [of Nazi atrocities];or whether
his exercise of ethical responsibility enabled him to save more lives. Pius XII
chose what he considered the realistic course and left the door open to negotiation. Nonetheless, he was not silent, as we have shown. On the contrary, he
steadfastly proclaimed Catholic teaching.”
The same people who today condemn Pius XII for his “silence,” Feldkamp
adds, demand that his present successor remain silent about contraception, artificial insemination, and abortion. Feldkamp cites John Conway’s judgment that
making Pius XII responsible for the Holocaust “ill serves both the victims and
the full truth about the human capacity to act against humanity’s fundamental
laws.” Scapegoating Pius XII, Feldkamp concludes, diverts attention from those
primarily responsible for the Holocaust: the Nazis and those who co-operated
with them.
JOHN JAY HUGHES
Archdiocese of St. Louis

Left Catholicism 1943–1955: Catholics and Society in Western Europe at the
Point of Liberation. Edited by Gerd-Rainer Horn and Emmanuel Gerard.
[KADOC-Studies, 25.] (Leuven: Leuven University Press. 2001. Pp. 319.
1,300 BEF; Euro 32.)
In their introduction, the editors raise a number of questions that the contributors discuss from their various angles throughout the work. How were the
leftist elements that made themselves noticed as World War II came to an end
rooted in or related to Catholicism? Were the strains of opposition to liberalistic capitalism stronger than the commitment to political democracy? To what
extent did the massive development of Catholic Action in some countries under
Pius XI and Pius XII play a more significant role in the postwar radicalization of
left Catholics than did the prewar Catholic labor movement? In what cases was
a shared experience of the Resistance a major factor? And, of course, why did
the movements of Left Catholicism succumb so quickly to a more moderate,
centrist Christian Democracy in Italy, Germany, and the Benelux countries? Was
the initial prominence of working-class demands in the new or reconstituted

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movements led by Catholics mostly just a by-product of the temporary discomfiture of conservative standard-bearers after the defeat of Fascism and
Nazism? The dramatic rise and decline of the Mouvement Républicain Populaire
in France would seem to be a case in point.
In the first article Horn posits the thesis of a transnational European Left Catholicism in the 1940’s. Not all the authors are satisfied with this category, but
all, starting with three meaty articles on French (and one on Belgian) developments powered by a zealous generation of former Catholic youth intellectuals
and workers, note more or less radical departures on the left from previous
Catholic practices and organizations (contributions by Jean-Claude Delbreil,
Bruno Duriez,Yvon Tranvouez,and Jean-Louis Jadoulle). The worker priests (Oscar Cole-Arnal) were but one manifestation of the responses to the indignities
under which the industrial proletariat labored, indignities shared by intellectuals and clergy who accompanied some of them to forced-labor sites in Germany
during the war.
There follow two essays on Italy, one (by Antonio Parisella) on political movements and party formations to the left of, or in the left wing of, the Christian
Democratic Party, and the other (by Giorgio Vecchio) of less political mavericks,closer than other Italian Catholics to the radical French attitudes of the era;
some of them were hailed as prophets at the time of the Second Vatican Council. An article (by Andreas Lienkamp) on German Left Catholicism, e.g., that of
Walter Dirks, and one (by Patrick Pasture) explaining the notable lack of interaction between Christian (Catholic) labor across Western Europe and the
Catholic leftist intellectuals, even in the immediate postwar years, lead to a discussion of the increasing chilliness between the mass of the Catholics and their
leftwingers. The penultimate essay (by Peter Van Kemseke) focuses on the international context of the Cold War, with a turning point for Left Catholic fortunes about mid-1947, but notes that the resonance of the movements was
already fading for other reasons. Within the church hierarchy, an initial permissiveness gave way to marginalizing and finally excluding socialist and other radical proposals in the last decade of Pius XII’s pontificate.
Martin Conway goes into such reasons in his concluding interpretative essay.
Like the others, it is packed with succinct new angles and insights. In the context of Catholicism as a whole, Left Catholicism found a small and increasingly
isolated niche within the Christian Democratic or Catholic parties where they
existed. In France, all the same, as Pasture notes (p. 246), the transformation of
the Christian trade union, the CFTC, into the CFDT (the Confedération
Française Démocratique du Travail ) in 1964 was the result of a left-Catholic
impetus. In his view, then,“Left Catholicism did not come to an end in 1949 but
retained its significance, particularly in the 1960s, notwithstanding the spectacular downfall of some of its protagonists.”
Just what that significance was is what concerns Conway the most. The spectrum of views of the different authors is difficult to reduce to a common denominator and he does not attempt to do so. He sees the various tendencies to

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the political and socio-economic left that manifested themselves particularly in
the immediate postwar years in European Catholicism as part of a larger, mainly
conservative, development in organized Catholicism that has not yet attracted
nearly enough historiographical attention: the era of Christian Democracy. That
the latter could integrate (co-opt?) Catholic values from the radically progressive, even revolutionary, end of the political spectrum and remain at home, certainly with tensions, in the Catholic subculture, means that the relationship of
the two phenomena, Christian Democracy and Left Catholicism, is not simply
dichotomous. It was also not simply papal disapproval of leftist peace movements, worker priests, and apertura alla sinistra, that created difficulties for
them, but the benefits of the Marshall Plan and the concerns of average
Catholics.
The researcher finds here an excellent collection of high-quality articles. A
considerable bonus is a stunning up-to-date bibliography (pp. 285–308), to
which every historian of twentieth-century European Catholicism should refer.
The moderate price of the well-bound soft-cover volume recommends it further, and not only for every university library.
PAUL MISNER
Marquette University

A merican
The Encyclopedia of American Catholic History. Edited by Michael Glazier
and Thomas J. Shelley. (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press. 1997.
Pp. xi, 1567. $79.95.)
This sizable volume provides a valuable resource to both professional historians of the Catholic Church in the United States and to the more casual reader
who would like to learn more about that history. The historian will be grateful
for the breadth and detail of the material covered; the novice to the field will be
fascinated by the richness of the story of American Catholicism that emerges
from the varied entries.
The editors set as a goal for the massive project to tell the story of the immigrant Catholics and their descendants. The main characters in the story are
much more varied than the traditional church histories that focus primarily on
the hierarchy and the religious (though they are also covered thoroughly). In
this encyclopedia, Catholics of all walks of life are introduced and their contributions to U. S. life and culture are described and evaluated. Thus we meet, for
example, Josephine Baker, African-American dancer and singer who helped
bring jazz to 1920’s Paris; Mother Marianne Cope, who led a small group of
Franciscan sisters to establish hospitals for leprosy patients in Hawaii along
with Father Damian De Veuster; and Walker Percy, Southern novelist, to name
just a few. Living individuals do not merit an entry but may be mentioned in articles on other topics.

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The contributing authors are generally the most respected scholars on the
subject treated. They accomplished very well the primary aim set by the editors
to provide basic information in concise and readable entries, while providing
ample cross-references and bibliographic information to direct the reader to a
fuller treatment of the subject. This work opens for the reader a vast library of
literature in the field of American Catholic history. It was also evident that the
purpose of the book was to present a true picture of the events and individuals
rather than to focus only on the more edifying or positive elements of Catholicism in the United States.
There is a wide variety of topics covered. Institutional history,while not dominant, is certainly represented, with an entry for the history of the Catholic
Church in each state of the Union, as well as an entry for each of the major religious orders, Catholic colleges, and important organizations. A brief necrology
of every deceased U.S. bishop is also provided. However, there is more emphasis on social history, ideas, and movements than earlier encyclopedias or histories have generally displayed. Thus,one finds entries that cover the development
in the United States of certain movements and ideas such as ecumenism, anticommunism, anti-Semitism, capital punishment, Catholic Biblical Scholarship,
Catholic Medical Ethics, and the reception of Humanae Vitae, for example.
Each major immigrant nationality is reported on. Previously neglected topics,
such as Frontier Catholicism and American Catholic women, are given a more
thorough treatment. Eastern Catholic Churches in the United States are refreshingly represented. On the other hand, some subjects, such as the Catholic
Worker Movement, are given curiously little coverage.
In addition to the historical and biographical entries, there are numerous excerpts from important documents in American Catholic history. These primary
texts are extremely useful and interesting, but their presence in the volume contributes to its principal limitation: namely, its sheer size and weight. The 81⁄2 x
11" size, 1,567-page length, and 6 lb. weight make it less than handy to use. Nevertheless, it is easily the best and most complete reference book available that
treats the history of the Catholic Church in the United States.
BENEDICT NEENAN, O.S.B.
Conception Seminary College, Missouri

The Frontiers and Catholic Identities. Edited by Anne M. Butler, Michael E.
Engh, S.J., and Thomas W. Spalding, C.F.X. [American Catholic Identities: A
Documentary History.] (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books. 1999. Pp.
xxxii, 221. $25.00 paperback.)
Destined to become a classic, this collection of documents focuses on the
pervasive influence of Roman Catholics in all areas of the American West. For
the period 1785–1920, Catholic voices are retrieved and, by their placement

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alongside appropriate others, are rendered meaningful. Consequently, this volume will appeal to Catholics, especially those with an interest in the West, and
to readers desirous of broadening their understanding of western spiritual developments.
The three editors, all scholars of some aspect of the Catholic experience,
each take one-third of the book. Michael Engh covers what he calls the “backwoods frontier” of Kentucky and the Old Northwest, with a particular emphasis on the Catholic diaspora from Maryland. Anne Butler fills in the next one-third,
revealing conflicts between Catholics and such other religious groups as the
Church of Latter-day Saints. Thomas Spalding completes the volume with contributions relating to the Pacific slope and the Southwest. Each editor enhances
his or her section with well-footnoted introductions that alert readers to salient
points in the documents, as well as suggesting their larger meanings.
The theme that binds the documents together is the development of Catholic identity in the West. The editors make it clear that this identity was diverse
and often conflicted. Because German, Irish, and Hispanic Catholics did not
share languages or cultures, they and other splinter groups found it difficult to
negotiate just what type of Catholicism would be practiced in the West. At the
same time,biting criticism came from outside the Church. In 1865,for example,
two Protestant clergymen in Colorado belittled Catholics’ use of “ugly dolls”
and “miserable daubs which picture our Blessed Lord, the Virgin, and the Holy
Family, the tin candle sticks, the tin glitter everywhere,” as well as Catholic “ignorance,” for these clergy claimed that “the majority had learned no law save
what the priests taught them” (p. 73). Despite these and other difficulties,
Catholics—ranging from priests and women Religious to lay people—persevered
to make their church a religious force on all sorts of frontiers.
In addition to the sagacity of the documents selected, the book has other attractions. A detailed introductory essay by Thomas Engh puts Catholic scholarship in the context of western historiography. Besides illustrations throughout,
a photographic essay, courtesy of Anne Butler, expands a reader’s visual grasp of
Catholics on western frontiers. An afterword by Thomas Spalding offers an
overview, as well as two contemporary documents. At the very end is a list of
suggested readings of the best and most recent scholarship regarding Catholics
on frontiers.
Although more discussion of frontiers—for example, an explanation of what
is meant by “persisting vestiges of the frontier today” (p. xxii)—would be useful to guide readers, the collection is a marvel; a mini-archives in itself. Throughout, it is clear that the editors invested enormous amounts of time, precision,
and devotion. The result is a volume rich in complexity and wide-ranging in
usefulness, one that authoritatively claims a place for Catholics in the history of
the American West.
GLENDA RILEY
Ball State University

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A Friend among the Senecas: The Quaker Mission to Cornplanter’s People. By
David Swatzler. (Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books. 2000. Pp.
xv, 319. $24.95.)
The Seneca people of the Six Nations Iroquois confederacy emerged badly
bruised from the American Revolution. They suffered the burning of most of
their villages at the hands of rebel forces in 1779 because of their alliance with
the loyalist cause, and then they endured the trauma of living in squalid refugee
camps along the Niagara River. As they tried to rebuild their lives after 1783,
they found themselves facing grave new challenges. By 1797, through a series
of one-sided treaties,land-hungry Americans forced the tribe to cede most of its
territory and settle on reservations, where Euroamericans assumed that the surrounded and outnumbered natives would disappear through assimilation as
their traditional economy lost its viability. Within Seneca society itself, poverty,
disease, the loss of independence, and a sense of hopelessness created new levels of social disintegration, marked in part by increased alcohol abuse and interpersonal violence. However, reformers and religious leaders arose within
Iroquois communities in the 1790’s who responded to these challenges with
fresh models on how to strengthen their people temporally and spiritually, and
thereby secure their future. The most famous was the Seneca prophet,Handsome
Lake,whose legacy continues to have a major impact in Six Nations religion and
life today. At the same time that these reform efforts began within the aboriginal world, the Society of Friends, or Quakers, undertook a mission to the
Senecas, directing their efforts primarily at the people of the Allegany Reservation in western New York and the Cornplanter Grant in Pennsylvania.
David Swatzler’s A Friend among the Senecas studies the tribe’s lateeighteenth-century turmoil and the efforts of the Quaker missionaries, especially Henry Simmons, to help them adjust to the Euroamerican agrarian culture
that would come to dominate their old homeland. Simmons’ story forms the
core of the book, but his work is framed within a broad contextualization of
Seneca ethnohistory. As a result, Swatzler not only includes chapters on the dynamics of missionary-native interaction, but he also presents sections addressing various aspects of aboriginal culture. Overall, the parts on the mission are
quite interesting, as the author tells the story of a Christian enterprise that did
not incorporate a strong proselytizing thrust because of the denomination’s distinct theology. Instead, Simmons and his compatriots promoted the agricultural, craft production, and educational skills they believed the Senecas needed
to embrace in order to make their way in a rapidly changing world. Many of
their views on improving the agrarian economy coincided with those of Seneca
reformers. However,most natives saw such activity as a way to generate enough
prosperity to maintain their independence and to protect spiritual and cultural
values much more than the Quakers did. Other aspects of the missionary agenda,
such as changing the land occupation régime to approximate European practices, conflicted with collectivist native values.

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David Swatzler is not a historian or an anthropologist, but rather works in the
nuclear power industry. He took up his study out of personal interest, conducted extensive archival research, and then wrote A Friend Among the
Senecas as his first book. As one accordingly might expect, there are some analytical weaknesses, and various scholars have covered the ethnographical subjects in the text with more sophistication. In addition, the book must live in the
shadow of a still-important study of the same period in Seneca history,Anthony
Wallace’s Death and Rebirth of the Seneca (New York: Knopf, 1969). Nevertheless, A Friend Among the Senecas has its strengths. The narrative of the
Quaker mission is enlightening and informative, and the book reproduces
Henry Simmons’fascinating 1799 journal about his work among the Senecas for
the first time. Thus, David Swatzler’s effort is a worthy one that deserves a place
on the bookshelf of anyone interested in the history of either the Seneca nation
or Quaker missions.
CARL BENN
City of Toronto Museums and Heritage Services

Fire & Roses: The Burning of the Charlestown Convent, 1834. By Nancy Lusignan Schultz. (New York: Free Press. 2000. Pp. xiii, 317. $25.00.)
Is there a more dramatic single episode in American Catholic history than
the destruction of the Ursuline convent in Charlestown, Massachusetts, by a nativist mob on the night of August 11, 1834? The convent became the symbolic
target for working-class anti-Catholic forces,which attacked the place and burned
it to the ground. But the incident offers historians more than just melodrama.
The convent was an institution run by and for women in an era when such
things were rare. Its school enrolled almost as many upper-class Protestant girls
as poor Catholic immigrants, a pattern that invites detailed, multilayered analysis. Positioning the riot in its overlapping contexts—social and gender roles in
the early republic, Jacksonian-era violence, and the contested territory over
what it meant to be white and American—is an important historiographical
challenge. A history of this incident should tell us much, not just about American Catholic history but about American history generally.
For these and other reasons,one wants to say good things about Fire & Roses.
A trade book from a major publisher on a topic in Catholic history ought to be
greeted enthusiastically. This is the product of a commendable research effort,
including attempts to track the participants through the fragmentary, scattered,
and inconclusive evidence. The writing style is lively and engaging, as one
would expect from a teacher of literature. With an emphasis on narrative, the
story moves right along, though not without problems. The author shifts back
and forth between the religious and secular names of the Ursulines—“Sister

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Mary John” reappears unpredictably as “Elizabeth Harrison,” for instance—and
this can be confusing. Even so, a general reader wanting a basic outline of
events will find it here.
Unfortunately, its strengths cannot overcome the book’s shortcomings. For
historians, the most obvious of these will be a distressingly uncritical use of
sources. Speculations about the role of the convent superior,for example,whose
“mannish” behavior—surely a phrase that needs careful unpacking—enflamed
the rioters, are based on Maria Monk and Rebecca Reed, whose fictions are
treated as if they were factual. In the same way, a laughable description of the
nuns’ habit—each sister not only wore a “surplice,” but (somehow) a cross was
“suspended” from it—is taken from a contemporary evangelical newspaper,
again as if it were an accurate, dispassionate account. At least one of these methodological gaffes turns up in nearly every chapter. Anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant
sources are, of course, very useful in studying this topic, but they cannot be, as
they are here, treated as objective descriptions of what actually happened.
The author’s unfamiliarity with the physical and mental world in which her
subjects lived also leads her into an embarrassing number of factual errors and
a use of language that is either just not right or blatantly anachronistic. A “chalice” is not “sacred,” for example (not even when the object in question is a ciborium), and new bishops are not “inducted” into office, as if they were joining
a lodge. But in these pages the “United States” existed in 1727; a “media glare”
surrounded the departure of one of the sisters from the convent; and the “dram
shops” mentioned in the sources, where the rioters gathered their forces and
their courage, have become “drum shops.” The base of secondary sources is
also very thin, more dependent on older, sometimes merely antiquarian publications than on serious recent work on local history, the history of women religious,and other topics. A solid history of the Charlestown convent riot remains
to be written.
JAMES M. O’TOOLE
Boston College

The University Gets Religion: Religious Studies in American Higher Education. By D. G. Hart. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 1999. Pp.
xiv, 321. $38.00.)
Darryl Hart of Westminster Seminary reconstructs the Liberal Protestant establishment’s efforts to gain a subdued presence on campuses in the United
States. Conforming initially to the Enlightenment dogma that only empirical evidence verifies scientific (the only worthwhile) understanding, they were left
with little to offer but morality and piety. And in the “First Age,” 1870–1925, Liberal Protestants conceded that not even morality could be purveyed by a “sect”
(church), which dealt only in private, unverifiable, claims. They saw no difficulty, however, in its being purveyed by a nation. Faith thus repressed became a

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vague moral earnestness in service of “the Power in the Universe which makes
for righteousness,” or “whatever in human sensibility is of finer texture.” Indeed.
So Religion hid in chapel. At the turn of the century, churches began funding
a miscellany of campus programs: Sunday schools, campus ministers, and endowed chairs of Bible study. Then in the 1920’s foundations began to endow
schools of religion, lecture series, chaplaincies, and campus congregations. And
they saw that it was Good: verifiably Good. “Jesus was scientific, Christianity
was tolerant and generous, science was fundamentally ethical” (p. 89).
Early in the second “Age of the Protestant Establishment,” 1925–1965, mainline Protestant efforts enjoyed a new access: broad course requirements in General Education or Western Civilization, where their Bible or ethics courses were
accepted for credit as “developing a sense of values.” The National Association
of Biblical Instructors (NABI) was founded in 1909 to provide academic respectability.
The Neo-Orthodoxy of the thirties was impatient with all this reductionism,
and called instead for scholarly biblical studies and theology—on their own
terms. But liberal Protestants cravenly prevailed: a misfortune Hart typifies in
the collapse of The Christian Scholar into Soundings (1967), replacing “Christianity” with “common human concerns” for its editorial focus.
The Age of the American Academy of Religion, 1965—present, is well documented black comedy. Departments of religious studies become home to what
Hart kindly calls “a generic humanism.” “Religious studies became an omnibus
discipline, governed more by a sense of inferiority than a coherent academic
mission” (p. 224). The annual cult gathering of the AAR, rival to the Shriners’
Convention and spoofed in Paul Mankowski’s classic “What I Saw at the American Academy of Religion,” provides a vaudeville stage for liberal Protestantism
rampant, with Catholics and Jews gardants et passants. The outcome was “a
form of scholarship that, whether unimaginative or intellectually respectable,
remained only vaguely Christian” (p. 189).
Hart believes that the “discipline” of Religious Studies has become marginal
to the Academy and its culture of disbelief. In its craving for justification by faith
alone in the Church’s cultured admirers (more lethal by far than her cultured
despisers), RelStud leaves its practitioners without an authentic method of inquiry and “waters religion down to the point where faith makes no actual difference” (p. 251).
Hart remains wistful about those two decades after World War II, when Christian scholars were nervily confident that they themselves knew a thing or two,
and that the scientists knew much less than they imagined. It is difficult, however, to blame the extinction of such discourse on the Academy, instead of on
the suppliant Liberal Protestant entrepreneurs who so willingly signed away
their faith with reason.
ISHMAEL LAW

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When the Church Bell Rang Racist: The Methodist Church and the Civil Rights
Movement in Alabama. By Donald Collins. (Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press. 1998. Pp. xi, 177. $29.95.)
When the Church Bell Rang Racist is the story of the Alabama-West Florida
Methodist Conference and its activities during the civil-rights movement of the
1950’s and 1960’s. It is also the personal memoir of the author, who was a
Methodist minister between 1952 and 1969, holding pastorates in this particular conference. From the very beginning of his study, Collins, now a retired
banker in Seattle,Washington, makes it clear that the Methodist Church did not
respond to the civil-rights movement. In fact, anyone who did show any sympathy, especially among its ministers, was punished, threatened, transferred, or
intimidated by his own white congregation and by pro-segregationist groups
within the Methodist Church. Collins argues that the Methodist Church limited
its welcome “to its own kind” and supported the segregated status quo (p. ix).
Realizing the gravity of what he is telling, Collins takes the reader through a
very meticulous, almost year-by-year portrayal of what actually happened in the
Alabama-West Florida Conference, what specific civil-rights incidents occurred,
how specific ministers reacted, and the results of their support of black activists. After explaining the make-up of the Methodist conference and the role
of bishops within any given conference, the author explains that forty-two ministers left their callings as a result of what happened during these turbulent
years. Without question, Collins points out that many Methodist ministers actually supported the White Citizens Councils in Alabama, the pro-segregation Association of Methodist Ministers and Laymen, and even the annual conferences
and its bishops.
As early as the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, the Methodist Church opposed the civil-rights leaders’calls for integration,whether it was in the Tuskegee
boycott of white merchants or the Mobile bus desegregation petition. Ministers
who showed any support or sympathy for the plight of black people were harassed by their congregations as in the case of John Parker,A. S. Turnipseed, Bob
Zellner, or Charles Prestwood. More distressing for Collins was the Methodist
Church’s actually voting support to sustain segregation or the growing influence of the pro-segregationist Methodist Layman’s Union. Collins also details
how the bishops of the Alabama-West Florida Conference supported these activities by their refusal to do or say anything to stop the barring of black people
from Methodist services of worship. Here, the author singles out Bishop Bachman G. Hodge, who was weak and non-committal to such a point that his actions actually supported the racist views of the Methodist conference. By 1963
some ministers did speak out and support integration, all to no avail. It was not
until Bishop W. Kenneth Goodson was appointed that the Methodist Conference did something to end segregation and support those ministers who were
fighting to open church doors to all people. By 1968 the segregated Central Jurisdiction was finally eliminated, but the price was high as many Methodist ministers left the church. Even as late as 1992, Collins points out that the

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Methodists still have racial problems in that black membership is small, black
ministers are few in number, and no black minister heads a white congregation.
In terms of his own ministry, Collins decided to leave the pastorate and the
Conference altogether. With a wife and four children, he moved on to Seattle,
where he eventually became a banker and retired. Still, the memories and the
price that was paid by those courageous ministers who spoke out against
racism still are with him today.
Evaluating this work is quite easy. It is an excellent book. It provides an insider’s account of what really happened during a very turbulent period not
only in the Methodist Church’s history, but also in the development of the
United States. What makes this account so good is that Collins tells his story not
only as one who was involved, but also as an outsider looking back years later.
There is no doubt that he admires those ministers who had the courage to
stand up and be counted for ending segregation. He also holds no punches
when it comes to addressing the leadership of the Methodist Conference.
Collins has told a gripping story and one that cannot be forgotten.
Nevertheless, despite all these outstanding characteristics, there is a very serious problem with the book. The proofing of the text was poorly done. There
are numerous typographical errors, paragraphs missing, and even pages left out
as, for example, on pages 38, 54, 55, 64, 65, and 87. Who is to blame is hard to
say, whether it is the author or the copy editors at Mercer. What is clear, though,
is that this problem really detracts from the book.
Fortunately, in the final analysis, Collins’ study will be seen as a very valuable
contribution to the literature on the 1960’s, the civil-rights movement, and
American church history generally. Both scholars and the general public will
find the book a most enjoyable and informative account of a most important
topic.
MICHAEL V. NAMORATO
University of Mississippi

Canadian
Mount Saint Vincent University: A Vision Unfolding, 1873–1988. By Theresa
Corcoran, S.C. (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America. 1999. Pp.
xvi, 368. $57.00.)
In contrast to the United States, where women’s colleges flourished in the
twentieth century, Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, remains the only degree-granting institution in Canada committed primarily to
the education of women. The roots of this distinctive institution lay in a girls’
academy founded in 1873 by the Sisters of Charity and a motherhouse normal
school for young sisters which developed from it. By 1895 Mount Saint Vincent
Normal School was authorized to award teaching certificates, but the Sisters of

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Charity realized that more stringent state teaching requirements were imminent. After two unsuccessful applications for a charter that would permit their
institution to award the bachelor’s degree, they took an unorthodox interim
route to their goal through a 1914 agreement with Dalhousie University, a local
nondenominational institution. After two years of college work at Mount Saint
Vincent, students could complete their last two years of study and earn their
bachelor’s degrees at Dalhousie. Mount Saint Vincent College received its own
charter in 1925 and awarded its first bachelor’s degrees in 1927. It moved to
university status in 1966.
The pivotal theme of Theresa Corcoran’s study is the role of the Sisters of
Charity in the institution’s development. This focus has the unavoidable effect
of making it a heavily administrative history. Certainly, the influence of these
women, both individually and as a community, was significant and enduring.
Not only did they establish and heavily subsidize the college, but they also dominated among its trustees,administrators,and faculty for much of its history. The
narrative ends in 1988, the year the Sisters of Charity transferred ownership of
the university to a lay governing board.
In rich detail,this capable study reveals how the Sisters of Charity met a number of daunting challenges to the college’s development over the last century.
Their creative response to one particularly grave threat to the institution’s survival serves as a case in point. In 1968 the move to coeducation by Saint Mary’s
University, the local Catholic men’s college, forced Mount Saint Vincent College
to compete with it for Catholic women students. Despite considerable criticism from Halifax Catholics, the Sisters quickly negotiated an agreement to affiliate with Dalhousie University. In this way they ensured that Mount Saint
Vincent would continue to flourish as a Catholic college committed primarily
to the education of women.
The author encountered a major obstacle in writing the history of Mount
Saint Vincent University. A disastrous 1951 fire resulted in the loss of all archival
records of the college and the founding congregation. Although Corcoran
draws resourcefully on oral histories, court tax records, Dalhousie University
archives,and scattered published materials,the dearth of primary sources for so
long a period inevitably forces her to leave a number of critical questions unanswered.
This carefully researched history of a pioneer institution represents a valuable addition to the scholarly literature on the higher education of Catholic
women in North America. Photographs, two appendices, a bibliography, and an
index unite to enhance its value as a reference resource.
MARY J. OATES
Regis College

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Latin American
Mexican Phoenix. Our Lady of Guadalupe: Image and Tradition, 1531–
2000. By D. A. Brading. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 2001. Pp.
xvii, 444. $39.95.)
Our Lady of Guadalupe is arguably history’s greatest example of the fusion of
religious devotion and nationalism. From the time that the story of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to the indigenous neophyte Juan Diego was first made
known in 1648 it was identified with mexicanidad, all that it means to be Mexican. As one devotee expressed it, “without Guadalupe we would cease to be
Mexicans.” Yet the history of the devotion and its development is anything but
simple. It is full of inconsistencies, mysteries, contradictions, and even forgery.
Beginning in the late nineteenth century the story of Guadalupe has involved
intense controversy that has divided both the nation and the Church. This controversy reached its most intense points in the last thirty years of that century
and the last twenty years of the twentieth.
In the period between 1531 and 1648 there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of documents written in Spanish and the native languages for use in the
evangelization of the natives. These included sermons, catechisms, chronicles,
sacred songs, reports, and dramas, and yet there is not one single mention of
Juan Diego or the apparitions. In 1648 a Mexican priest, Miguel Sánchez, published the first known account, Imagen de la Virgen María, Madre de Dios de
Guadalupe. In the following year the vicar of Guadalupe, Luis Laso de la Vega,
published an account in Nahuatl (Aztec) that was intended for a native audience. Today it is commonly known as the Nican mopohua (“here is recounted”).
From the beginning the major difficulty of the apparition tradition was the lack
of any documentary evidence to support the story. Because of this apologists
fell back on the concept of tradition, that is, that the story had been passed on
orally from generation to generation. When this proved insufficient,they turned
to other arguments. One was that the image itself in its beauty and miraculous
preservation was the best witness to its own supernatural origin. Another was
that the various approvals by Rome and grants of a proper feast and office
proved the historicity of the traditional account. Finally, the apologetics came
full circle with an attempt to find documentary proof. This led to the citation of
numerous wills and testaments that made bequests to the shrine of Guadalupe
and the acceptance of the Nican mopohua as almost contemporaneous with
the apparitions themselves. All of these arguments are still used today.
As Brading explains in his introduction, the purpose of the book is “to illumine the sudden efflorescence and the adamantine resilience of the tradition of
Our Lady of Guadalupe” (p. 11). From there he takes the reader on a journey
through a convoluted history, beginning with the role played by sacred images
in early Christianity. He sees the theological significance of such images as deriving more from the Eastern than from the Western Church. He investigates
the role of images in Spanish religious devotion at the height of empire. In deal-

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ing with Miguel Sánchez and his book, Brading is vastly more laudatory than
most other commentators have been. He calls it “a book brimming with devotion in which religion and patriotism were inextricably meshed, and where audacious claims were sustained by deep learning” (p. 59). Sánchez “must count
among the most original,learned and audacious of Mexican theologians” (p. 75).
The author goes on to deal with Mateo de la Cruz’s abridgment of Sánchez’s
work (1660), Laso de la Vega’s Nahuatl account (1649), and the two works of
Luis Becerra Tanco, one of the most influential of guadalupan commentators
(1666, 1675). He then goes on to consider three other important figures in the
development of the tradition, Francisco de Florencia, Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, and Lorenzo Boturini Benaduci. One of the author’s most important contributions is his careful study of guadalupan sermons from the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. He is clearly impressed by these preachers who “appear
to have embarked on a vertiginous ascent, scaling the heavens in a series of
metaphors which challenged the very limits of orthodoxy” (p. 146). These included equating Mary’s presence in the image with Christ’s presence in the Eucharist and seeing Guadalupe as “a living, perpetual sacrament” (p. 148). In
subsequent chapters he looks at the challenges to the apparition tradition and
the conflicts that resulted from them. He does an excellent job of showing the
growth in status of the Nican mopohua until it has almost reached the status
of a divinely inspired document.
One of Brading’s most valuable contributions is his narration of the guadalupan controversy resulting from Joaquín García Icazbalceta’s famous letter to the
archbishop of Mexico in which the great historian gave a critique of the historical basis of the apparition legend (1883). There is no other account of this
unhappy series of events in English or, for that matter, in any language. His account of the current controversy, especially that over the beatification and canonization of Juan Diego, is less detailed, a fact that is understandable in view of
the paucity of available sources. The concluding chapter,“Epiphany and Revelation,” seeks to give a theological analysis of the significance of Guadalupe in
the light of current church documents and teaching.
Brading has written a supremely important book and one that is due to take
its place among the standard treatments of Guadalupe. In one sense it is not a
history of the sources of the apparition tradition. Thus, for example, his treatment of the capitular inquiry of 1665–1666 is very brief, omitting the limited
nature of its scope and the anachronisms and inconsistencies that weaken the
credibility of the witnesses. He casts his net over a wider field, and as a result
his book is more comprehensive than other recent works ( Jacques Lafaye, Quetzalcóatl and Guadalupe, 1974; Xavier Noguez, Documentos guadalupanos,
1993; Stafford Poole, Our Lady of Guadalupe, 1995). Also he deals skillfully
with theological and religious matters, terra incognita for most contemporary
historians.
For all its positive aspects this book is open to criticism on several grounds.
Despite the author’s declaration in the introduction, it is difficult to know what

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the actual thrust of his work is. It is not a historical survey of the origin and development of the apparition tradition, a subject adequately covered in other recent works; yet he cannot avoid delving into these questions. These, however,
are not presented in any lineal or organized way. It is not strictly a theological
or sociological interpretation. It combines elements of both, and the combination is at times awkward and inconsistent. The book is often repetitious and at
times moves from one topic to another and back again, for example, in his treatment of the fiftieth anniversary of the coronation (p. 318 and again on p. 320).
He does not mention the important testimony of Antonio Freire, the vicar of
Guadalupe (1570) until page 323, when dealing with the Mexican Jesuit historian Mariano Cuevas, though this testimony was first published by Luis García
Pimentel in 1897.
He fails to note that Becerra Tanco’s narration of the apparitions in his Felicidad de México (1675) contains important variations from the Nican mopohua. He calls Becerra Tanco’s claim that Juan Diego’s wife died two years before
the apparitions “presumably a mistranslation,” ignoring the varying traditions
that surrounded the life of the vidente. Did his wife die before or after the visions? Was theirs a lifelong celibate marriage or did they agree to observe
celibacy after hearing a sermon by Toribio de Motolinía? Did they have issue or
not? Was Juan Diego young or old at the time of the apparitions? Brading does
not deal with these contradictory assertions, all of which can be found in the
sources.
Not everyone will be impressed by his favorable assessment of Baroque sermons. Others might see in them the extravagant outpouring of an exhausted
theology. Even Sánchez’s contemporaries found his book hard to digest, one of
the reasons for Mateo de la Cruz’s abridged edition of 1660. Eventually, however, Brading’s lengthy interpretations of sermons becomes wearying and repetitious.
The author makes a fundamental error in not making a clear distinction between Guadalupe before Sánchez’s book and Guadalupe after that. Though the
shrine, image, and devotion existed from the mid-sixteenth century, it was not
until 1648 that the story of Juan Diego and the apparitions became associated
with them. “By the time Sánchez wrote his celebrated work the cult of Our
Lady of Guadalupe was well established and obviously gathering momentum”
(pp. 73–74). Perhaps, but that cult had nothing to do with the apparitions or
Juan Diego. The distinction of Guadalupe as a pre- and post-Sánchez phenomenon is essential to any understanding of its history.
There are a number of other points that are open to criticism. The author has
made the strange decision to cite the titles of Spanish language works in English
of his own devising, for example, Florencia’s Estrella del norte de México becomes “Polestar of Mexico” (why not “North Star of Mexico”?). The result is
both distracting and confusing, especially since in the bibliography the same
works are cited only by their Spanish titles. It is inaccurate to refer to the Padres
Josefinos as “Josephite Fathers” since the latter refers to a community entirely

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distinct from that of José Vilaseca (p. 301). When discussing the guadalupan
work of Ignacio Manuel Altamirano, he says of the sermon of the Franciscan
Provincial, Francisco de Bustamante, condemning the devotion of Guadalupe
(1556),that he “had dismissed the apparitions as a trick played by priests on the
unfortunate Juan Diego” (p. 258). That may have been Altamirano’s interpretation, but the Bustamante Información never mentioned Juan Diego or the apparitions. José María Antonio (probably more correctly Antonino) González
was a canon of the collegiate chapter of Guadalupe, not Guadalajara (p. 274).
“Velásquez [sic] followed Becerra Tanco in mistranslating the Nahuatl ‘flowers
of Castile’ as ‘roses of Castile’” (p. 324). There are valid reasons for translating
“xochitl” as “roses,” including the gloss in Molina’s Vocabulario.
The most problematical part of the book is the final chapter,“Epiphany and
Revelation.” The author makes the assertion, odd for an historian, that the current controversy “derives from a nineteenth-century concern with ‘historicity’
and is animated on both sides of the debate by a latter-day positivism which impels apparitionists to insist on ‘the Guadalupan Fact’ and their opponents to
hint at forgery and condemn error? (p. 361). He appears to join the ranks of
those for whom the historical truth of the Guadalupe tradition is of little or no
consequence. Even stranger is his assertion,“What is absent is a theological interpretation of the image and its tradition which takes recent research into account” (p. 361). The fact is that there is a profusion of works today that
interpret Guadalupe from a theological perspective, though often at the price
of ignoring the “historicity” of the event. He turns to Orthodox theology to establish not just a comparison but an equivalence between holy images and
scripture as a means of transmitting divine revelation.“It follows from this equivalence of image and scripture that the great iconographers were as much inspired by the Holy Spirit as were the evangelists” (p. 362), a conclusion that this
reviewer considers to be totally non-supportable. From this,and the Second Vatican Council’s declarations on the role of the Holy Spirit in the Church, he concludes that the image of Guadalupe “must number among the most potent
expressions of the Holy Spirit in the long history of the Catholic Church” (p.
363). Following out this equivalence of image/scripture, Brading admits the
possibility of a human artist for the image but adds,“Such an origin in no way
derogates from the character of the Guadalupe as a pre-eminent manifestation
of the Holy Spirit’s inspiration” (p. 366). Ultimately, Brading appears to side
with those who would divorce theology from history and who would take theology into the realm of the subjective. In an earlier chapter, when discussing
Richard Nebel’s book Santa María Tonantzin Virgen de Guadalupe (1995), he
says,“For Nebel, the truths of theology soared far above any concern with mere
historicity.”Yet in the final chapter Brading seems to do the same thing.
Usually,editorial errors are not appropriate material for criticism in a book review. It is clear, however, that this book would have benefited from more careful proofreading. Mistakes and typographical errors abound, for example,
“Nahautl” (p. 83), natione for nationi throughout,“are drawn by he who made
heaven and earth” (p. 55),“Quetzalmalitzin” for Quetzalmamalitzin (p. 86), Ex-

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quisitio historico for historica, throughout,“Anticoli” for Antícoli, throughout,
“Praxitles” for Praxiteles (p. 325),“Velásquez” for Velázquez (pp. 324–325), and
“Villenueve” for Villeneuve (p. 318). Sometimes the same word is spelled correctly and incorrectly on the same page,even within the same paragraph,for example,Alcíbar and Alcibar (p. 296), Sousa and Souza (p. 358). In some cases the
reason may be that he is directly quoting his source. Is “Quauhnohuac” an error
for “Quauhnahuac” or was it the form used by Becerra Tanco? (p. 93). Similarly,
“ixtle” and “iccotilzalti” (p. 108), “Quauhtatoatzin” (p. 117), and “Cuauhtatohuac” (p. 333).
There are also inaccuracies in translations. Huei tlamahuiçoltica does not
mean “The great happening” but “by a great miracle” or “very miraculously” (p.
81). “Non fecit taliter omni natione [sic]” does not mean “it was not done thus
to all nations,” but “he has not done the like for any nation.” The difference is important because of the emphasis on divine causality. “Fertur” means “it is reported,” “it is said,” not “it seems” (pp. 210, 220).
It had indeed been a long journey for a tradition and devotion that originated
as a pious fiction coming from a seventeenth-century Mexican priest, the primary appeal of which was to creole nationalism and nascent identity, not
indigenous peoples, and which received its strongest impetus from the independence movements of the early nineteenth century. No one can deny the
profound influence of Guadalupe on the Mexican people of the past two centuries, but there were causes other than the intervention of the Holy Spirit. If
this is “positivism” or “nineteenth-century historicity,” so be it.
In spite of these criticisms, Brading has written an important book. It is not,
however, by any means the final or definitive word on the subject.
STAFFORD POOLE, C.M.
Los Angeles, California

Paolo Albera and Calogero Gusmano. Lettere a don Giulio Barberis durante
la loro visita alle case d’America (1900–1903). Edited by Brenno Casali.
[Istituto Storico Salesiano—Roma, Fonti—Serie Seconda, 9.] (Rome: LAS
[Libreria Ateneo Salesiano]. 2001. Pp. 515. Lire 50.000 paperback.)
This volume is part of a series of the Salesians’ founding documents. It consists of letters to Father Michael Rua, Don John Bosco’s successor as the Salesians’ superior general, and to Father Giulio Barberis, who held various posts in
the Salesians’ administration, from Father Paolo Albera, Father Rua’s representative, and from Father Calogero Gusmano, Father Albera’s secretary. The letters
were written between 1900 and 1903,when Father Albera and Father Gusmano
were on a pastoral visit of Salesian houses in the Americas. Their assignment
was to visit each establishment staffed by the Salesians of Don Bosco or the
Daughters of Mary, Help of Christians, and to report on the houses’ activities.

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They stuck to their task, seldom commenting on political, economic, or social
situations they encountered.
The letters were written from Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay, Brazil,
Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, United States, Great Britain, and
France. The South American letters are the heart of the collection; the letters
from the last four places concern mostly travel arrangements. The letters contain four sorts of information. Father Albera and Father Gusmano always included how they were feeling and what their travel plans were. Occasionally,
they produced vivid paragraphs describing pastoral ministry (or, in the case of
the evangelization of the Indians, lack of it; no one knew the languages). They
describe the Salesians’ educational ministry, providing enough information to
piece together what the novices’ devotional life was like, and what their superiors gave them to read.
The letters’ main topic is community life. Neither Father Albera nor Father
Gusmano was trained in psychology or the social dynamics of community life.
Rather, they had a mental checklist of potentially destructive behavior that they
looked out for. In each house, they reported either that all was well or that the
place was afflicted with gossiping or other conduct not conducive to community living. Sometimes they commented on specific persons and suggested improvements. The discussion of life in religious houses reveals the fathers at
their best. They had an ideal of religious life, understood not everyone always
lived up to it, and, within their understanding, worked to realize their ideal.
Each letter is carefully annotated. The volume begins with an introduction to
the letter-writers, the recipients and the pastoral visitation project, and concludes with an appendix of letters from Father Rua to Father Albera and Father
Gusmano and indices for personal names, places, and concepts. The letters are
divided into sections by year. Each section starts with a summary of the letterwriters’ itinerary and a map of their travels.
This collection would probably be useful for the study of South American Catholicism. It would be most useful for the history of religious orders in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
MARY ELIZABETH BROWN
Marymount Manhattan College

BRIEF NOTICES

Bornstein,Daniel (Ed. and Trans.). Sister Bartolomea Riccoboni, Life and Death
in a Venetian Convent: The Chronicle and Necrology of Corpus Domini,
1393–1436. [The Other Voices in Early Modern Europe.] (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press. 2000. Pp. xxvii, 115. $16.00 paperback.)
“The other voice,” of European culture presented by the translations in this
series is the voice of women. As documents by and about women in historical
Christianity have increasingly become part of the historical record, our understanding of how Christianity grew and changed over the centuries has taken
some interesting twists and turns. This translation of a chronicle of the powerful Dominican house of Corpus Domini,Venice, is an excellent example of how
another voice changes the texture of the song. The Chronicle and Necrology of
the community recorded by Sister Bartolomea Riccoboni over three decades at
the turn of the fifteenth century are surprisingly worldly documents. For example, although the Necrology does tell some stories of the mystical raptures
of the members of the community, the Chronicle instead focuses on the patronage of powerful families and the careers of supportive priests who befriended them. Especially striking is the amount of attention given to the
turmoil caused in the community by the Great Schism. After the Council of Pisa
in 1409, Corpus Domini manifested a split that mirrored that of the Church at
large: about two thirds of the sisters still recognized the Roman Pope, Gregory
XII, while the other third followed the Pisan Pope, Alexander VI. Such a situation could not have been unique in these tumultuous times, of course, but this
detailed description of how the community dealt with the split among its members (including the thorny question of which pope would be prayed for at
Mass) is told here in fascinating detail.
Bornstein’s translation has done an excellent job of turning the florid, periodic sentences of early modern Italian into readable English,even while not losing the charm of the original. This volume will be of interest to scholars in
many fields of Christian history. E. ANN MATTER (University of Pennsylvania)

Celeste, Sister Marie, S.C. The Intimate Friendships of Elizabeth Ann Bayley
Seton: First Native-Born American Saint (1774–1821). (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America. 2000. Pp. xii, 212. Paperback.)

779

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Women’s friendships are being looked at with increasing interest as a way of
gaining a greater understanding of their lives. Historically, women’s writings
tend to be preserved, not in treatises and lengthy academic pieces, but in soulrevealing letters. In the case of Elizabeth Seton, hundreds of her letters have
been preserved which provide a window on her personality, her spirituality,
and her life experience. She was a woman with an extraordinary capacity for
friendship, and this volume provides an introduction to some of the cast of
characters who were an important part of her life.
Sister Marie Celeste’s book, a reissue of a 1989 Alba House publication, contains chapters on Elizabeth Seton’s relationships with her father, her husband,
two sisters-in-law, three women friends from her New York period, and two
men who were strong influences in her life. Each chapter provides the context
for the period in Elizabeth’s life in which the friendship was important. The author uses a chronological approach, but she does not attempt to show growth
over time or to analyze the meaning of the relationship for the participants.
Only direct quotes are footnoted, and the frequent paraphrases of documents
have no citations, making this easily readable for those who are more interested
in Elizabeth’s life than in the scholarly aspects of the letters.
What the book offers is an insight into the enthusiasm for loving relationships which marked Elizabeth Seton’s life. It plunges the reader into the warm,
effusive language she used with her friends as she showered them with affection, supported them in times of trouble, and cajoled them to lives of goodness.
It shows the variety of persons and influences which came to play within her
life and which ultimately helped to form her into the saint that she became.
JUDITH METZ, S.C. (Cincinnati, Ohio)

Lyons, John F. The Trouble with Priests (Their Trials and Triumphs): An Historical Study of the Priests of the Diocese of Cleveland, Ohio. (Cleveland,
Ohio: Bishop’s Press. 2001. Pp. iv, 101. $15.00 paperback.)
This work discusses the lives of fourteen Cleveland priests and contains, in
addition,two chapters dealing with Cleveland’s second bishop,Richard Gilmour.
Most of the fourteen priests ministered mainly in the nineteenth century with
only two spending the majority of their priesthood in the twentieth century.
The unifying theme of the book is the notion of “trouble”—either the “trouble”
the priest experienced in his ministry, the “trouble” he caused (usually to his
bishop), or the “trouble” (in the sense of effort) he took to minister effectively.
The book is really a compilation of passages taken verbatim from other works,
most notably from the second volume of a work published in 1903 by the Reverend George F. Houck and Michael W. Carr entitled History of Catholicity in
Northern Ohio and the Diocese of Cleveland, 1749 to 1900. Other sources include parish histories, a doctoral dissertation, an article from a published work,
and an obituary from Cleveland’s diocesan newspaper. The author has added an

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781

introduction and foreword as well as short introductions to most of the chapters that seek to relate that particular chapter to the theme of “trouble.” Originally there was no reference or notice that the chapters were taken directly
from other sources. Later Father Lyons clarified the matter by putting a notice
in all the unsold copies listing the sources that he used. In this notice he referred to himself as “compiler” rather than as “author.” The stories told about
the priests in this book are for the most part inspiring and positive although at
times incomplete. Negative or more controversial aspects of their lives are
passed over or mentioned briefly. The book has several grammatical errors, and
the bibliography is incomplete, failing to include works from which large sections of chapters of the book were taken. THOMAS W. TIFFT (Saint Mary Seminary, Wickliffe, Ohio)

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

G E N E R A L A N D M ISCELLANEOUS

Teología de la historia y comprensión de nuestro tiempo. Andrés Tornos Cubillo. Miscelánea Comillas, 59 ( Jan.–June, 2001), 55–76.
The Christian Jubilee in History. Lucio Gutiérrez, OP. Philippiniana Sacra,
XXXVI ( Jan.–Apr., 2001), 63–90.
The Great Jubilee and the Purification of Memory. Kevin Lenehan. Louvain
Studies, 25 (Winter, 2000), 291–311.
Memoria e riconciliazione: la Chiesa e le colpe del passato. Un dibattito fra
storici. Rosetta Frison Segafredo, ed. Studia Patavina, XLVIII ( Jan.–Apr.,
2001), 171–183.
Zur Theologiegeschichte des 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts (I). Jörg Dierken.
Theologische Rundschau, 66 (May, 2001), 194–239.
L’archivio della Congregazione del Sant’Ufficio: bilancio provvisorio della storia
e natura dei fondi d’antico regime. Francesco Beretta. Rivista di Storia e
Letteratura Religiosa, XXXVII (1, 2001), 29–58.
Jacques Maritain face à l’histoire. Jean-Dominique Durand. Bulletin de Littérature Ecclésiastique, CII (Apr.–June, 2001), 111–124.
Les divers types de concélébration eucharistique au long des siècles. Philippe
Rouillard. Ecclesia Orans, XVIII (May–Aug., 2001), 223–236.
La questione femminile nel mondo cattolico nel primo Novecento. Isabella
Pera. Ricerche di Storia Sociale e Religiosa, XXX ( Jan.–June, 2001), 67–89.
Il problema della beatificazione di Pio IX. Breve resoconto del dibattito storico
sui giornali nazionali. Massimo Viglione. Nuova Rivista Storica, LXXXV
( Jan.–Apr., 2001), 145–162.
La réception de Vatican II dans les Églises non catholiques. Réflexions méthodologiques. Joseph Famerée. Revue théologique de Louvain, 32 (2, 2001),
169–188.
Sons of Don Bosco, Successors of the Apostles, Salesian Bishops, 1884–2001.
Charles N. Bransom, Jr. Journal of Salesian Studies, XII (Spring, 2001), 53–
118.

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Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the Late Twentieth Century: Apocalyptic, Representation, Politics. E. Ann Matter. Religion, 31 (Apr., 2001), 125–153.

ANCIENT

Gemeinde und Gesellschaft im frühen Christentum. Hans-Josef Klauck, OFM.
Antonianum, LXXVI (Apr.–June, 2001), 225–246.
John Arkhaph and “the Bishop” (Athan., Apol. Sec. 71.6). A Reassessment. Hans
Hauben. Ancient Society, 30 (2000), 271–275.
Brückenbauerinnen zwischen Byzanz und dem Westen. Forschungsbericht über
den vergessenen Beitrag byzantinischer und westlicher Christinnen der
byzantinischen Ära zur Verständigung zwischen ihren Kirchen und Völkern (330–1453). Johannes Hofmann. Ostkirchliche Studien, 50 (May,
2001), 58–78.
Religion and Magic in Syria and Wider Orient in the Early Byzantine Period.
Anastasia Vakaloudi. Byzantinische Forschungen, XXVI (2000), 255–280.
Ambrosius in Trier. Zu den Hintergründen der zweiten Gesandtschaft bei Maximus
(Ambrosius, epist. 30 [24]). Norbert Dörner. Historia, L (2, 2001), 217–244.
Time and Narrative in Augustine’s Confessions. M. B. Pranger. Journal of Religion, 81 ( July, 2001), 377–393.
Hearing, Reading, Praying: Orality, Literacy, and the Shape of Early Monastic Spirituality. Douglas Burton-Christie. Anglican Theological Review, LXXXIII
(Spring, 2001), 197–221.
L’identité des sarabaïtes, ces moines d’Égypte que méprisait Jean Cassien. Christian Cannuyer. Mélanges de Science Religieuse, 58 (2, 2001), 7–19.
Ivory Lists: Consular Diptychs, Christian Appropriation and Polemics of Time in
Late Antiquity. Kim Bowes. Art History, 24 ( June, 2001), 338–357.
Césaire d’Arles,un évêque et sa ville. Marc Heijmans. Revue d’histoire de l’Église
de France, 87 ( Jan.–June, 2001), 5–25.
Vies et Miracles de saint Domitien,évêque de Tongres-Maastricht (ca. 535–549).
Seconde partie. Philippe George. Analecta Bollandiana,119 ( June,2001),
5–32.
Verecundus oder Pseudoisidor? Zur Genese der Excerptiones de gestis Chalcedonensis concilii. Klaus Zechiel-Eckes. Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 56 (2, 2000), 413–446.
The Real St Ninian. Thomas Owen Clancy. Innes Review, LII (Spring, 2002), 1–28.

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M E D I E VA L

The Reconciliation of the Heretically Baptized in the Western Medieval Liturgical Books. Dale J. Sieverding. Ecclesia Orans, XVIII (May–Aug., 2001), 173–
222.
I musulmani nella Spagna altomedievale. Alessandro Vanoli. Humanitas, LVI
(Apr., 2001), 238–259.
Äbtissin Anthousa von Mantineon—geistliche Mutter eines Doppelklosters im
Zeitalter des Ikonoklasmus. Johannes Hofmann. Erbe und Auftrag, 77
( June, 2001), 226–238.
John Scottus Eriugena and the Upper Cover of the Lindau Gospels. JeanneMarie Musto. Gesta, XL (1, 2001), 1–18.
Beobachtungen zu Synthronoi und Kathedren in byzantinischen Kirchen
Griechenlands. Michael Altripp. Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique,
124 (1, 2000), 377–412.
I percorsi del monachesimo russo da Bisanzio a Kiev. Gabriele De Rosa.
Ricerche di Storia Sociale e Religiosa, XXX ( Jan.–June, 2001), 7–24.
Frères et membres du corps du Christ: les fraternités monastiques dans les
“typika.” Amélie Bébén. Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 44 (Apr.–June,
2001), 105–119.
On Cathars,Albigenses, and Good Men of Languedoc. Mark Gregory Pegg. Journal of Medieval History, 27 ( June, 2001), 181–195.
Mimesis and Memory in the Narthex Mosaics at the Nea Moni, Chios. Charles
Barber. Art History, 24 ( June, 2001), 323–337.
Constructions chrétiennes d’un espace politique. Dominique Iogna-Prat. Le
Moyen Age, CVII (1, 2001), 49–69.
Lay Patronage and the Creation of Papal Sanctity during the Gregorian Reform:
The Case of Sant’Urbano alla Caffarella, Rome. Kirstin Noreen. Gesta, XL
(1, 2001), 39–59.
Il culto delle reliquie gerosolimitane in Toscana e le modifiche spaziali degli organismi architettonici medievali. Marco Frati. Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa, XXXVII (2, 2001), 201–229.
The Origin of Chantries: Some Further Anglo–Norman Evidence. David Crouch.
Journal of Medieval History, 27 ( June, 2001), 159–180.
Origins and Careers of Cathedral Canons in Twelfth–Century England. Julia Barrow. Medieval Prosopography, 21 (2000), 23–40.
La réécriture d’un texte hagiographique au XII e siècle: la Vita sancti Sansonis,
de Baudri de Bourgueil. Armelle le Huërou. Annales de Bretagne et des
Pays de l’Ouest, 108 (2, 2001), 7–30.

798

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Continuité et innovation littéraire en Angleterre au XII e siècle: la prédication de
la “militia Christi.” Stephen Morrison. Cahiers de civilisation médiévale,
44 (Apr.–June, 2001), 139–157.
Der Romzugsplan Heinrichs V. 1122/23: Neue Überlegungen zum Abschluß des
Wormser Konkordats. Claudia Zey. Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des
Mittelalters, 56 (2, 2000), 447–504.
Prout moris est iure, les moines et la question de la coutume (XIIe–XIIIe
siècles). Alain Boureau. Revue Historique, CCCIII (Apr.–June, 2001), 363–
402.
Saint Peter of Tarentaise: First Abbot of Tamié, Archbishop of Tarentaise (now
Moutiers), France. Thomas Merton. Ed. Patrick Hart. Cistercian Studies
Quarterly, 36 (3, 2001), 337–347.
Hildegard of Bingen against the Cathars. Philip Timko, O.S.B. American Benedictine Review, 52 ( June, 2001), 191–205.
Clusterpatronen in de Middeleeuwse monastieke historiografie. Steven Vanderputten. Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire, 78 (3–4, 2000), 773–795.
Twee oorkonden van graaf Filips van de Elzas voor de Sint–Pietersabdij van
Oudenburg in verband met de inpoldering van de IJzermonding (1173).
Adriaan Verhulst and Thérèse de Hemptinne. Bulletin de la Commission
Royale d’Histoire [Brussels], CLXV (3–4, 1999), 169–183.
The Procession of Palms and West-Front Galleries. Mark Spurrell. Downside Review, 119 (Apr., 2001), 125–144.
Francesco d’Assisi tra devozione, culto e litugia. Francesco Dolciami. Collectanea Franciscana, 71 (1–2, 2001), 5–45.
Le chiese minori del monastero bresciano di S. Salvatore–S. Giulia: S. Nicola.
Maria Bettelli and Gianni Bergamaschi. Nuova Rivista Storica, LXXXV
( Jan.–Apr., 2001), 95–110.
Mechtild von Magdeburg, Gender, and the “Unlearned Tongue.” Sara S. Poor.
Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 31 (Spring, 2001), 213–
250.
Eine stadtrömische Kaiser–Papst–Geschichte zu Ehren von König Manfred: Der
liber de istoriis des Frater-Johannes Ruffus. Andrea Sommerlechner.
Römische Historische Mitteilungen, 42 (2000), 245–306.
L’activité d’une cour rurale au Moyen Âge: l’échevinage du chapitre Saint-Géry
de Cambrai à Neuville-Saint-Rémy de 1277 à 1286. Gérard Sivéry. Revue du
Nord, 83 ( Jan.–Mar., 2001), 9–24.
Mon ami le saint roi: Joinville et Saint Louis (réponse). Jacques Le Goff. Annales,
56 (Mar.–Apr., 2001), 469–477.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

799

L’Évangile du roi: Joinville, témoin et auteur de la Vie de Saint Louis. Christopher Lucken. Annales, 56 (Mar.–Apr., 2001), 445–467.
Isabella d’Aragona, Rainha santa de Portugal, e il monastero di Santa Clara e
Santa Isabel di Coimbra (1286–1336). Giulia Rossi Vairo. Collectanea Franciscana, 71 (1–2, 2001), 139–169.
The Hanging of William Cragh: Anatomy of a Miracle. Jussi Hanska. Journal of
Medieval History, 27 ( June, 2001), 121–138.
The Quality of Mercy: Confraternities and Public Power in Medieval Bergamo.
Roisin Cossar. Journal of Medieval History, 27 ( June, 2001), 139–157.
Patterns of Morbidity in Late Medieval England. A Sample from Westminster
Abbey. Barbara Harvey and Jim Oeppen. Economic History Review, LIV
(May, 2001), 215–239.
Eastern Choir or Western Gallery? The Problem of the Place of the Nuns’ Choir
in Königsfelden and Other Early Mendicant Nunneries. Carola Jäggi. Gesta,
XL (1, 2001), 79–93.
Indulgences for Prayers for the Dead in the Diocese of Lincoln in the Early Fourteenth Century. R. N. Swanson. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 52 (Apr.,
2001), 197–219.
Art and Ceremony in Papal Avignon: A Prescription for the Tomb of Clement VI.
Anne McGee Morganstern. Gesta, XL (1, 2001), 61–77.
Amongst Brothers: Italians’ Networks in Papal Avignon (1360s–80s). Joëlle
Rollo-Koster. Medieval Prosopography, 21 (2000), 153–189.
Kurientätigkeit als “Berufsbild” gelehrter Juristen. Der Beitrag Roms zur
Akademisierung Deutschlands im Spätmittelalter. Eine personengeschichtliche Betrachtung. Robert Gramsch. Quellen und Forschungen, 80 (2000),
117–163.
Documenta Vaticana ad Franciscales spectantia. Ann. 1385–1492. Caesar Cenci,
OFM. Archivum Franciscanum Historicum,94 ( Jan.–June,2001),85–145.
Nuns and Their Art: The Case of San Zaccaria in Renaissance Venice. Gary M.
Radke. Renaissance Quarterly, LIV (Summer, 2001), 430–459.
Ein Kardinal und seine Neffen. Prälaten der Venezianer Familie Lando im 15.
Jahrhundert. Dieter Girgensohn. Quellen und Forschungen, 80 (2000),
164–265.
Georges Gennadios Scholarios a-t-il été trois fois patriarche de Constantinople?
Marie Hélène Blanchet. Byzantion, LXXI (1, 2001), 60–72.
An Encounter between Death and an Abbess: The Mortuary Roll of Elisabeth
’sConincs, Abbess of Forest (Manchester, John Rylands Library, Latin MS
114). Stacy Boldrick. Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of
Manchester, 82 (Spring, 2000), 29–48.

800

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Las causas de la Inquisición española según B. Netanyahu. José Magaz Fernández. Revista Española de Teología, 61 (Apr.–June, 2001), 233–265.
Alexander Rait, Familiar of the Pope, d.1479. Eila Williamson. Innes Review, LII
(Spring, 2002), 29–41.
The Monks of the Renaissance at the Heart of the Revolution of the Printed
Book. Guy-Marie Oury. Cistercian Studies Quarterly, 36 (2, 2001), 163–
174.
Death and the Cardinal: The Two Bodies of Guillaume d’Estouteville. Meredith
J. Gill. Renaissance Quarterly, LIV (Summer, 2001), 347–388.
Les bibles en Catalogne à la fin du Moyen Âge ou l’occultation de la lettre
sacrée. Dominique de Courcelles. Revue de l’histoire des religions, 218
( Jan.–Mar., 2001), 65–82.
Elections of Abbesses and Notions of Identity in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century
Italy,with Special Reference to Venice. Kate Lowe. Renaissance Quarterly,
LIV (Summer, 2001), 389–429.
SIXTEENTH CENTURY

Die ältesten erhaltenen Stadtratsprotokolle Roms (1515–1526). Teil I. Einführung
und Regesten aus dem Pontifikat Leos X. (1515–1521). Andreas Rehberg.
Quellen und Forschungen, 80 (2000), 266–359.
Zwingli and the Origin of the Reformed Covenant 1524–7. Scott A. Gillies. Scottish Journal of Theology, 54 (1, 2001), 21–50.
The Social Origins of the Peasants’ War of 1525 in Upper Swabia. Govind P.
Sreenivasan. Past & Present, No. 171 (May, 2001), 30–65.
The Renewal of the Practice of Adult Baptism by Immersion during the Reformation Era, 1525–1700. West Harrison. Restoration Quarterly, 43 (2,
2001), 95–112.
Can the English Think for Themselves? The Roots of English Protestantism. Diarmaid MacCulloch. Harvard Divinity Bulletin, 30 (Spring, 2001), 17–20.
Surviving the Reformation in Ireland (1534–80): Christopher Bodkin,Archbishop
of Tuam, and Roland Burke, Bishop of Clonfert. Thomas G. Connors. Sixteenth Century Journal, XXXII (Summer, 2001), 335–355.
Marian Exiles and the Legitimacy of Flight from Persecution. Jonathan Wright.
Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 52 (Apr., 2001), 220–243.
Esercizi di carita, esercizi di inquisizione. Siviglia 1558–1564. Stefania Pastore.
Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa, XXXVII (2, 2001), 231–258.
“Common Prayer” in England 1560–1640: The View from the Pew. Christopher
Marsh. Past & Present, No. 171 (May, 2001), 66–94.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

801

Sources and Contexts of the Lutheran Confessional Writings. Robert Kolb.
Lutheran Quarterly, XV (Summer, 2001), 125–141.
Fundación del Colegio Jesuítico de Sebastián, en Málaga (España). Wenceslao
Soto Artuñedo, S.J. Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, LXX ( Jan.–June,
2001), 95–171.
“Wittenberger Katechismus” (1571) und “Wittenberger Fragstücke” (1571).
Harm Kleuting. Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 112 (1, 2001), 1–43.
The Jesuits in Bergamo, 1571–1729. Christopher Carlsmith. Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, LXX ( Jan.–June, 2001), 71–93.
Seigneurs et communautés villageoises au temps des guerres de Religion. Michel
Cassan. Revue Historique, CCCIII (Apr.–June, 2001), 433–450.
Silvestro da Rossano (†1596): un cappuccino del primo secolo. Salvatore Vacca.
Laurentianum, 42 (1–2, 2001), 3–51.
Clemenza und Equità. Zur Justizpolitik Papst Gregors XIII. (1572–1585). Peter
Blastenbrei. Quellen und Forschungen, 80 (2000), 360–452.
Bartolomeo Porcias Kölner Mission 1577.Abschriften der Weisungen des Staatssekretärs Gallio im Archiv des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom.
Alexander Koller. Quellen und Forschungen, 80 (2000), 453–494.
Pretense of Holiness in Italy: Investigations and Persecutions (1581–1876). Anne
Jacobson Schutte. Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa, XXXVII (2,
2001), 299–321.
Paper, Inke, and Penne: The Literary Memoria of the Recusant Community. Gerard Kilroy. Downside Review, 119 (Apr., 2001), 95–124.
George Buchanan and Mary Queen of Scots. Roger A. Mason. Records of the
Scottish Church History Society, XXX (2000), 1–27.
Spenser’s Praise of English Rites for the Sick and Dying. Sarah J. Plant. Sixteenth
Century Journal, XXXII (Summer, 2001), 403–420.
The Lord Treasurer and the Jesuit: Robert Persons’s Satirical Responsio to the
1591 Proclamation. Victor Houliston. Sixteenth Century Journal, XXXII
(Summer, 2001), 383–401.
“God’s Porters”: The Jesuit Vocation according to Francisco Suárez. Paul Murphy. Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, LXX ( Jan.–June, 2001), 3–28.
Sir Robert Cecil, Edward Squier and the Poisoned Pommel. Francis Edwards, S.J.
Recusant History, 25 (May, 2001), 377–414.
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Contradictions of the Century of Saints: Aristocratic Patronage and the Convents of Counter-Reformation Paris. Barbara B. Diefendorf. French Historical Studies, 24 (Summer, 2001), 469–499.

802

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Thomas Habington’s Account of the 1606 Search at Hindlip. C. Don Gilbert. Recusant History, 25 (May, 2001), 415–422.
Early Letters of John Brown,Minim & Report to Propaganda,1623,by Scots Minims. John Durkan. Innes Review, LII (Spring, 2002), 63–79.
Materialen zur Kunsttätigkeit der gegenreformatorischen Orden in Österreich
und in anderen Ländern der Habsburgermonarchie bis 1800: VII. Das
Archiv des Piaristenordens (Fortsetzung). Jörg Garms. Römische Historische Mitteilungen, 42 (2000), 351–381.
Le livre de piété (vers 1640–vers 1850). Approche méthodologique et premières conclusions. Philippe Martin. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de
France, 87 ( Jan.–June, 2001), 135–149.
The Beatified Martyrs of Ireland (9): Peter Higgins, O.P. Augustine Valkenburg.
Irish Theological Quarterly, 66 (Spring, 2001), 67–74.
The Presence of the Mary Ward Institue in Yorkshire, 1642–1648. M. Gregory
Kirkus, I.B.V.M. Recusant History, 25 (May, 2001), 434–448.
Metropolit Petr Mogila und die 1644 verfaßte “Sententia cuiusdam nobilis
Poloni graecae religionis” über die Einigung der Kirchen. Ernst Christoph
Suttner. Ostkirchliche Studien 50 (May, 2001), 106–116.
Cofradía de San Nicolás de los sacerdotes de Urcabustaiz. José Iturrate. Scriptorium Victoriense, XLVII ( July–Dec., 2000), 405–435.
Religious Accommodation and Political Authority in an Alsatian Community,
1648–1715. Rebecca McCoy. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 52 (Apr.,
2001), 244–281.
Bericht aus Rom. Ein Diario zum Heiligen Jahr 1650. Uta Piereth. Römische Historische Mitteilungen, 42 (2000), 323–350.
Chaplain and Steward: Francis Blakiston, S.J. (1617–93) at Linton-on-Ouse. John
Trappes-Lomax. Recusant History, 25 (May, 2001), 423–433.
I familiari di S. Tommaso da Cori. Documenti inediti. Luigi Sergio Mecocci,OFM.
Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 94 ( Jan.–June, 2001), 209–224.
De norbertijnenabdijkerk van Grimbergen, een architectuurhistorisch onderzoek. Joris Snaet. Analecta Praemonstratensia, LXXV (3–4, 1999), 165–
185.
Seditious Sectaries or “Sober and Useful Inhabitants”? Changing Conceptions of
the Quakers in Early Modern Britain. Richard L. Greaves. Albion,33 (Spring,
2001), 24–50.
Rethinking the Late Stuart Church: The Extent of Liberal Anglicanism, 1688–
1715. William C. Watson. Anglican and Episcopal History, LXX ( June,
2001), 143–168.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

803

El conocimiento del árabe entre los franciscanos españoles de Tierra Santa.
Ramón Lourido Diaz, OFM Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 94
( Jan.–June, 2001), 147–186.
“A Truly Christian Hero”: Religion, Effeminacy, and Nation in the Writings of the
Societies for Reformation of Manners. Stephen H. Gregg. Eighteenth Century Life, 25 (Winter, 2001), 17–28.
Scotland’s Invisible Enlightenment: Subscription and Heterdoxy in the EighteenthCentury Kirk. Colin Kidd. Records of the Scottish Church History Society,
XXX (2000), 28–59
Marriage as Interpreted by Church and State in Eighteenth-Century Scotland.
Leah Leneman. Records of the Scottish Church History Society, XXX
(2000), 101–123.
Jesuits in 18th-Century Scotland. Brian Halloran. Innes Review, LII (Spring,
2001), 80–99.
L’utilisation des chapelles d’ambassades scandinaves par les marchands
luthériens des “ports de l’Océan de France” au XVIII e siècle. Janine Driancourt-Girod. Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme
Français, 147 (Apr.–June, 2001), 225–247.
Le chiese e lo spazio. Per una cartografia ecclesiastica della Sicilia nel Settecento. Raffaele Manduca. Ricerche di Storia Sociale e Religiosa, XXX
( Jan.–June, 2001), 25–66.
Il Sinodo agrigentino di Mons. Ramirez (1703) e la sua normativa. Ferdinando.
Aronica. Itinerarium (Messina), 9 May–Aug., 2001), 93–112.
Gli Scolopi a Cortona dal 1706 al 1880. Osvaldo Tosti, Sch.P. Archivum Scholarum Piarum, XXV (2001), 3–107.
The Pigott Family: Eighteenth-Century Connections with Church, Science and
Law. Alison Brech and Anita McConnell. Recusant History, 25 (May, 2001),
449–460.
Archbishop King, the Bank Scheme (1720–21), and Wood’s Halfpence (1722–
25). Gordon Hutton. Éire-Ireland, XXXV (3–4, 2000–2001), 81–101.
Principal Wishart (1692–1753) and the Controversies of His Day. M. A. Stewart.
Records of the Scottish Church History Society, XXX (2000), 60–102.
Charles Fell, Miracles and the Lives of the Saints. A Forgotten 18th-Century Hagiographer. Peter Doyle. Analecta Bollandiana, 119 ( June, 2001), 62–87.
“It Was of Infinite Use to Me”: Good News from the Poor in Early Methodism.
Diane Lobody. Journal of Theology, CV (Summer, 2001), 59–73.
“Eadem scripta ac si umquam exarata fuissent”: Il processo di beatificazione di
Angelo d’Acri e il problema dell’esame dei suoi scritti. Vincenzo Criscuolo,
OFMCap. Collectanea Franciscana, 71 (1–2, 2001), 87–138.

804

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Charles Wesley and His Biographers: An Exercise in Methodist Hagiography.
Gareth Lloyd. Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 82 (Spring, 2000), 81–99.
Ad Chorum Rothensem. Zur Musikpflege in der ehemaligen Prämonstratenserreichsabtei Rot an der Rot gegen Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts. Georg Günther. Analecta Praemonstratensia, LXXV (3–4, 1999), 186–228.
From Cambrai to Woolton: Lancashire’s First Female Religious House. Janet E.
Hollinshead. Recusant History, 25 (May, 2001), 461–486.
NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES

Gedanken über die religiöse Bestimmung Deutschlands an der Wende zum 19.
Jahrhundert bei Hölderlin, Novalis und Schleiermacher. Siegfried Raeder.
Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 112 (1, 2001), 65–86.
Religiöse Festkultur. Zu Umbruch, Neuformierung und Geschichte katholischer
Frömmigkeit in der Gesellschaft des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts. Barbara
Stambolis. Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 27 (Apr.–June, 2001), 240–273.
Figures de hérétique et tolérance religieuse. Michel Servet vu par les catholiques
aux XIXe–XXe siècles. Valentine Zuber. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de
France, 87 ( Jan.–June, 2001), 47–69.
L’hénothéisme, transition essentielle dans l’évolution religieuse et politique des
îles de Polynésie. Claire Laux–Huetz de Lemps. Bulletin de la Société de
l’Histoire du Protestantisme Français, 147 (Apr.–June, 2001), 251–281.
La formazione del giovane Mastai Ferretti nel Collegio di San Michele a Volterra
(1803–1809). Goffredo Cianfrocca. Archivum Scholarum Piarum, XXV
(2001), 109–148.
From a Society of the Enlightened to the Enlightenment of Society: The Russian
Bible Society and Rosicrucianism in the Age of Alexander I. Raffaella Faggionato. Slavonic and East European Review, 79 ( July, 2001), 459–487.
Catholic Charitable Endeavour in London, 1810–1840. Part I. Brian Carter. Recusant History, 25 (May, 2001), 487–510.
“Évangélisez la France.” Les Bibles protestantes dans la France rurale (1814–
1870). Michèle Sacquin. Revue de l’histoire des religions, 218 ( Jan.–Mar.,
2001), 113–141.
Italia liberale und Italia cattolica. Historisch–semantische Ursprünge eines
ideologischen Antagonismus im frühen italienischen Risorgimento. Jörn
Leonhard. Quellen und Forschungen, 80 (2000), 495–542.
The Overseas Chinese Networks and Early Baptist Missionary Movement across
the South China Sea. Joseph Tse-Hei Lee. The Historian, 63 (Summer,
2001), 752–768.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

805

La provincia Mínima de Sevilla a finales del antiguo régimen vista por uno de
sus frailes. Jorge Alberto Jordán Fernández. Isidorianum, X (No. 19, 2001),
237–258.
Exclaustración y restauración en la archidiócesis de Sevilla (1835–1909). El caso
de los Mínimos. Manuel Martín Riego. Isidorianum, X (No. 19, 2001), 179–
235.
Points of Contradiction: Money, Catholic Mission and Settler Culture in Southern Africa: 1837–1920. Part I: The Leaders of the Mission. Stuart C. Bate.
Neue Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft, 57 (2, 2001), 81–103.
Points of Contradiction: Money, Catholic Mission and Settler Culture in Southern Africa: 1837–1920. Part 2: The Role of Religious Institutes. Stuart Bate.
Neue Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft, 57 (3, 2001), 163–180.
Modernità di Roma. Per un saggio forma cattolica 1848–1962. Pietro De Marco.
Vivens Homo, XI ( July–Dec., 2000), 481–508.
Le Saint-Esprit et le Saint-Cœur de Marie: Après l’union, querelles avec
l’archevêché de Paris (1849–1854). Michel Legrain. Mémoire Spiritaine,
No. 13 (1, 2001), 139–156.
In Search of Certainty: Scottish Episcopalian Converts to Rome in the MidNineteenth Century. Rowan Strong. Recusant History, 25 (May, 2001),
511–529.
The Priest and the Elementary School in the Second Half of the Nineteenth
Century. John T. Smith. Recusant History, 25 (May, 2001), 530–542.
Joseph Barker and Popular Biblical Criticism in the Nineteenth Century. Timothy Larsen. Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 82 (Spring, 2000), 115–134.
Das “Decretum Reformationis” der Kanonie Zwierzyniec von 1853, mit einer
Einleitung. Jerzy Rajman; U. G. Leinsle, ed. Analecta Praemonstratensia,
LXXV (3–4, 1999), 231–279.
Bischof Konrad Martin und der Beginn der Neuscholastik. Dieter Hattrup. Theologie und Glaube, 91 (2, 2001), 284–315.
Barcelona: la línia pastoral del bisbe Antoni Palau (1857–1862). Casimir Martí.
Revista Catalana de Teologia, XXV (2000), 233–256.
The Life of Young Dominic Savio. Arthur Lenti, SDB. Journal of Salesian Studies, XII (Spring, 2001), 1–52.
Don Bosco’s Political and Religious Concerns in the Times of the Liberal Revolution in Italy. Some Significant Letters (1858–1871). Arthur J. Lenti, SDB.
Journal of Salesian Studies, XII (Spring, 2001), 133–189.
Notes sur l’histoire des Acta sanctorum Belgii aux XIXe et XXe siècles. Bernard
Joassart. Analecta Bollandiana, 119 ( June, 2001), 88–125.

806

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

The Church Missionary Society and the Governors of Lagos, 1862–72. John H.
Darch. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 52 (Apr., 2001), 313–333.
“From a quarter so totally unexpected”: Translation of the Early Church Fathers
in Victorian Scotland. David F. Wright. Records of the Scottish Church History Society, XXX (2000), 124–169.
The Evangelical Spirituality of a Victorian Feminist: Josephine Butler,1828–1906.
Helen Mathers. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 52 (Apr., 2001), 282–312.
Ignaz von Döllinger, der Altkatholizismus und die Ökumene. Günter Esser. Internationale Kirchliche Zeitschrift, 91 (Apr.–June, 2001), 137–157.
Monseigneur René Graffin (1858–1941): histoire de sa famille, de sa Patrologie
Orientale et des collaborateurs. Louis Mariès, S.J. (†1958) and François
Graffin, S.J. Orientalia Christiana Periodica, 67 (1, 2001), 157–178.
Un itinerario biografico fra modernismo, italianismo e fascismo: Brizio Casciola.
Simona Urso. Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa, XXXVII (2, 2001),
259–297.
Une amitié intellectuelle au risque du malentendu: Mgr Mignot et l’abbé Prosper Alfaric (1905–1910). Louis-Pierre Sardella. Bulletin de Littérature Ecclésiastique, CII (Apr.–June, 2001), 125–148.
La condamnation de la neutralité et des manuels scolaires par les évêques
français en 1909. Archéologie d’un texte. Louis-Pierre Sardella. Revue
d’histoire de l’Église de France, 87 ( Jan.–June, 2001), 71–85.
O Cónego Tertuliano Ramos e a I República Portuguesa na Guiné (1910–1926).
João Dias Vicente. Itinerarium (Lisbon), XLVII ( Jan.–Apr., 2001), 69–129.
La koinonìa di Ernesto Buonaiuti. Annibale Zambarbiere. Humanitas, LVI
(Apr., 2001), 212–231.
Con veemente passione. L’immagine di Giovanna d’Arco in Alfred Baudrillart,
rettore dell’Institut Catholique de Paris. Rodolfo Rossi. Ricerche di Storia
Sociale e Religiosa, XXX ( Jan.–June, 2001), 179–194.
Metropolit Antonij Vadkovskij (1846–1912) – ein Wegbereiter des Reformkonzils
von 1917/18. Rudolf Prokschi. Ostkirchliche Studien, 50 (May, 2001), 117–
129.
The English Roman Catholic Bishops and the Social Order, 1918–1926. Kester
Aspden. Recusant History, 25 (May, 2001), 543–564.
“Luther Blunder”: David Watson and Social Christianity in Early TwentiethCentury Scotland. Michael A. McCabe. Records of the Scottish Church History Society, XXX (2000), 193–221.
La Fédération française des étudiants catholiques (FFEC). De l’Entre-deuxguerres au Régime de Vichy. Emmanuel Godin. Revue d’histoire de l’Église
de France, 87 ( Jan.–June, 2001), 87–110.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

807

The Life and Times of Vendelín Javorka: A Russian Odyssey. Constantin Simon.
Diakonia, 34 (1, 2001), 51–63.
Heiliger Stuhl und Vatikanstaat als Wirtschaftsfaktoren in Italien (1929–1945).
Hartmut Benz. Römische Historische Mitteilungen, 42 (2000), 433–459.
Stimme des Gewissens im Kampf gegen das Böse: Wilhelm Freiherr von Pechmann (1859–1948). Rudolf Voderholzer. Münchener Theologische Zeitschrift, 52 (3, 2001), 245–259.
A Tale of Two Leaders: German Methodists and the Nazi State. Roland Blaich.
Church History, 70 ( June, 2001), 199–225.
Mártires y martirio. En memoria de veintidós hermanos capuchinos. Bernardino
de Armellada. Naturaleza y Gracia, XLVII (May–Dec., 2000), 495–510.
The Shintō Shrine Conflict and Protestant Martyrs in Korea, 1938–1945. James
Huntley Grayson. Missiology, XXIX ( July, 2001), 287–305.
Pius XII., Rom und der Holocaust. Lutz Klinkhammer. Quellen und Forschungen, 80 (2000), 668–678.
Villes et ouvriers. Des territoires pour l’histoire sociale et religieuese de la
France contemporaine. Bruno Dumons. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de
France, 87 ( Jan.–June, 2001), 111–131.
Interfaith Dialogue versus Recent Hatred: Serbian Orthodoxy and Croatian Catholicism from the Second Vatican Council to the Yugoslav War, 1965–
1992. Vjekoslav Perica. Religion, State & Society, 29 (Mar., 2001), 39–66.
Lutherans in Russia since 1990. Gerd Stricker. Religion, State & Society, 29
( June, 2001), 101–113.
A Curse from God? Religious and Political Dimensions of the Post-1991 Rise of
Ethnic Violence in South Sudan. Sharon Elaine Hutchinson. Journal of
Modern African Studies, 39 ( June, 2001), 307–331.
The Catholic Church and the Kivu Conflict. Gérard Prunier. Journal of Religion
in Africa, XXXI (2, 2001), 139–162.
Church Politics and the Genocide in Rwanda. Timothy Longman. Journal of Religion in Africa, XXXI (2, 2001), 163–186.
“The Armies of the Lord”: Christianity, Rebels and the State in Northern Uganda,
1986–1999. Kevin Ward. Journal of Religion in Africa, XXXI (2, 2001),
187–221.
Un édit bien enregistré. Le quatrième centenaire de l’édit de Nantes. Marc Venard. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 87 ( Jan.–June, 2001), 27–45.

808

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

A M E R I CAN AND CANADIAN

Remembering Mary, Shaping Revolt: Reconsidering the Stono Rebellion. Mark
M. Smith. Journal of Southern History, LXVII (Aug., 2001), 513–534.
Franciscans Eclipsed: Church and State in Spanish New Mexico,1750–1780. Jim
Norris. New Mexico Historical Review, 76 (Apr., 2001), 161–174.
Conversion to Christianity in Eighteenth–Century New Mexico: Pedagogy and
Personhood in the Pueblo–Franciscan Encounter. Tracy L. Brown. Catholic
Southwest, 12 (2001), 29–50.
Parceling Out Their Salvation: The Good Death in New Mexico Wills, 1760–
1850. Martina E. Will de Chapparro. Catholic Southwest, 12 (2001), 51–74.
History of the California Missions (1769–1848). Maynard J. Geiger, O.F.M.; Francis J. Weber, ed. The Branding Iron, The Westerners, Los Angeles Corral,
No. 220 (Summer, 2000), 1–10.
John A. Adams, John Ponet, and a Lutheran Influence on the American Revoluton. David M. Whitford. Lutheran Quarterly, XV (Summer, 2001), 143–157.
Prelude and Aftermath of the Doctors’ Riot of 1788: A Religious Interpretation
of White and Black Reaction to Grave Robbing. Robert J. Swan. New York
History, 81 (Oct., 2000), 417–456.
Drama in the Courtroom, Theater in the Streets: Philadelphia’s Irish Riot of
1831. Francis W. Hoeber. Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, CXXV ( July, 2001), 191–232.
“We find it a difficult work”: Educating Dakota Children in Missionary Homes,
1835–1862. Linda Clemmons. American Indian Quarterly, 24 (Fall, 2000),
570–600.
Black Presbyterian Clergy and the Schism of 1837. Moses N. Moore, Jr. Union
Seminary Quarterly Review, 54 (3–4, 2000), 53–84.
Denouncing the Brotherhood of Thieves: Stephen Symonds Foster’s Critique of
the Anti-Abolitionist Clergy. Troy Duncan and Chris Dixon. Civil War History, 47 ( June, 2001), 97–117.
Rochester Theological Seminary: 1850–1928. Sally Dodgson. American Baptist
Quarterly, XX ( June, 2001), 115–129.
Les conceptions prénuptiales à Trois-Rivières comme indice de fidélité religieuse,
1850–1945. René Hardy. Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française, 54
(Spring, 2001), 531–555.
St. Vincent’s and the Sisters of Providence: Oregon’s First Permanent Hospital.
Sydney Clevenger. Oregon Historical Quarterly, 102 (Summer, 2001), 210–
221.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

809

The Sisters of Providence Archives, Seattle. Terri Mitchell. Oregon Historical
Quarterly, 102 (Summer, 2001), 222–228.
Missouri Education at the Crossroads: The Phelan Miscalculation and the Education Amendment of 1870. J. Michael Hoey. Missouri Historical Review,
XCV ( July, 2001), 372–393.
“It’s Fashionable Here to Be a Total Abstainer”: Temperance Advocacy at the
University of Notre Dame, 1870–1940. John F. Quinn. American Catholic
Studies, 110 (Spring–Winter, 1999), 1–27.
James A. Corcoran and St. Charles Borromeo Seminary–Overbrook, 1871–1907.
Michael J. McNally. American Catholic Studies, 110 (Spring–Winter, 1999),
49–69.
A Black Minister Befriends the “Unquestioned Father of Civil Rights”: Henry
McNeal Turner, Charles Sumner, and the African-American Quest for Freedom. Stephen W. Angell. Georgia Historical Quarterly, LXXXV (Spring,
2001), 27–58.
The Loss of Religious Allegiance among the Youth of the Oneida Community.
Monique Patenaude Roach. The Historian, 63 (Summer, 2001), 787–806.
A Generally Obscure Calling: A Character Sketch of Isabel Florence Hapgood.
Stuart H. Hoke. St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, 45 (1, 2001), 55–94.
Mission in Action: The Pastoral Ministry of John H. C. Fritz, 1897–1920. Ruth Fritz
Meyer. Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly,74 (Summer,2001),66–94.
The Missouri Synod in the East and Southeast. Henry B. Hemmeter. Concordia
Historical Institute Quarterly, 74 (Summer, 2001), 95–121.
Moral Formation in Mainline Protestantism: A History of the Union School of
Religion. Jane E. Hicks. Union Seminary Quarterly Review, 54 (3–4,
2000), 85–105.
The Illinois Technical School for Colored Girls: A Catholic Institution on Chicago’s
South Side, 1911–1953. Suellen Hoy. Journal of Illinois History, 4 (Summer, 2001), 103–122.
Is It Wrong to Chew the Host: Changing Catholic Etiquette and the Eucharist,
1920–1970. Margaret M. McGuinness. American Catholic Studies, 110
(Spring–Winter, 1999), 29–47.
“Cathedrals of the Desert” and “Sermons in Stone”: Fray Angélico Chávez’s Contributions to Hispano Church Architecture in New Mexico. Ellen McCracken.
Catholic Southwest, 12 (2001), 75–105.
“Yet Will I Leave a Remnant”: Modernization, Out-Migration, and the Rural
Churches of Cleveland County, Arkansas, in the 1940s. Kara D. Tooke.
Arkansas Historical Quarterly, LX (Summer, 2001), 151–173.

810

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

The Champion of Zapata: Father Edward Bastien and the Fight for Just Compensation. Maria F. Rollin. Catholic Southwest, 12 (2001), 107–117.
“Without Hysteria or Unnecessary Disturbance”: Desegration of Spring Hill College,Mobile,Alabama,1948–1954. Charles S. Padgett. History of Education
Quarterly, 41 (Summer, 2001), 167–188.
Racial Conflict on the Episcopal Gridiron: Kenyon, Sewanee, and the Canceled
Game. John Sayle Watterson. Anglican and Episcopal History, LXX ( June,
2001), 219–233.
American Church/State Jurisprudence from the Warren Court to the Rehnquist
Court. Phillip E. Hammond. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 40
(Sept., 2001), 455–464.
Conflicting Rights and Religious Liberty: The School-Prayer Controversy in Alabama, 1962–1985. Burt Rieff. Alabama Review, 54 ( July, 2001), 163–207.
Regina Lanigan, O.S.F,. and Her Friendly Campus with Community Service: The
Problems and Conflicts of Extra-Institutional Catholic Response to Inner
Urban Crisis, 1969–1976. Timothy R. Allan. American Catholic Studies,
110 (Spring–Winter, 1999), 71–91.
The Fundamental Freedom: Judge John T. Noonan, Jr.’s Historiography of Religious Liberty. Charles J. Reid, Jr. Marquette Law Review, 83 (Winter, 1999),
367–433.
John T. Noonan, Jr., on the Catholic Conscience and War: Negre v. Larsen.
Charles J. Reid, Jr. Notre Dame Law Review, 76 (Apr., 2001), 881–959.

LATIN AMERICA

De la ciudad cristiana a la ciudad divina: la fundación del obispado de México,
1528–1548 (1). Eugenio Martín Torres. Efemerides Mexicana, 19 ( Jan.–
Apr., 2001), 27–54.
“Missio Tepehuanica” 1609: Pedro Flores et les Tepehuanes. Jean-François
Genotte. Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, LXX ( Jan.–June, 2001),
29–69.
Leonor de Cáceres and the Mexican Inquisition. Margaret Mott. Journal of the
History of Ideas, 62 ( Jan., 2001), 81–98.
A Most Delicate Balance: Representative Government,Public Opinion,and Priests
in Mexico, 1821–1834. Brian Connaughton. Mexican Studies, 17 (Winter,
2001), 41–69.
A Pedagogy Encouraged and Repressed: Episcopal Schools in Mexico, 1876–
1940. Jeffrey M. Hooper. Anglican and Episcopal History, LXX ( June,
2001), 190–218.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

811

Gender,Welfare and the Catholic Church in Argentina: Conferencias de Señoras
de San Vicente de Paul, 1890–1916. Karen Mead. The Americas, 58 ( July,
2001), 91–119.
Missionarische Equipen auf dem Prüfstand. Evaluation der SMB–Einsätze in Kolumbien, 1970–1992. Jakob Crottogini. Neue Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft, 57 (2, 2001), 129–140.

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

[ B ooks that were sent to scholars to be reviewed but of which no
review has been received are indicated by an asterisk.]
Albanese, Catherine L. (Ed.). American Spiritualities: A Reader. (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press. 2001. Pp. xiv, 530. $70.00 cloth; $27.95 paperback.)
Amaladass, Anand, S.J., and Francis X. Clooney, S.J. (Trans.). Preaching Wisdom
to the Wise: Three Treatises by Roberto de Nobili, S.J., Missionary and
Scholar in 17th Century India. [Jesuit Primary Sources in English Translation, Number 19 in Series I.] (St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources.
2000. Pp. xxi, 345. $29.95 paperback.) The three treatises are (1) “The Report on Certain Customs of the Indian Nation”; (2) “The Dialogue on Eternal Life”; and (3) “The Inquiry into the Meaning of ‘God.’”
Aram I, Catholicos de Cilicie. L’Église face aux grands défis. (Antélias, Lebanon:
Catholicossate Arménien de Cilicie. 2001. Pp. 290. Paperback.)
Archer, Rachel Elaine. “Society, Culture, and Heroes: Depictions of Cuban Heroine Mariana Grajales Cuello,1893-2000.” [Research Paper Series No. 37,July
2001.] (Albuquerque: Latin American and Iberian Institute; University of
New Mexico. 2001. Pp. 44. Paperback.)
Azzopardi, Francesco. “Roberto Novella da Eboli: Francescano, Predicatore a
Malta (1565) e a Mantova (1568).” (Malta: Curia Provinciale dei Cappuccini. 2000. Pp. 63. Paperback.)
Bauckham, Richard (Ed.). God Will Be All in All: The Eschatology of Jürgen
Moltmann. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 2001. Pp. xv, 295. Paperback.)
Benson, Robert Hugh. Lord of the World. [Catholic Writers Service.] (South
Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine’s Press. 2001. Pp. ix, 301. $22.00 paperback.) A
novel first published in 1907.
Bhattacharji, Santha (Trans.). Reading the Gospels with Gregory the Great:
Homilies on the Gospels, 21-26. (Petersham, Mass.: St. Bede’s Publications.
2001. Pp. iv, 122. Paperback.)
Blancardi, Nathalie. Les petits princes: Enfance noble à la cour de Savoie (XVe
siècle). [Fondation Humbert II et Marie José de Savoie, Cahiers Lausannois
d’histoire médiévale, 28.] (Lausanne: Université de Lausanne. 2001. Pp.
296. Paperback.]

812

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

813

Boenig, Robert (Trans.). Anglo-Saxon Spirituality: Selected Writings. [The Classics of Western Spirituality.] (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press. 2001. Pp. xviii,
330. $34.95 hardcover; $29.95 paperback.)
Book (A) of Readings on the Eucharist: A Eucharistic Jubilee. (Washington,
D.C.: National Conference of Catholic Bishops Subcommittee on the Third
Millennium. 2000. Pp. 114. Paperback.)
Bostick, Curtis V. The Antichrist and the Lollards: Apocalypticism in Late Medieval and Reformation England. [Studies in Medieval and Reformation
Thought, Vol. LXX.] (Leiden: Brill. 1998. Pp. xii, 229.)
Botting, Douglas. Dr. Eckener’s Dream Machine: The Great Zeppelin and the
Dawn of Air Travel. (New York: Henry Holt and Company. 2001. Pp. xvii,
331. $27.50.)
Brandolini, Raffaele. On Music and Poetry (De musica et poetica, 1513).
Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Ann E. Moyer with Marc Laureys. [Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, Vol. 232.] (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. 2001. Pp. xxxv, 124.
$34.00.)
Brown, Dee. Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow: The Epic Story of the
Transcontinental Railroads. (New York: An Owl Book. Henry Holt and
Company. 2001. Pp. viii, 311. $15.00 paperback.) Originally published in
1977.
Burns, Robert A., O.P. Roman Catholicism after Vatican II. (Washington, D.C.:
Georgetown University Press. 2001. Pp. viii, 200. $55.00 cloth; $19.95
paperback.)
Burrow, J. A., and Ian P. Wei (Eds.). Medieval Futures: Attitudes to the Future in
the Middle Ages. (Rochester: Boydell Press. 2000. Pp. xiv,188. $90.00.) This
volume contains some of the papers presented at a conference held by the
Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Bristol. Among them is
“Prophecy, Hagiography and St Thomas of Canterbury” by Phyllis B.
Roberts (pp. 67–80).
Bynum, Caroline Walker, and Paul Freedman (Eds.). Last Things: Death and the
Apocalypse in the Middle Ages. [The Middle Ages Series.] (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press. 2000. Pp. viii, 363. $49.95 cloth; $24.95
paperback.) Contents: Part I: The Significance of Dying and the Afterlife: Carole Straw, “Settling Scores: Eschatology in the Church of the
Martyrs” (pp. 21–40); Peter Brown, “The Decline of the Empire of God:
Amnesty,Penance,and the Afterlife from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages”
(pp. 41–59); Jacqueline E. Jung, “From Jericho to Jerusalem: The Violent
Transformation of Archbishop Engelbert of Cologne” (pp. 60–82); Manuele Gragnolati,“From Decay to Splendor: Body and Pain in Bonvesin da la
Riva’s Book of the Three Scriptures” (pp. 83–97); Part II: Apocalyptic
Time: Benjamin Hudson, “Time is Short: The Eschatology of the Early

814

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

Gaelic Church” (pp. 101–123); E. Randolph Daniel, “Exodus and Exile:
Joachim of Fiore’s Apocalyptic Scenario” (pp. 124–139); Clifford R. Backman, “Arnau de Vilanova and the Body at the End of the World” (pp.
140–155); Laura A. Smoller, “Of Earthquakes, Hail, Frogs, and Geography:
Plague and the Investigation of the Apocalypse in the Later Middle Ages”
(pp. 156–187); P a r t I I I : T h e E schatological Imagination: Anna Harrison,“Community among the Saintly Dead: Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermons
for the Feast of All Saints” (pp. 191–204); Harvey Stahl,“Heaven in View:
The Place of the Elect in an Illuminated Book of Hours” (pp. 205–232);
Claudia Rattazzi Papka,“The Limits of Apocalypse: Eschatology, Epistemology, and Textuality in the Commedia and Piers Plowman” (pp. 233–256).
Carroll, Thomas K. Wisdom and Wasteland: Jeremy Taylor in His Prose and
Preaching Today. (Dublin: Four Courts Press. Distributed in the U.S. by
International Specialized Book Services, Inc., Portland, Ore. 2000. Pp. 288.
$45.00.)
Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, Episcopal Commission on Mission. Telling God’s Story: National Mission Congress, 2000. Resources
and Documents. Edited by James H. Kroeger, M.M. (Quezon City, Philippines: Claretian Publications. 2001. Pp. viii, 139. Paperback.)
Cavadini, John C. (Ed.). Gregory the Great: A Symposium. [Notre Dame Studies
in Theology, Volume 2.] (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame
Press. 2001. Pp. xiv, 226. $19.95 paperback.) Originally published in 1995.
Clark, Stuart (Ed.). Languages of Witchcraft: Narrative, Ideology and Meaning
in Early Modern Culture. (New York: Palgrave. St. Martin’s Press. 2001. Pp.
xiii, 241. $65.00 cloth; $21.95 paperback.)
Claydon, Tony, and Ian McBride (Eds.). Protestantism and National Identity:
Britain and Ireland, c.1650–c.1850. (New York: Cambridge University
Press. 1998. Pp. xi, 317. $64.95.)
Coogan, Tim Pat. Wherever Green is Worn: The Story of the Irish Diaspora.
(New York: Palgrave for St. Martin’s Press. 2001. Pp. xxii, 746. $35.00.)
Covini, Maria Nadia (Ed.). Carteggio degli oratori mantovani alla corte
Sforzesca (1450–1500). VII: 1466–67. [Pubblicazioni degli Archivi di
Stato.] (Rome: Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali, Ufficio centrale
per i beni archivistici. 1999. Pp. v, 491. Paperback.)
Cressy, David. Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cycle
in Tudor and Stuart England. (New York: Oxford University Press. 1997.
Pp. xv, 641.)
Cunningham, Philip A. A Story of Shalom: The Calling of Christians and Jews
by a Covenanting God. [Studies in Judaism and Christianity.] (Mahwah,
N.J.: Paulist Press, A Stimulus Book. 2001. Pp. xiii, 106. $11.95 paperback.)

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

815

Dawson, Christopher. The Spirit of the Oxford Movement and “Newman’s
Place in History.” Introduced by Peter Nockles, with a biographical note
by Christina Scott. (London: The Saint Austin Press. 2001. Pp. xxxiv; xiii,
153. $26.95.) The Spirit of the Oxford Movement was first published in
1933.
Delio, Ilia, O.S.F. Simply Bonaventure: An Introduction to His Life, Thought,
and Writings. (Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press. 2001. Pp. 208. Paperback.)
Dorsi, Pierpaolo (Ed.). Inventario dell’Archivio di Igino Brocchi (1914-1931).
[Pubblicazioni degli Archivi di Stato; Quaderni della Rassegna degli Archivi
di Stato 92;Archivio di Stato di Trieste.] (Rome: Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali, Ufficio centrale per i beni archivistici. 2000. Pp. xxvi, 202.
Paperback.)
Dulles, Avery, S.J., and Leon Klenicki. The Holocaust, Never to be Forgotten:
Reflections on the Holy See’s Document We Remember. Commentaries by.
[Studies in Judaism and Christianity.] (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, A Stimulus Book. 2001. Pp. v, 92. $9.95 paperback.)
Eden,Kathy. Friends Hold All Things in Common: Tradition, Intellectual Property, and the Adages of Erasmus. (New Haven:Yale University Press. 2001.
Pp. ix, 194. $35.00.)
*Eyck, Frank. Religion and Politics in German History: From the Beginnings
to the French Revolution. (New York: St. Martin’s Press. 1998. Pp. xi, 425.
$75.00.)
Farrell-Vinay,Giovanna. Povertà e politica nell’Ottocento: Le opere pie nello Stato
liberale. (Torino: Scriptorium. 1997. Pp. 375. Lire 45.000 paperback.)
Freston, Paul. Evangelicals and Politics in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
(New York: Cambridge University Press. 2001. Pp. xiii, 344. $59.95.)
Friesen, Abraham. Erasmus, the Anabaptists, and the Great Commission.
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 1998. Pp.
xi, 196. $18.00 paperback.)
Gawande, Kishore, Pablo Sanguinetti, and Alok K. Bohara. “Exclusions for Sale:
Evidence on the Grossman-Helpman Trade Agreements.” [NAFTA-MERCOSUR Working Paper Series No. 4, July 2001.] (Albuquerque: Latin American
and Iberian Institute; University of New Mexico. 2001. Pp. 66. Paperback.)
Goez, Elke, and Werner Goez (Eds.). Die Urkunden und Briefe der Markgräfin
Mathilde von Tuszien. [Monumenta Germaniae Historica; Laienfürstenund Dynastenurkunden der Kaiserzeit, II.] (Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung. 1998. Pp. xliii, 666.)
Heft, James L., S.M. (Ed.). A Catholic Modernity? Charles Taylor’s Marianist
Award Lecture. (New York: Oxford University Press. 1999. Pp. ix, 130.
$22.00.)

816

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

Herrera, R. A. Reasons for Our Rhymes: An Inquiry into the Philosophy of History. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
2001. Pp. viii, 196. $20.00 paperback.)
Holtrop, Pieter N., and Hugh McLeod (Eds.). Missions and Missionaries. [Studies in Church History, Subsidia 13.] (Rochester, N.Y.: The Boydell Press.
Published for the Ecclesiastical History Society. 2000. Pp. x, 229. $75.00.)
Contents: Anna Maria Luiselli Fadda,“The Vernacular and the Propagation
of the Faith in Anglo-Saxon Missionary Activity” (pp. 1–15); Eugene Honée,
“St Willibrord in Recent Historiography” (pp. 16–31);Hendrik E. Niemeijer,
“Political Rivalry and Early Dutch Reformed Missions in SeventeenthCentury North Sulawesi (Celebes)” (pp. 32–49); Kate Lowe, “The Beliefs,
Aspirations and Methods of the First Missionaries in British Hong Kong,
1841–5” (pp. 50–64); Joris Van Eijnatten,“Civilizing the Kingdom: Missionary Objectives and the Dutch Public Sphere around 1800” (pp. 65–80);Andrew Porter, “Language, ‘Native Agency,’ and Missionary Control: Rufus
Anderson’s Journey to India, 1854–5” (pp. 81–97); H. L. Murre-Van den
Berg, “Why Protestant Churches? The American Board and the Eastern
Churches: Mission among ‘Nominal’ Christians (1820–70)” (pp. 98–111);
Guus Boone, “Modernism and Mission: The Influence of Dutch Modern
Theology on Missionary Practice in the East Indies in the Nineteenth Century” (pp. 112–126); Brian Stanley,“‘Hunting for Souls’: The Missionary Pilgrimage of George Sherwood Eddy” (pp. 127–141); Pieter N. Holtrop,“The
Governor a Missionary? Dutch Colonial Rule and Christianization during
Idenburg’s Term of Office as Governor of Indonesia (1909–16)” (pp. 142–
156); Rachel A. Rakotonirina, “Re-reading Missionary Publications: The
Case of European and Malagasy Martyrologies, 1837–1937” (pp. 157–169);
Myrtle Hill,“Women in the Irish Protestant Foreign Missions c. 1873–1914:
Representations and Motivations” (pp. 170–185);Liesbeth Labbeke,“‘There
Is So Much Involved . . .’: The Sisters of Charity of Saint Charles Borromeo in
Indonesia in the Period from the Second World War” (pp. 186–199); John
Casson,“Missionaries, Mau Mau and the Christian Frontier” (pp. 200–215).
Homerin, Th. Emil (Trans.). Umar Ibn al-Fãrid: Sufi Verse, Saintly Life. [The
Classics of Western Spirituality.] (Mahwah,N.J.: Paulist Press. 2001. Pp. xvii,
366. $24.95 paperback.)
Hughes, Richard T. The Churches of Christ: Student Edition. (Westport, Conn.:
Praeger. 2001. Pp. xvi, 179. $79.50 hardcover; $22.50 paperback.)
Hunt, Stephen (Ed.). Christian Millenarianism: From the Early Church to
Waco. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 2001. Pp. xii, 258. $49.95
cloth; $21.95 paperback.)
Karant-Nunn, Susan C. Reformation of Ritual: An Interpretation of Early Modern Germany. [Christianity and Society in the Modern World,] (New York:
Routledge. 1997. Pp. ix, 282. $75.00.)

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

817

Kienzle, Beverly Mayne (Ed.). Models of Holiness in Medieval Sermons. Proceedings of the International Symposium (Kalamazoo, 4-7 May 1995).
[Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales, Textes et
Études du Moyen Âge, 5.] (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers. 1996. Pp. xx, 402.
44 EUR paperback.)
Knight, Janice. Orthodoxies in Massachusetts: Rereading American Puritanism. (Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1997. Pp. xiii,301. Paperback.) Originally published in 1994.
Lazzarini, Isabella (Ed.). Carteggio degli oratori mantovani alla corte
Sforzesca (1450–1500). II: 1460. [Pubblicazioni degli Archivi di Stato.]
(Rome: Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali, Ufficio centrale per i beni
archivistici. 2000. Pp. v, 493. Paperback.)
Loy, Rosetta. First Words: A Childhood in Fascist Italy. Translated by Gregory
Conti. (New York: Metropolitan Books. Henry Holt and Company. 2000. Pp.
iv, 186. $13.00 paperback.)
Lukacs,Ladislaus,S.J.,and Giuseppe Cosentino. Church, Culture & Curriculum:
Theology and Mathematics in the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum. Translated and
edited by Frederick A. Homann, S.J. (Philadelphia: Saint Joseph’s University
Press. 1999. Pp. v, 95. $19.95 paperback.)
McGuire, Brian Patrick (Trans.). Jean Gerson: Early Works. [The Classics of
Western Spirituality.] (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press. 1998. Pp. xvi, 482.
$24.95 paperback.)
McLaren, Peter. Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Pedagogy of Revolution.
[Culture and Education Series.] (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2000. Pp. xxx, 220. $22.95 paperback.)
Meketa, Jacqueline Dorgan. Legacy of Honor: The Life of Rafael Chacón, a
Nineteenth-Century New Mexican. (Las Cruces, N.M.: Yucca Tree Press.
2000. Pp. xii, 439. $19.00 paperback.) Originally published by the University of New Mexico Press in 1986.
Merriman, Brigid O’Shea, O.S.F. Searching for Christ: The Spirituality of
Dorothy Day. [Notre Dame Studies in American Catholicism, Volume 13.]
(Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press. 2001. Pp. xi, 333.
$17.00 paperback.) Originally published in 1994.
Netanyahu, B. Toward the Inquisition: Essays on Jewish and Converso History
in Late Medieval Spain. (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. 1997. Pp.
xiii, 267. $32.50.)
O’Grady, Desmond. Beyond the Empire: Rome and the Church from Constantine to Charlemagne. (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company.
2001. Pp. ix, 213. $29.95.)

818

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

Olleson, Philip (Ed.). The Letters of Samuel Wesley: Professional and Social
Correspondence, 1797-1837. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2001.
Pp. lxiii, 516. $115.00)
Palmer, Michael. The Question of God: An Introduction and Sourcebook. (New
York: Routledge. 2001. Pp. xvii, 357. $85.00 cloth; $24.95 paperback.)
Paradis, Wilfrid H. Upon This Granite: Catholicism in New Hampshire, 16471997. (Portsmouth, N.H.: Peter E. Randall Publisher. 1998. Pp. xiii, 379.
$25.00 cloth; $15.00 paperback.)
Perry, Richard D. (Ed.). Exploring Yucatan: A Traveler’s Anthology. (Santa Barbara: Espadaña Press. 2001. Pp. 318. $20.00 paperback.)
Peterson, Anna L. Martyrdom and the Politics of Religion: Progressive
Catholicism in El Salvador’s Civil War. (Albany: State University of New
York Press. 1997. Pp. xxiv, 211. $17.95.)
Pieper, Josef. Scholasticism: Personalities and Problems of Medieval Philosophy. Translated by Richard and Clara Winston. (South Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine’s Press. 2001. Pp. 192. $13.00 paperback.) This translation was
originally published by Pantheon Books in 1960.
Podskalsky, Gerhard. Theologische Literatur des Mittelalters in Bulgarien und
Serbien, 865–1459. (Munich: C. H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. 2000.
Pp. x, 578. DM 198.)
Pringle, Denys. Secular Buildings in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: An
Archaeological Gazetteer. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1997.
Pp. xx, 159.)
Rotelle, John E., O.S.A. (Ed.). The Works of Saint Augustine. A Translation for
the 21st Century, Part III – Books, Volume 17: Exposition of the Psalms,
51–72. Translation and notes by Maria Boulding, O.S.B. [Augustinian Heritage Institute, Inc.] (Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press. 2001. Pp. 518. $44.00
cloth; $27.95 paperback.)
Sandmel, David Fox, Rosann M. Catalano, and Christopher M. Leighton (Eds.).
Irreconcilable Differences? A Learning Resource for Jews and Christians. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. 2001. Pp. xii, 228. $22.00 paperback.)
Signer, Michael A., and John Van Engen (Eds.). Jews and Christians in TwelfthCentury Europe. [Notre Dame Conferences in Medieval Studies, Number
X.] (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press. 2001. Pp. xi, 380.
$49.95 cloth; $24.95 paperback.)
Sternberger, Paul Spencer. Between Amateur and Aesthete: The Legitimization
of Photography as Art in America, 1880–1900. (Albuquerque: University
of New Mexico Press. 2001. Pp. xxxiii, 204.)

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

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Sugirtharajah, R. S. The Bible and the Third World: Precolonial, Colonial and
Postcolonial Encounters. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 2001.
Pp. x, 306. $64.95 hardback; $22.95 paperback.)
Talbot, Alice-Mary (Ed.). Byzantine Defenders of Images: Eight Saints’ Lives in
English Translation. [Byzantine Saints’ Lives in Translation, II.] (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. 1998. Pp. xlii,
404. $35.00 cloth; $20.00 paperback.)
Thompson, John L. Writing the Wrongs: Women of the Old Testament among
Biblical Commentators from Philo through the Reformation. [Oxford
Studies in Historical Theology.] (New York: Oxford University Press. 2001.
Pp. xv, 288. $49.95.)
Tye, Larry. Home Lands: Portraits of the New Jewish Diaspora. (New York:
Henry Holt and Company. 2001. Pp. xi, 336. $27.50.)
Weaver, Rebecca Harden. Divine Grace and Human Agency: A Study of the
Semi-Pelagian Controversy. [North American Patristic Society, Patristic
Monograph Series, 15.] (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press. 1996. Pp. xii,
264. $30.00.)
Zanatta, Loris. Dallo stato liberale alla nazione cattolica: Chiesa ed esercito
nelle origini del peronismo, 1930–1943. [Collana “Gioele Solari,” Dipartimento di studi politici dell’Università di Torino, 25.] (Milan: FrancoAngeli.
1996. Pp. 349. Lire 42.000 paperback.)