THE CATHOLIC
HISTORICAL REVIEW
VOL. 101

SPRING, 2015

NO. 2

“In the interest of true history”:
The Catholic Historical Review and
the American Catholic Historical Association,
1915–69
JOSEPH M. WHITE*
The author discusses the history of the American Catholic Historical
Association from its beginnings to 1969, including key leaders, activities, and the relationship with The Catholic Historical Review.
Keywords: American church history, professional associations,
church historians

I

n their progress through the past century The Catholic Historical Review
(CHR), whose first issue appeared in April 1915, and the American
Catholic Historical Association (ACHA), organized December 30, 1919,
have represented church history, Catholic historians, and Catholic aspects of
general history to several publics—inside and outside the Catholic community. In their intertwined history, Association and journal intersected with
the development of historical scholarship at The Catholic University of
America (CUA). Their shared history reveals varied dimensions of studying
and representing the Catholic past in academia and its reception among
*Dr. White is an independent scholar living in Prince George’s County, MD. For indispensable assistance in producing this article, the author warmly thanks Professor Margaret
McGuinness of LaSalle University and ACHA president in 2013, who without hesitation
granted permission to examine the American Catholic Historical Association Collection
(ACHA) in the American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives
(ACUA), Washington, DC, after the association’s executive secretary refused access in 2011;
Professor Nelson H. Minnich, The Catholic Historical Review editor, for permitting use of the
journal’s files in the ACHA Collection and ongoing advice and encouragement; Monsignor
Robert F. Trisco; and the staff of ACUA. “True history” quotation: Lawrence J. Flick, first
president of the American Catholic Historical Association.

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Catholics and others. As organizations, the CHR and ACHA represent how
Catholics offered a rational response through the burgeoning expansion of
associations, societies, and organizations, including historical ones.
In this essay, examining why and how these two entities were founded
addresses several relevant intellectual, ecclesiastical, national, and personal
influences. In launching the CHR, these converged in a shared vision of
Bishop Thomas J. Shahan, fourth rector (1909–28) of CUA, and Peter
Keenan Guilday, the university’s first church history instructor possessing
a degree in his academic discipline. Given CUA’s role as the U.S. Catholic
Church’s national university for graduate studies in major academic disciplines, the study of church history was placed there and the organizational
responses for its promotion.
As the principal founder of the CHR and the ACHA, Peter Guilday,
whose views are addressed in some detail, promoted the relatively new academic discipline of scientific history. In his leadership he articulated standards, aimed to disseminate new historical knowledge, and furnished
rationale for studying church history.
Upon retiring from dual roles as ACHA secretary and CHR editor in
1941, Guilday left a legacy for his successors in those positions: John Tracy
Ellis (1941–61 as secretary, 1941–63 as editor), and Robert F. Trisco
(1961–2005, 2007−09 as secretary, 1963–2005 as editor), each responded
to the changes enveloping the study of history.
History as Science and Profession
Among the nineteenth century’s intellectual developments, history as
an academic discipline emerged to challenge the inherited understanding
of history as a branch of literature. Those writing historical works as literature and their readers could entertain varied aims for history—preserving
the memory of a heroic past and its figures and extolling the virtues of peoples, nations, and institutions. Defending or affirming moral, religious,
social, or political values may have been expected.
For minds accustomed to a classic understanding of the past challenges arose in the nineteenth century’s rapid discovery of new knowledge.
The father of modern history, Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886), conferred
his classic dictum—wie es eigentlich gewesen (how it actually happened)—
as the purpose of scientific history. Just as knowledge about physical science
had advanced dramatically in the nineteenth century based on the scientific
method and empirical verification, accurate knowledge of the past could be

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secured scientifically based on historical documents. In the history seminar,
scholars and students examined such sources to construct accurate historical narratives. His influential method practiced at the University of Berlin
from 1837 to 1886 was adopted at other German and northern European
universities.
With the introduction of graduate studies in U.S. universities,
Andrew Dickson White and Charles Kendall Adams adopted the seminar
method for studying the past at the University of Michigan as early as
1869. Notably, Herbert Baxter Adams, University of Heidelberg doctoral
alumnus, emerged as the leading American advocate of scientific history
through the seminar method. Under the motto, “history is past politics and
politics present history,” he began his seminar in 1880 at the Johns Hopkins University, four years after its founding in Baltimore as an exclusively
graduate institution. To disseminate his seminar’s scholarship he launched
the series Johns Hopkins Studies in Historical and Political Science, which
became model publications for other history graduate programs. Adams
trained an influential group of historians for newly founded history departments in American graduate universities.1
In parallel developments, the range of academic disciplines advanced
in leading U.S. universities with graduate programs under the direction of
professors who earned their reputation through research and publication.
In the late-nineteenth century the rise of national associations among professionals related to improving and regulating fields such as law, medicine,
economics, social sciences, and history needed to address interested
publics.2 Each professional organization founded a journal to benefit
members by disseminating new information constantly emerging through
the research and writing of specialists.
In a companion development, a group of forty historians, professional
and amateur, convened at Saratoga Springs, New York, in 1884 to found
the American Historical Association (AHA). The latter aimed to advance
the interests of American history and of general history in the United
States. As formal historical training was introduced at leading U.S. univer1. See Bert J. Loewenberg, American History in American Thought (New York, 1972).
2. These included American Economic Association (1885), American Psychological
Association (1892), American Philosophical Association (1901), American Anthropological
Association (1902), American Political Science Association (1903), and American Sociological Association (1905). For Catholic responses to professionalization, see David L. Salvaterra, American Catholicism and the Intellectual Life (New York, 1988).

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sities, popular interest across the nation was revealed in formation of local,
state, and regional historical societies, numbering about 500 by 1905.
In the world of Catholic learning, history served as counterpoint to
more influential trends. Foremost, in 1879, Pope Leo XIII began his pontificate with the landmark encyclical Aeterni Patris to promote a revival of
St. Thomas Aquinas’s thought as the method for Catholic philosophy and
theology. The great pontiff thereby set in motion the Church’s responses
to intellectual trends perceived as hostile to religious faith, Catholic teaching, and the Church’s role in the social order. In due course, scholars in
various disciplines applied Thomistic ideas to a range of social and intellectual issues.
Although not a watershed event like Aeterni Patris, Pope Leo opened
the Vatican Archives in 1881 for research to credentialed historians.
Despite opposition within the Roman Curia, the pope believed that
explaining the Church’s role in shaping western civilization would benefit
from historians’ unfettered access to sources to write about the past.
Although he probably lacked familiarity with new scientific practices, he
provided in his apostolic letter on historical studies, Saepenumero Considerantes (1883), a powerful expression borrowed from Cicero that church
historians thereafter regularly invoked in support of scientific history: “The
first law of history is not to dare to utter falsehood; the second, not to fear to
speak the truth; and moreover, no room must be left for suspicion of partiality
or prejudice.”3
Catholics and Their History
Church history under John Gilmary Shea (1824–92), regarded as the
founding historian of U.S. Catholic history, shared the prevailing practice
of institutional history based on documentation. He produced substantial
histories on a range of topics culminating with his four-volume History of
the Catholic Church in the United States (New York, 1886–92).
The year 1884 marked several events advancing Catholics’ awareness
of church history. From November 9 to December 7, 1884, the U.S. bish3. Colman J. Barry, editor, Readings in Church History (Westminster, MD), p. 1012,
emphasis in original; Saepenumero Considerantes is also available on several Web sites. For the
complex story of Leo XIII’s opening of the Vatican Archives and wariness about historical
truth in church life, see Owen Chadwick, Catholicism and History: The Opening of the Vatican
Archives (Cambridge, UK, 1978).

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ops convened their landmark Third Plenary Council of Baltimore. While
framing canonical legislation addressing long-discussed issues such as
diocesan priests’ rights in relation to bishops, setting standards for seminary studies, mandating formation of parish schools, addressing lay membership in secret societies, ordering the creation of a national catechism
and a national prayer book, and founding a national Catholic university for
graduate studies, the bishops issued a lengthy national pastoral letter
explaining their decisions in broad terms. In a brief passage, their letter
addressed history:
Train your children to a love of history and biography. Inspire them with
the ambition to become so well acquainted with the history and doctrines
of the Church as to be able to give an intelligent answer to any honest
inquiry. . . . Teach your children to take a special interest in the history
of our own country. We consider the establishment of our country’s independence, the shaping of its liberties and laws as a work of special Providence, its framers ‘building wiser than they knew’, the Almighty’s hand
guiding them. . . .

The letter expresses the “desire” for U.S. history to become “carefully
taught” in all Catholic schools and “specially dwelt upon in the education of
the young ecclesiastical students in our preparatory seminaries.” History
should “form a favorite part of the home library and home reading.” The
bishops stated: “We must keep firm and solid the liberties of our country by
keeping fresh the noble memories of the past, and thus sending forth from
our Catholic homes into the arena of public life not partisans but patriots.”4
Phrases such as the nation’s Providential “liberties and laws” and
expressions that extolled the nation’s liberties reflect the “Americanist”
thread in U.S. Catholics’ identity—worrisome to Catholics of traditionalist
views as opposing the nineteenth-century popes’ harshly stated positions
hostile to democracy; church-state separation; and freedom of religion,
press, and assembly.
At several locales church history evoked enough interest to result in
laymen forming Catholic historical societies. The first, the American
Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, began in July 1884. Its
founders aimed for the “preservation and publication of Catholic American
historical documents, the investigation of Catholic American history,
4. Peter Guilday, ed., The National Pastorals of the American Hierarchy (1792–1919)
(Washington, DC, 1923), p. 250. Bishop John Keane, charged to draft the letter, became the
first rector (president) of The Catholic University of America.

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especially that of Philadelphia, and the development of interest in Catholic
historical research.”5 The society published the quarterly Records of the
American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia.
Likewise, meeting in New York City, John Gilmary Shea and authorphysician Richard H. Clarke began the United States Catholic Historical
Society on December 9, 1884, two days after the Third Plenary Council
closed. It published initially the United States Catholic Magazine and then
Historical Records and Studies reflecting its aim of publishing documents
and articles recording the contributions of Catholic leaders, institutions,
and movements.6
Other efforts followed. In 1885 Andrew Lambing, diocesan priest of
Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, organized the Ohio Valley Catholic Historical
Society, which functioned briefly. On his own he began in 1884 the quarterly Catholic Historical Researches. In 1886 Martin I. J. Griffin of Philadelphia acquired Researches and published it as American Catholic Historical
Researches until his death in 1911; it later was renamed Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia.7 These societies’ aim to preserve records of the Catholic past addressed the negligence that had
occurred in dioceses and other religious institutions in the care of and
access to such materials.
The Catholic University of America
Historical studies of the Church and U.S. Catholics advanced with the
launching of The Catholic University of America (CUA). At their Third
Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884, the U.S. bishops responded to the
eloquence of Bishop John Lancaster Spalding’s address on the need to

5. “Charter of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia,” Records of the
American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, 1 (1884–86), 7.
6. “United States Catholic Historical Society,” United States Catholic Magazine, Jan.
1887, 3.
7. Peter Guilday, “American Catholic Historical Association,” CHR, 6 (1920), 9–11.
The Brooklyn Historical Society was established in 1863 as the Long Island Historical Society. The New England Catholic Historical Society, established in 1901, soon ceased to function; the Catholic Historical Society of St. Paul, founded in 1905, published Acta et Dicta,
1907–36. The Maine Catholic Historical Society, founded in 1913, published Maine Catholic
Historical Magazine; the Catholic Historical Society of St. Louis, founded in 1917, published
St. Louis Catholic Historical Review, 1918–23; and Illinois Catholic Historical Society,
founded in Chicago in 1918, published Illinois Catholic Historical Review, 1918–29 (retitled
Mid-America, 1929).

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develop a more educated clergy and decided to establish a national
Catholic university. In 1887 Pope Leo XIII granted a charter for them to
sponsor a seminarium principale and empowering the granting of pontifical
degrees in branches of the sacred sciences—then only available to priests.
From this beginning, the charter envisioned the development of a complete university offering studies in a range of disciplines and open to the
clergy, religious, and laity. Moreover, as the nation’s pontifical university,
the bishops’ CUA was enjoined to affiliate to itself the other Catholic educational institutions at various levels.8
The U.S. bishops’ role provides one thread in the story of their university’s leadership. In its founding era no U.S. bishop possessed a background
in rapidly developing ideas about higher education and the transformations
taking place within each academic discipline. Competing models of a university’s purpose interfered with the approach to a university: an apologetic
agenda, a place to demonstrate the Church’s sympathy with the intellectual
life in the national culture often hostile to Catholicism, and as a focus for
influencing or even directing the entire network of Catholic schools.
The U.S. bishops’ collective responsibility for sponsoring the university unfolded in varied ways through its formative years and into the second
decade of the twentieth century.
In CUA’s founding constitution modeled on the Catholic University
of Louvain, Belgium, requirements for pontifical degrees included theses
based on original research—unlike the Roman model of written and oral
examinations—hence not a research degree. The research ideal at CUA
created the expectation among the faculty of original research, publication,
and dissemination of new information.
In a natural progression, CUA’s founding rector, Bishop John Keane,
launched in 1895 the quarterly periodical Catholic University Bulletin
(CUB) to publish scholarly articles across the range of academic disciplines
represented among its faculty, thereby contributing a Catholic dimension
to the nation’s intellectual life.
Keane appointed Thomas Joseph Shahan (1857–1932), priest of the
Diocese of Hartford, as the CUB’s editor-in-chief, and Shahan served in this
role from 1895 to 1909. He had participated in CUA’s founding. In 1888,

8. C. Joseph Nuesse, The Catholic University of America: A Centennial History (Washington, DC, 1990), pp. 3–64.

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he toured Europe with Keane to survey European universities and recruit
faculty. Concluding his travels in Rome, Keane obtained there the Holy
See’s approval of CUA’s statutes. Shahan remained to earn a licentiate’s
degree in civil and ecclesiastical law at the Roman Seminary, qualifying him
to teach the subject. Meanwhile, before CUA opened in 1889, Keane found
a credentialed canon lawyer, Sebastian G. Messmer, to teach canon law. Still
lacking a church history instructor for CUA, he directed Shahan to pursue
studies in that field.
Dating from seminary studies in Rome, Shahan had developed a personal interest in Christian art, archaeology, and epigraphy. For advanced
studies in early church history, he took up residence at the University of
Berlin in 1889–90 to attend lectures by distinguished professors such as
Adolf Harnack and others. In the following year, he studied at the Institut
Catholique in Paris with Louis Duchesne, a leading Catholic church historian. Since Shahan had received a Doctor of Divinity degree upon completing the seminary course at Rome’s Propaganda University in 1882, earning a
doctorate in history was not deemed necessary.9 In 1891, he joined CUA’s
faculty to teach church history and patrology, and expanded his teaching to
medieval and modern periods as its only church historian from 1896 to 1904.
In another aspect of his scholarly interests, Shahan participated as one
of five editors of the era’s major project to disseminate accurate knowledge
of Catholicism—the Catholic Encyclopedia—published in fifteen volumes
from 1907 to 1912.10 He contributed more than 200 articles, and translated and/or edited more than 100 of other contributors. He authored seventy-two articles for other publications and three books consisting of previously written articles and lectures. In 1909 he began nineteen years as
CUA’s rector. His published writing decreased, but as rector he continued
his interest in disseminating research through academic journals.
As Keane groomed Shahan for CUA’s church history position, the
latter recruited Peter Keenan Guilday (1884–1947) to serve as “instructor
9. For biographical information, see Blase Dixon, “The Catholic University of America:
The Rectorship of Thomas Joseph Shahan, 1909–1928” (PhD diss., The Catholic University of
America, 1972). As the Church’s missionary college, the Urbanian College of the Propaganda
granted the doctorate in theology to priesthood candidates after four years of the regular course
of studies, a written examination, and an oral examination. Students of the American College
in Rome attended Urbanian College for their theology course until around 1931.
10. John Wynne, S.J., founding editor of the magazine America, directed this undertaking. In addition to Shahan, other editors included Edward A. Pace of CUA, and laymen
Charles G. Herbermann and Condé B. Pallen.

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in Ecclesiastical History” in 1914.11 A native of Chester, Pennsylvania,
Guilday had attended local Catholic schools and the Catholic High School
of Philadelphia. Having discerned a call to the diocesan priesthood, he
enrolled at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, Philadelphia, in 1902. To
conclude seminary studies, 1907–09, he attended the American College at
the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium and was ordained there as
a priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in 1909. After a year of studies
in German universities, he began graduate studies in church history at
Louvain interrupted by a year of parish ministry in Philadelphia in 1911.
Under Louvain’s influential church historian, Canon Alfred Cauchie
(1860–1922), Guilday fully embraced the scientific method of historical
study that informed his views throughout his career. For his dissertation, he
examined post–Reformation English Catholic history in archives on the
continent, including a year of research and writing in London. He produced
The English Colleges and Convents in the Catholic Low Countries, 1558–1795,
which laid the groundwork for his interest in Catholic life in the English
colonies and the United States. He received the pontifical doctorate in
ecclesiastical history in 1914, the first U.S. priest to receive this degree.
In October 1914 the vigorous Guilday, age thirty, joined CUA’s
School of Sacred Sciences that granted pontifical degrees solely to clerics.
He began there the “American Church History Seminar,” described as a
“special Academy of young Priests for the Study of the Church History of
the United States.” In his “academy”—his term for a course—Guilday
introduced the seminar method to his class of twelve priests and one
layman. There, he trained students in critical historical methods, collecting
volumes of documents, historical periodicals, and important monographs
to line the bookshelves of his seminar room. By doing so, he adopted the
standard practice of history graduate programs at other U.S. universities

11. For several aspects of Guilday’s career, see Richard Marie FitzGibbon, “The American Catholic Historical Association Secretaryship of Peter Guilday, 1919–1941,” Records of
the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, 77 (1966), 199–207; Jack Douglas
Thomas, “Interpretations of American Catholic Church History: A Comparative Analysis of
Representative Catholic Historians, 1875–1975” (PhD diss., Baylor University, 1976); David
J. O’Brien, “Peter Guilday: The Catholic Intellectual in the Post-Modernist Church,” in
Studies in Catholic History in Honor of John Tracy Ellis, ed. Nelson H. Minnich, Robert B.
Eno, and Robert F. Trisco (Wilmington, DE, 1985), pp. 260–306. Thomas lacked awareness
of FitzGibbon’s study. Unaware of previous studies, O’Brien drew selectively from the Peter
Guilday Papers, American Catholic Research Center, Catholic University of America, for an
anecdotal assessment. John Tracy Ellis, “Peter Guilday, March 25, 1884–July 31, 1947,”
CHR, 33 (1947), 257–68.

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that were adhering to the German model. In his first year, he boasted: “We
are following the strictest German method of scientific research, and it is
a pleasure to see how these young Irish priests with an Irish professor take
to it like a duck to water.”12
At the academic year’s end, Guilday published a report on his students’
work similar to those of graduate history programs in Europe—including that
of his Louvain mentor, Cauchie—and the United States. This took the form
of a booklet of sixty pages, with the title Annual Report, American Church History Seminar, 1914–1915. This and subsequent annual reports were circulated
to both Catholic and Protestant institutions, especially to history departments. Likewise, other history departments sent him their reports.
Beginning in 1919, Guilday’s teaching turned to a wider arena of influence at CUA. As he continued his role in the university’s School of Sacred
Sciences, he received an appointment to the history department, where
laymen and priests were enrolled (enrollment of women was opened after
1928). In the history department, his graduate courses included “English
Institutions” and “American Church History.” As Robert Trisco notes,
“Gradually he established a program of courses leading to the master’s and
doctoral degrees which for many years was unique in American Catholic
universities.”13 Through the interwar years, his graduate students—all
priests and women religious—produced thirty-six doctoral dissertations and
more than 100 master of arts’ degrees. From 1922, the dissertations were
published in CUA’s Studies in American Church History series—one of
several of CUA’s publication series in several disciplines.
The Catholic Historical Review
Guilday’s arrival at CUA set in motion the launching of a quarterly
historical journal devoted to American Catholic history. The previously
mentioned local Catholic historical associations had established the precedents. Confining the journal to American Catholic articles, transcribed
documents, and book reviews made sense since primary sources for scholarship in other areas of church history remained largely unavailable in the
United States. The new historical journal joined those already published
from CUA, which later became home to several more.
12. ACUA, Guilday to Arthur Preuss, Washington, DC, December 3, 1915, Box 1,
Guilday Papers.
13. Robert Trisco, “The Church’s History in the University’s History,” CHR, 75
(1989), 658–76, here 664.

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Shahan’s personal interest and support matched Guilday’s own aim to
edit a new journal to publish the historical articles that previously would
have appeared in the CUB. Hence, during Guilday’s first academic year,
CUA, with its trustees’ approval, launched The Catholic Historical Review.
The title page of its first issue lists Shahan as editor-in-chief—his title
eventually concluding with the January 1929 issue. Associate editors who
served from 1915 to 1919 included several priests of its faculty: Patrick J.
Healy, chairman; Paschal Robinson, O.F.M.; William Turner; Nicholas
A. Weber, S. M.; and Peter Guilday, secretary. When Turner became
bishop of Buffalo in 1919, Victor O’Daniel, O.P., replaced him. Through
1921, Guilday did the actual soliciting and editing to produce each issue.
In the CHR’s first issue of April 1915, Cardinal James Gibbons, archbishop of Baltimore and CUA’s chancellor, and Shahan provided keynote
articles introducing this new venture.
In a brief preface Gibbons endorsed the CHR’s founding and noted as
“particularly gratifying” that “a Board of Editors” of the CUA faculty
launched it. Their “grand intellectual work, great in quantity, noble in
quality,” proclaimed the university’s “worth and greatness.” He allowed
that the laity lacked time “to delve into the hidden stores of knowledge
which history guards,” but in the CHR, historical “treasures will be at the
command of the public.”14
In a lengthy “Introductory,” Shahan addressed facets of the contemporary study of history: “An interest in historical studies and the fashion of
viewing actions and events in their historical relations are the natural
inheritance of Catholics. . . .” He noted history’s recent rise to status as an
academic discipline and its “secularization”—separation from religious
explanation—“to find some means of bringing past human activities within
the scope of physical science.” Hence, studying history was “raised to preeminence in the entire field of science.”15 In contrast to philosophy, such
“investigation has come to concern itself more with origins and development, than with nature and essence.” In Shahan’s view, “How things and
institutions have become” had emerged as “the best road to intimate
knowledge of their character and constitution.” He opposed Herbert
Baxter Adams’s idea of history as past politics, seeing it as too narrow for
“affording a key to the ebb and flow in the tide of human affairs.” About a
14. Cardinal James Gibbons, Foreword, CHR, 1 (1915), iii.
15. Thomas J. Shahan, “Introductory: The Spirit of the Catholic Historical Review,”
CHR, 1 (1915), 5–12.

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new explanation, he asserted, “A cut-and-dried formula to account for
every past happening has come from the economic interpreter.”16
Within the Church,
For the Christian theologian no less than for the Christian moralist, history urges its claims with ever-increasing insistence. Exegesis, doctrine,
morals, law, and liturgy have to a large extent lost their purely speculative
character. Criticism nowadays occupies the mind of the student of Scripture more largely than commentary.17

Presaging advances in historical theology, he posited, “The urgency of
the call for the theologian, who is at the same time a trained historian, is
manifest . . . .”
“As a first and essential step” to promote a “genuine, scientific interest
in history” and the “hard and unremitting labors which alone produce substantial results,” a journal was needed to serve as a means of communication among scholars, keeping them “au courant” of scholarship in their
field and setting standards “required by the situation’s needs.” He cited
existing journals as models: the American Historical Review, English Historical Review, Analecta Bollandiana, Revue Historique, Byzantinische
Zeitschrift, Bullettino di Archeologia Cristiana, and others.
Given these journals’ importance in its nation of publication, Shahan
linked the CHR’s founding to the Church’s importance to the United
States. To him, the journal “should represent it on a scale corresponding to
Catholicity’s importance in the nation’s life.” As he noted, a “process”
ongoing in national educational life “to which the Catholic Church cannot
be insensible. History is receiving year by year greater attention in our universities and schools.”
Since the CHR aimed to publish articles and documents related to the
United States, he expected Catholics to insist upon promoting scholarship
on their historical role in the nation and take their place in addressing social
and economic change: “Their influence will be doubly enhanced if they are
in a position from a study of the past to show how Catholics have already
16. Ibid., p. 6. Most likely he had in mind recent works of Progressive-era historian
Charles A. Beard: An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution (1913) and Economic Origins
of Jeffersonian Democracy (1915), which stirred controversy because of his emphasis on the
founders’ economic self-interest.
17. Shahan, “Introductory,” p. 7.

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contributed their quota” and to prevent the “science of history from extravagant speculation and from exploitation in the interest of untried theories.”
Shahan included CUA’s founding aim of engaging Catholic priests in
intellectual life. He expected them “to aid and enlarge historical studies.”
After evoking the “sufferings” of the early Church’s martyrs, he drew comparison to the American past,
it is our duty to rescue from oblivion the names and deeds of those who
from the days of Columbus have planted the faith in the new world, and
who have striven to realize in new and frequently hostile surroundings
the precepts of the Master.

He called on priests to collaborate in saving documents and other materials
from the past. They could encourage the “work of history by aiding when
possible those who engage in its cultivation.” To him, the CHR would take
the lead to “serve as a means for diffusing the results of the labors of all who
love American Catholic history, . . .”
In each quarterly CHR issue, Guilday reported in “Notes and Comment” on the latest projects and publications that pertained to general history and church history published in the United States and abroad.
From the journal’s beginning, Guilday developed views on the need
for an organization of Catholic historians. At the AHA’s 1914 annual
meeting held in Chicago, he noted the presence of few Catholics among
the 400 attendees, counting only two priests and several Dominican sisters.
Its sessions included papers presented on Catholic-related topics. He
described a paper on English medieval history, in which the speaker stated
the Church, in response to a clergy shortage during the Black Death,
issued a “plenary indulgence for sin.” Such a canard reinforced the old antiCatholic polemic that confession and indulgences provided Catholics with
a “license to sin” without genuine repentance. A priest present corrected
the speaker, who conceded his mistake. As Guilday noted, Catholics
among historians may correct errors, but a level of frustration is evident in
his statement “With fifteen volumes of the Catholic Encyclopedia at their
command, mistakes, such as these, of which we have all grown weary in
refuting, ought not to occur.”18
Guilday aimed for the CHR to publish documents needed for the scientific study of the history of the American Church, along with articles and
18. “Notes and Comment,” CHR, 1 (1915), 103–04.

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book reviews. By confining its scope to the nation’s Catholic history, the
journal could take up broader topics than those local historical societies
ordinarily addressed. Publishing documents made sources widely available
to make scientific historical writing possible. As he reported in the Catholic
World about the CHR’s “most important and difficult task”:
Official documents and records; unofficial accounts in periodicals of various kinds, in private letters, etc., etc., exist of the persons and events
notable in the history of the Church in the country. No systematic
attempt has ever been made to save them from threatening oblivion, to
know where they are or what they contain, to state their true value, to put
them at the disposal of the historian. It will be evident at once how pressing is the necessity of the work the editors have undertaken, and also how
eagerly.

According to Guilday, lack of an “American Catholic Historical Association” after 125 years of “Catholic activities under an organized hierarchy”
proved “our lack of interest” in history. That he recently received for
preservation from “every quarter” of the nation “[o]ld portraits, old and rare
books, letters and documents which would otherwise lie neglected in
parish houses and educational institutions” encouraged him. He noted, “It
gladdens the scholar’s heart to recognize in this the first faint returns of the
message colligite ne pereant . . . broadcast to lovers of the past” because the
CHR recognized the “laudable obligation” of “preserving all that remains,
lest it perish as so much already has perished, wantonly, ignorantly or
deliberately.”19
In the following year, Guilday asked: “what have American Catholics
done to preserve the history of the Church in this country for future generations? Is there a creditable American Catholic historiography?” He
acknowledged some published volumes and a “few prominent writers” in
the past; and “nearly every Diocese can boast of one or two priests and
laymen” with a serious interest in local Catholics’ history. But if U.S.
Catholics “as members of a religious society which has always given to Tradition a sacred sisterhood with Revelation,” could transfer such a heritage
to a “solemn duty” for them to gather “the fragments that survive in order
that neither the old memories die out nor the old remembrances lose their
charm.” He lauded the founding of numerous historical societies “largely
composed of non-Catholics” with members “ready and anxious to know

19. “Notes and Comment,” CHR, 1 (1915), 224–33, here 228–29; Catholic World, May
1915, 287.

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the Catholic history of their respective localities.” He asserted that “everywhere the serious Catholic student will find a cordial welcome in these
bodies, . . .”20
Shifting to the national level, he imagined an ideal world with a centrally located “National Catholic Library” that would have “every printed
page which has ever appeared, either here or abroad, about the Church in
America.” It also held a “National Catholic Archives” preserving “all documentary evidence for our history” under ecclesiastical supervision and
available for research. He envisioned the possibilities if “local Diocesan Historical Societies [existed] all over America, each with its own particular
Library, Archives, and Museum and supported by the Diocese.” Above all,
he held:
if there were an American Catholic Historical Association, composed of
all these Diocesan Societies and acting in harmony with the American
Historical Association—if there were a combined effort on the part of the
Church to create in the Library of Congress at the Capitol, a distinctly
National Catholic Archival Section in the Department of Manuscripts by
causing to be preserved there photographic copies of all the documents in
the English and Irish episcopal archives, in the Public Record Office and
the British Museum of London, in the Simancas, Seville, and Madrid
Collections, in the Roman and Italian archives, in the Cuban, South
American, and Canadian archives, which in any way relate to the growth
and development of Catholicity in the United States, if archivists were
trained in all the leading Catholic centres [sic] for the preservation of
local, diocesan, provincial and national Catholic history. . . .21

He hoped “some generous Catholic or group of Catholics” would fund a
“Historical Institute at the Catholic University of America, well-equipped
with maps, source-collections and materials” for studying U.S. church history “with travelling burses for the best students, who would then be
enabled to work side by side in European Archives with the students of the
old world, . . .” With impatience, he asked, “why have we waited so long
for these evidences of our love for American history?”22
Guilday paid tribute to the pioneering work of John Gilmary Shea
who, acting on his own and possessing few funds, produced historical volumes. Yet since his death in 1892, little had been done to continue his

20. “Notes and Comment,” CHR, 1 (1915), 348–58, here 348–49.
21. Ibid. Emphasis in original.
22. Ibid. Emphasis in original.

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“IN THE INTEREST OF TRUE HISTORY”

work. For this situation, he did not blame individuals for “this neglect in
the past; but no excuse exists for its continuance in the present.”23
In Guilday’s view, “Every Diocese should have a worthy representative, preferably a priest, in the State Historical Association.” He hoped
“intelligent Catholics” would join the AHA. History-minded Catholics
should “work in harmony” with non-Catholics in local historical societies,
“for their object is the same, their interests are the same, and the benefit
derived from one assuredly reflects upon the other.” His Americanist identity prompted him:
We are all Americans, Catholic or non-Catholic, proud of our citizenship in this country, and we can all meet as brothers of the same household in the laboratory of historical research with the same enthusiastic
hopes for the future and with the same strong love for the deeds of the
men and the generations who have preceded us in this roseate land of
opportunity.24

Returning to similar themes in 1916, he no doubt had in mind a personal goal: “To create Catholic instincts of love and veneration for the religious past of our country is an ideal any scholar or group of scholars might
well consider fitting for a life-work.” Such efforts addressed a duty “to
future generations for the preservation of the documents of the present and
the documents which have been bequeathed to us from the past.” He
invoked Pope Leo XIII’s opening the Vatican Archives for research that
revealed a “solemn duty upon us all, especially upon those of us who are in
places of trust, both in Church and in Government, to conserve faithfully
and religiously whatever relics of the past we may possess.” To him, the
U.S. Church “with its excellent organization in all intellectual matters, has
a duty to the country at large to preserve these treasures of the past and the
present, for out of them in years to come her history will be constructed.”
To further such an aim, he proposed: “Every Diocese ought to have its own
Diocesan Historical Society.” It did not need many members, a permanent
home, membership dues, or a newsletter. He thought it “necessary” for
each diocese to have central archives for its records. “Influence could be
brought to bear” on families, communities, and parishes “to allow their
manuscripts to be photographed and mounted on cards for future researchworkers.”25
23. Ibid., p. 349.
24. Ibid.
25. “Notes and Comment,” CHR, 2 (1916), 108–18, here 113–14.

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235

Later that year, American Church history’s role in Catholic schools
prompted him to invoke the U.S. bishops’ pastoral letter of 1884 with the
quote cited earlier: “Teach the children” about their country’s history.
Since enough time had elapsed since then he reflected: “What has been
done since 1884 to instill a love of American Catholic history in the hearts
of our people?”26
In response, while noting Shea’s works and rise of historical societies,
he drew attention to a major anniversary eighteen years later, when the
U.S. Catholic Church would celebrate the tercentenary of Maryland’s
founding (1634–1934). Among the best ways to celebrate, he urged founding “an AMERICAN CATHOLIC HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
on the same plan” as the AHA. He expected to draw its members from
existing Catholic historical societies, faculties of colleges and seminaries,
and all those “interested in preserving memories and traditions of the past.”
By then, his cherished “Bibliographia Catholica Americana” will have been
published providing “every scholar” with “a complete catalogue of all that
had been written up to that date on Catholic American History.” Professing “no doubt,” he held by then such a national organization would have
begun “the sadly neglected duty of founding those central storehouses – a
National Catholic Library, a National Catholic Archives, and a National
Catholic Museum.”27
By 1917, Guilday evoked a European model: the national historical
institute established in Rome. He found “not to the credit of a great nation
like the United States” or to “a powerful and wealthy Church like the
Catholic Church of America, that no American Historical Institute existed
in Rome.” In the Eternal City, national churches supported such institutes
whose scholars combed Roman archives transcribing and collecting documents related to each nation’s history. He noted the Prussian Institute in
the Giustiniani Palace, the Austrian Institute with its section on Bohemian
history, the Belgian Institute, the Institute of Holland, the Ruthenian
Research-School, the Institut de St. Louis-des-Français, and the Görresgesellschaft. Most likely having himself in mind, he concluded: “Americans
who have visited the different Institutes there always feel a pang of regret
that the American government has not taken this question up seriously.”28

26. “Notes and Comment,” CHR, 2 (1916), 347–66, here 347.
27. Ibid., pp. 347–48, emphasis in original.
28. “Notes and Comment,” CHR, 2 (1917), 478–93, here 478–79, emphasis in original; Guilday’s mentor, Canon Alfred Cauchie, directed the Belgian Institute in Rome from
1919 until his death in a traffic accident in 1922.

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Guilday’s own country furnished another model—the AHA. He
attended its annual meetings, thereby personally ensuring a Catholic presence and making contacts with other scholars. Academic historians’ commitment to scientific historical objectivity unified their vision regardless of
religious faith or the absence thereof. Owing to U.S. entry into World War
I in April 1917, his professional contacts expanded that year. He was
appointed secretary of the National Catholic War Council’s National
Committee on War Records. The latter aimed to document Catholics’
participation in the war.
In the effort to reach Catholic laity who might be interested in American Catholic history in the CHR’s early years, Guilday contacted several
Catholic lay organizations inviting its members or at least its leaders to
subscribe. He especially targeted the Knights of Columbus whose membership and number of local councils had burgeoned in the early-twentieth
century. Guilday secured some CHR subscriptions from local councils and
officers during the period.29
More pressing for Guilday remained the vision of a Catholic presence
in national-level historical activities and advancing it toward reality. In the
January 1917 issue of the CHR, he published an article of Waldo G.
Leland, the AHA’s non-Catholic executive secretary, endorsing the formation of an association of Catholic historians. Not surprisingly, Leland’s
view of founding historical societies in each diocese bore a remarkable similarity to Guilday’s own views.30
In 1917 Guilday pursued forming an organization. At the annual
meeting of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, he
addressed the need for Catholic historians studying all areas of church history to organize. In his view, such an organization would not compete with
local Catholic historical societies focusing on their area’s history. Instead,
a national organization with headquarters at CUA “would multiply local
societies like the one in Philadelphia, and that all local societies would be
affiliated to this general organization.”31
29. His efforts produced a substantial correspondence for the period; see ACUA,
ACHA Collection, Box 1.
30. Waldo G. Leland, “Concerning Catholic Historical Societies,” CHR, 2 (1917),
386–99.
31. Quoted in FitzGibbon, “Secretaryship of Peter Guilday,” p. 201; original in “Origins of the American Catholic Historical Association,” 1919, in ACHA Collection,
ACUA.

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Despite some doubts, Guilday went ahead with his project. NonCatholic historians encouraged his efforts, assuring him that a Catholic
association would be welcomed among the AHA’s affiliated historical societies that convened during the annual meeting. His mentor, Shahan,
approved his plan to contact Catholic historians with the aim of forming
an organization. Thereupon, he circulated a letter to some twenty Catholic
historians and educators, announcing Catholics had little or no representation in the AHA since its founding in 1884:
Year by year, usually in Christmas week, this splendid organization of
historical students gathers hundreds of its members in one of our large
cities, and papers of exceptional merit and charm are read and discussed.
. . . More and more the conviction grows upon the Catholic scholars
who attend these meetings that there should be in our national life a
Catholic society similar in design and outlook to the American Historical Association.32

His letter elicited the interest needed to move forward. Furthermore, he
had the active support of Leland, who facilitated Catholics’ efforts to form
an organization to join the AHA’s affiliated societies. With the AHA
annual meeting planned for Cleveland in December 1919, Guilday
recruited Thomas C. O’Reilly, rector of St. John’s Cathedral there, to preside at an organizational meeting. On December 30, 1919, at Cleveland’s
Hollenden Hotel during the AHA annual meeting, Guilday described the
professional advancement of the modern academic discipline of history
with introducing formal instruction in the subject at major universities and
the founding of the AHA in 1884. He then proposed:
A distinctly Catholic organization with the definite object of promoting
interest in Catholic history both in this and other lands, of this and other
ages, seems necessary, if the Church is to be recognized in her true position as the sacred and perpetual mother of all that is best and holiest in
modern civilization. . . .
An American Catholic Historical Association would arouse among
Catholics in this roseate land of opportunity an instinct of love and veneration for the religious history of the world. . . .
This, then, is the project which I have the honor of placing before you this
morning. A project commensurate with the historical scholarship existent
in the Church of our beloved country. Ambitious in design and essentially

32. Guilday to Founders of the Association, October 22, 1919, quoted in ibid.

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“IN THE INTEREST OF TRUE HISTORY”
necessary in its concept, if the glorious annals of our Faith are to be made
known in all their beauty to Catholic and non-Catholic alike.33

In a brief address, J. Franklin Jameson, a non-Catholic founding member
of the AHA in 1884, encouraged Catholics in launching an association.34
He endorsed the value of Catholics engaging in historical scholarship.
The fifty attendees voted to establish the American Catholic Historical Association. A draft constitution and bylaws probably composed by
Guilday and modeled on the AHA’s were presented for discussion and
approval. Similar to the AHA and other academic associations, the
ACHA’s officers serving one-year terms included a president, two vicepresidents, secretary, treasurer, and archivist; an executive council charged
with “supreme management” consisted of eleven individuals (six officers ex
officio and five elected at the annual meeting). Founding officers included
Lawrence F. Flick of Philadelphia, president; vice-presidents Richard
Tierney, S.J., America magazine, New York; and Victor F. O’Daniel, O.P.,
Washington, DC; Carlton J .H. Hayes, Columbia University, secretary;
Monsignor Thomas C. O’Reilly, Cleveland, treasurer; and Guilday,
“archivist.” The first Executive Council consisted of priests.35
After the first year, Hayes with his academic position in New York
relinquished the secretary position to Guilday, who held that office until
1941, and the treasurer’s role was ceded to Cornelius Thomas, pastor of St.
Patrick Church in Washington, DC, who served until 1931.36
1920s: Founding Era
In its first decade, 1920–29, the ACHA took basic organizational
actions such as designating the CHR as its official journal and recruiting
enough members to make it viable. Membership grew from about fifty
33. “The American Catholic Historical Association,” CHR, 6 (1920), 13–14.
34. J. Franklin Jameson (1859–1937) chaired the AHA Historical Manuscripts Commission and served as first managing editor of the American Historical Review (AHR) in
1895–1901 and 1905–28. After teaching at the new University of Chicago, he relocated to
Washington in 1905 as director of the Department of Historical Research of the Carnegie
Institution and retired in 1928. He became the first professional historian to serve as AHA
president (1907). His colleagues serving as AHA presidents often referred to him as “the
Dean” in tribute to his influence.
35. “First Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association, Washington, D.C., December 27–30, 1920,” CHR, 7 (1921), 6.
36. “Proceedings of the Second Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical
Association, December 27–30, 1921, St. Louis, Mo.,” CHR, 8 (1922), 3–22.

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founders in 1919 to 155 by the end of 1920, increasing steadily to 638 in
1928 with a slight decline to 634 in 1929.37 Membership was open to nonCatholics from its beginning. ACHA president Flick attracted to it current
members of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia.
By meeting with the AHA, the ACHA drew to its sessions members
of other affiliated societies—seven by 1929. Until 1994, the AHA with
affiliates convened between Christmas and New Year’s Day, usually
December 27–30, and mostly in a major northern city.
During the period, seven of ten ACHA annual meetings were held
with the AHA at the following locations: Washington, DC (1920); St.
Louis (1921); New Haven (1922); Columbus (1923); Ann Arbor, Michigan (1925); Washington, DC (1927); and Indianapolis (1928). Instead of
joining the AHA annual meeting in Richmond, Virginia in 1924, the
ACHA elected to hold its annual meeting jointly with the American
Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, as the latter was celebrating its
fortieth anniversary that year. The ACHA returned to meet in Philadelphia in 1926 instead of joining the AHA at the University of Rochester,
Rochester, NY, as the local bishop had forbidden Catholics to meet on its
campus because of a recent anti-religious incident there. The 1929 ACHA
meeting convened in Washington, DC, on December 27–28, with the
American Catholic Philosophical Association; ACHA members could
then travel to the AHA annual meeting, scheduled for December 27–30 in
Durham, North Carolina.
For the annual meeting, Guilday and ACHA leaders sought to attract
local Catholics, especially clergy, to participate and attend its sessions to
hear papers presented on a range of Catholic historical topics. For that
reason, he secured a prominent local priest or layman to chair an “organizing committee” composed of local Catholics to promote the meeting and
to attract clergy and laity to attend its sessions. This local contact was
appointed to either the Executive Council or as second vice-president in
preparation for the annual meeting held in his city. When the annual
meeting was held, the local bishop normally accepted the invitation along
with local clergy to the ACHA formal luncheon with presidential address.
Despite three occasions in the 1920s when the ACHA did not meet
jointly with the AHA and its affiliated societies, Guilday always regarded
37. Membership figures here and throughout the article are found in the “Annual
Meeting” report, issued in December, and published in the April issue of the next year.

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“IN THE INTEREST OF TRUE HISTORY”

as “fortunate” those occasions when the annual meeting could be held with
the AHA; the latter’s Committee on Local Arrangements was effective in
accommodating the conferees and providing amenities that contributed to
the success of the ACHA annual meetings. He found, too, that the presence of Catholic historians was always welcome and the “interchange of
courtesies more than any other factor in our history has given us encouragement and guidance.”38
From the ACHA’s founding until 1966, laymen served as presidents—each for a one-year term. Its constitution and bylaws did not
require a layperson in the position; custom sustained the practice. The
presidency carried little executive authority, as this was vested in the Executive Council. The ACHA officers—president; first and second vice-presidents; secretary; treasurer; and, until 1941, archivist—served on the council as ex officio members. The Committee on Nominations selected the
officers and council members; the Executive Council approved the selections. The tradition of lay presidents aimed to encourage participation of
lay Catholics interested in church history. Although not acknowledged,
historians attending the AHA annual meeting and representing a range of
religious backgrounds or none could view a lay ACHA president as head
of a Catholic association separate from church authority—something that
the selection of priest-presidents might have suggested to non-Catholics.
ACHA president Flick, physician and “soul” of the American
Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, became for Guilday the
“actual guide of our work since its inception” and source of “light and
direction in many and varied problems” owing to his fifty years’ experience
in the field. He attributed to Flick “whatever success these years may lay
claim to” for the ACHA.39 For additional laymen who served as ACHA
president in the organization’s early years, see appendix A.
In his secretary’s role, Guilday had several assistant secretaries in the
1920s, all with CUA connections: Stanislaus de Torosiewicz, law school
professor and layman (1925); Guilday’s doctoral students Edward J.
Hickey, priest of Detroit and instructor at Sacred Heart Seminary there
(1926–27); and George B. Stratemeier, O.P. (1928). Until the position
was abolished in 1941, Frances Brawner (1923–24); Frances Trew (1925–

38. “Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Meeting, American Catholic Historical Association, Philadelphia, December 27–28, 1926,” CHR, 13 (1927), 3–28, here 20.
39. Ibid., p. 21.

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27); George B. Stratemeier, O.P. (1928–29); and Josephine Lyon (1929–
40) held the position of archivist.
The office of first and second vice-presidents included laymen and
priests during the 1920s. After the priests Richard Tierney, S.J., and Victor
O’Daniel, O.P. (1920), and John J. Wynne, S.J., and Michael Ryan, C.M.
(1921), served in these positions, laymen mainly filled in these roles
through 1928 (there was one exception—second vice-president Felix Fellner, O.S.B., served in 1925). Not all the lay officers were trained historians
or had academic affiliations.
Priests were prominent in other roles. Among those serving on the
Executive Council, Guilday especially valued Francis S. Betten, S.J., of
John Carroll University, Cleveland, historian of medieval ecclesiastical history; Thomas J. Campbell, S.J., considered the “dean” of Catholic historians; Francis P. Siegfried of St. Charles Seminary, Philadelphia, a Scholastic philosopher; and Charles M. Souvay, C.M., of Kenrick Seminary, a St.
Louis Catholic Historical Society cofounder, postulator of canonization
causes of Mother Elizabeth Seton and Father Felix De Andreis, and future
Superior General of the Congregation of the Mission.
In many professional and academic societies, one activity is sponsorship of official journals that are often published on a quarterly basis.
Reversing what happened in most professions, the historical journal for
Catholic historians began, and the association was formed afterward.
In April 1921, the Board of Editors decided to expand the CHR’s areas
for publication by including other branches of church history. Guilday then
ceded his role as its principal editor—not acknowledged on the CHR title
page—to his first student to complete a doctoral dissertation in American
church history: Patrick Browne, who was named “managing editor.”
Shahan continued as the honorific “editor-in-chief.” The “Board of Directors” listed on the title page consisted of a mixed lay-clerical group of the
CUA faculty. Patrick J. Healy; Henry Ignatius Smith, O.P.; Victor
O’Daniel, O.P.; and Guilday were all priests from the School of Sacred Sciences. History department representatives were priest Edwin J. Ryan and
laymen Charles Hallan McCarthy, Leo F. Stock, and Richard J. Purcell.
The April 1921 issue began with “Retrospect and Prospect” from the
managing editor—Browne, although unnamed. Given “abundant evidence” of the CHR “stimulating research and fostering the writing of
excellent monographs,” he noted Catholics’ attitude toward history “local,

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“IN THE INTEREST OF TRUE HISTORY”

national, and universal” had changed. As interest grew since the CHR
began, limiting it to American content “became more difficult each year;
and more than once during the past six years the editors debated the problem of relinquishing the national field and of entering the broader sphere
of general Church history.” The editors decided that with the April issue,
the “REVIEW should venture forth into the larger domain and discuss
problems of Church history both national and universal, while keeping its
present size and character.”40
By appointment of Shahan, Browne’s editorship thereby began. Born
in Carbonear, Newfoundland, Canada in 1864, Browne was educated in
Canada, took seminary studies at the Propaganda University in Rome, and
was ordained a priest of his native Diocese of Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, in 1887. He subsequently obtained a doctorate in theology at Laval
University, Quebec. After teaching at several Catholic colleges and seminaries in Canada and the United States, he came to CUA in 1919 to enroll
in Guilday’s American church history seminar, completing a dissertation
under his direction in 1921.41
The CHR became formally linked to the ACHA. As ratified at the
1922 annual meeting, the Executive Council decided that its members
were to receive the Review as part of membership—then $5 per annum for
individuals, of which $3 was paid to the CHR. The ACHA thereupon
designated the CHR its “official” journal.42 The ACHA otherwise did not
participate in the journal’s financial aspects except to pay the CHR for its
members’ copies. Furthermore, unrelated to the ACHA, the CHR was
directly circulated to paying subscribers—individuals, libraries, and institutions. Until 1935, layman J. Harvey Cain served as treasurer for both CUA
and the CHR.
Guilday as Scholar and Advocate
Guilday’s early years as ACHA secretary and formulator of plans to
promote the study of church history paralleled his own productive scholarship. Continuing the model of the nineteenth-century high-profile histori-

40. “Retrospect and Prospect,” CHR, 7 (1921), 3–4, here 4. Emphasis in original.
41. Biographical information appears in Patrick Browne, Beginnings of the Catholic
Church in the United States Being État de L’Église Catholique ou Diocese des États-Unis de
L’Amérique Septentrionale par Jean Dilhet (Washington, DC, 1922), p. 262.
42. “Proceedings of the Third Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical
Association,” CHR, 9 (1923), 5–29, here 10.

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ans’ massive multivolume works, he produced huge biographies, each two
volumes, The Life and Times of John Carroll, Archbishop of Baltimore (1735–
1815) (New York, 1922) and The Life and Times of John England, First
Bishop of Charleston (1786–1842) (New York, 1927).43 He produced a less
imposing one-volume biography, John Gilmary Shea: Father of American
Catholic History, 1824–1892 (New York, 1926). Other works geared toward
the practice of historical writing appeared. In the late 1920s, a planned massive biography of Archbishop John Hughes of New York absorbed his energies as his duties expanded. At some point, he worked on the relatively brief
but useful History of the Councils of Baltimore (New York, 1932).
Through the 1920s, his prodigious energy matched an expansive
vision he articulated through the medium of the CHR. From the latter’s
founding, he promoted his views through the section Notes and Comment
(title later changed to Notes and Comments). As ACHA secretary, the
annual report served as his regular manifesto or as a kind of encyclical letter
defining his views on advancing the study of church history in addition to
imparting information about the organization. Clearly he aimed for the
ACHA to assist in organizing advanced studies in church history. According to the scientific approach, such studies needed access to documents—
the primary sources—and comprehensive bibliographies listing published
works. Initial efforts for the ACHA to assist scholars consisted of compiling a bibliography and a guide to archival sources in the United States.
At the 1921 meeting, Marquette University’s Francis Betten, S.J., outlined the plan to compile a detailed bibliography consisting of sections corresponding to historical eras, issues, and types of works.
At the same meeting, University of Notre Dame’s Paul Foik, C.S.C.,
described the questionnaire circulated to all U.S. dioceses seeking data on
various categories of their records. Only twenty dioceses responded with
information about their holdings. His report implied that “established
43. Following the works of nineteenth-century U.S. historians, the oeuvre of John
Gilmary Shea culminated with his imposing four-volume History of the Catholic Church in the
United States (New York, 1886–92). Paralleling Guilday’s career and perhaps to prove their
mettle as historians of status, several American Catholic scholars produced massive works
seemingly beyond the interest of a general readership. These include Thomas Hughes, History of the Society of Jesus: Colonial and Federal, 4 vols. (London, 1907–17); Frederick J. Zwierlein, Life and Letters of Bishop McQuaid Prefaced with the History of Catholic Rochester Before His
Episcopate, 3 vols. (Rochester, NY, 1925–27); Zephyrin Engelhardt, The Missions and Missionaries of California, 4 vols. (San Francisco, 1908–15); and Gilbert Garraghan, Jesuits of the
Middle United States, 3 vols. (New York, 1938).

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methods and principles” for archives were not followed and omitted
whether or not a diocese had an archivist other than the chancellor, who
ordinarily had canonical responsibility for archives but many other assigned
duties as well. The long history of destruction of records and papers and
restricted access to the Church’s past buried in documents would have been
revealed in a truthful report of each diocese’s archives. The ACHA did not
attempt to send another survey to dioceses in the following years.44
At the 1924 meeting, at Guilday’s behest, the foregoing efforts and
several new initiatives were formalized in seven committees and their
chairs designated:
• Archival Centers for American Catholic History—Paul Foik, C.S.C.;
• Bibliography of Church History—Francis Betten, S.J.;
• Catholic Historical Activities in the U.S.—Richard J. Purcell;
• Manual of Catholic History Literature—Francis Borgia Steck, O.F.M.;
• Manual of Historical Objections Made Against the Church—Bertrand
L. Conway, C.S.P.;
• Teaching of Ecclesiastical History—Edward J. Hickey; and
• Textbook on Church History—John K. Cartwright.45

Over time, these committees’ efforts were quietly abandoned or subsumed
in another activity.
For the 1925 annual meeting at Ann Arbor, Guilday had approached
thirty scholars to organize sessions that would be devoted to major church
historians of the past. In due course fourteen historians presented papers
on historians across the centuries from Eusebius to Ludwig von Pastor.
They appeared in a Guilday-edited book, Church Historians (New York,
1926), which was the first of three volumes published by P. J. Kenedy.
Marketing the latter book to the public and outreach to laity to attend
sessions at the annual meeting appeared to be the limits of promoting a
popular approach to church history. In his 1927 annual report, Guilday
noted the risks for the ACHA in attracting a large membership and popularizing church history by bringing about “certain forces” compromising
“our ideals”:
44. “Proceedings of the Third Annual Meeting,” pp. 15–23.
45. “Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Meeting[,] American Catholic Historical Association, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, December 28–31, 1925,” CHR, 11 (1925), 3–
17, here 5.

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One of these forces whose presence we should deprecate in the Association
would be that attitude of mind which sees in all Catholic organization [sic]
another means of carrying a doctrinal advance into the fold of those who
are not members of the Catholic Church. This must always be kept apart
from our ideal. That ideal is higher historical scholarship, profound historical research, the objective presentation of historical truth, and a calm dispassionate study of the Church’s great past. Into that study all must feel
free to enter with the assurance that the Association, while largely composed of Catholics, is sacredly pledged to objective historical truth.46

In light of CUA’s expanded academic activities in research and its academic journals, Guilday’s role of advancing the study of church history
reinforced his vision. With the ACHA Executive Council’s approval in
1927, he reported then and in his 1928 annual report that “[w]e need,
therefore, a training-school for the aspiring Catholic historical student, . . .
something more than a graduate course of history lectures, dissertationpreparation, and historical research.” There, the student, having finished
coursework, would
find the proper and adequate apparatus of books and sources, come into
personal contact with the best scholars in his chosen field, and above all
be free from those responsibilities and distractions which ruin the prolonged leisure so necessary for scholarly thought and study.

His proposed institute should ideally be located at or near CUA’s Mullen
Library, with proximity to the Library of Congress. As the home of the
ACHA and the CHR and “properly equipped and endowed,” the institute
would draw the “attention of Catholic and non-Catholic alike upon the
preeminent place which must always be accorded to the history of Catholicism in the world. . . .” He aimed thereby to serve “many non-Catholic
scholars who despair of finding adequate answers to their problems concerning the historical past of the Church, a centre to which they might
come with confidence for assistance and cooperation.” In fact, Guilday’s
correspondence reveals the myriad inquiries about Catholic Church history
from non-Catholics. To him, too, the “importance of historical studies and
their bearing upon the cause of current problems and the shaping of our
national policies have come to be widely recognized.” The institute needed
an endowment—“we asked for $500,000.”47
46. “Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Meeting, American Catholic Historical Association, Washington, DC, December 27–31, 1927,” CHR, 14 (1928), 3–12, here 10.
47. Ibid., pp. 11–12; “Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Meeting American Catholic Historical Association, Indianapolis, December 27–30, 1928,” CHR, 15 (1929), 1–22, here 5–7.

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246

In another aspect of Guilday’s historical interests, he recognized the
anti-Catholic movements directly or indirectly attacking U.S. Catholics in
the 1920s. The Ku Klux Klan or “second Klan” revived in Atlanta in 1915
and had spread rapidly in the early 1920s, stirring a popular animus against
Catholics, Jews, those born outside the United States, and African Americans. The long struggle to achieve immigration restriction triumphed with
the Immigration Act of 1924 whose system of annual quotas assigned for
immigrants for each nation vastly reduced the number of arrivals of
Catholics, Jews, and Orthodox from eastern and southern Europe.
In 1928 Guilday’s annual report was issued in the month after the
presidential election marked by a flood of anti-Catholic propaganda
directed against the Catholic Church, as one of its members, New York
governor Alfred E. Smith, sought the nation’s highest office. The campaign revealed the following to Guilday:
Never has it been so vital to the peace of any nation in which Catholics
and non-Catholics live side by side that our people should be well trained
in a knowledge of the Church’s history. Here, in English-speaking lands,
lies the main battle between truth and error, between bigotry and liberalmindedness, between Christ and the spirit of the modern world.

Recent events showed “more clearly than ever the futility of a scattering
defence of our Catholic historical past.” A “central school or institute,” as
he again urged, “where all these problems which cause antagonistic attitudes in our people, can be calmly studied and evaluated by our own scholars and by the ever-increasing number of those who are devoted to historical truth. . . .” The institute would accomplish these aims “with the firm
purpose of laying the ax to the root of all these prejudices which are the
fruits of a misunderstanding or a misinterpretation of the historical background Catholicism brings to every land under the sun.”48
The Catholic Historical Review Reorganized
Meanwhile, under Browne’s editorship papers presented at the
ACHA annual meetings were published as articles in the CHR except
those of the 1925 meeting. Through 1926, by Guilday’s count, ninety-two
papers had been presented in the ACHA sessions since 1920. Over half
appeared as articles. Of these, twenty-eight dealt with early and medieval
church history; twenty-nine with modern and European history; fifteen on
48. Ibid., pp. 7–8.

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247

historical research, criticism, and composition; and twenty on American
Catholic history.49
For the CHR’s book reviews, Browne recruited reviewers at CUA,
especially the young history professor and Yale doctoral alumnus Richard
J. Purcell and experienced writers residing in the Washington, DC, region,
although not all were historians.
By 1928, Guilday was finding fault with his former student’s performance. As editor, Browne needed to raise authors’ prose to the quality suited to an academic journal. Since weak articles were being published, Guilday proposed to Shahan that a committee be formed to
examine the articles submitted, suggest changes, or reject those unsuitable for their publication. Then he reported Browne’s health had
declined so that he could not “physically do the work.” Browne preferred
to work at his home, coming to campus for his classes and little else.
Growing more frustrated with Browne’s editing, Guilday described the
CHR’s July 1928 issue as “pitiable.”50 To lure Browne out of his home
and closer to the ACHA’s operations, the CHR’s Board of Editors
(mostly faculty members), and the history graduate program, Guilday
invited him to share office space in CUA’s new John K. Mullen of
Denver Library. When the latter opened in 1928, the new university
rector, Monsignor James H. Ryan, assigned Guilday an office there for
the ACHA and a seminar room. Browne at first agreed to the move but
then “refused categorically.”51
How Browne viewed his editorial work cannot be ascertained. He was
age sixty-four in 1928, and his energy and acumen had apparently

49. At the same 1928 meeting he related the ACHA’s founding to defending Catholicism. Its founders held: “(1) the recognition that in English-speaking lands the great terrain
of misunderstanding and controversy between Catholics and non Catholics has ever been the
field of history; (2) the desire to create one central organization for the historical activities of
all Catholics, cleric and lay, in the United States; (3) the increase of knowledge in the historical past of the Church among Catholics and non-Catholics by publishing the results of the
individual scholar’s study; and (4) the mutual help and encouragement Catholics and nonCatholic scholars would receive from these annual gatherings where all can meet under the
aegis of history and find common and mutual grounds for respect, reverence, and esteem for
the great Mother Church of the ages.
50. ACUA, Guilday to Thomas Shahan, January 1, 1926, Correspondence (A–Z),
1917–1926 folder; and Guilday to Shahan, October 4, 1928, Correspondence folder, 1927–
1928, ACHA Collection.
51. Ibid.

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“IN THE INTEREST OF TRUE HISTORY”

declined.52 His personal isolation and faltering editorial skills prompted
Guilday to compose a memorandum to Ryan reviewing the CHR’s history
and relation to the ACHA in mid-December 1928. Therein he described
the difficulties with Browne and concluded with a “Proposition. . . to make
the Review the legal property of the Association” because:
a) Dr. Browne’s physical incapacity will no longer permit him to guide
the editorial policy of the Review; b) a closer amalgamation of the entire
subscription list of the Review with the Association will strengthen the
important institution in its work of spreading a knowledge of, and an
interest in, Catholic Church history; c) such an amalgamation will give
permanency to the Review which has never been incorporated as a University project; and d) placed under the direction of the Executive Council of the Association, the Review, in its editorial board and in its policy,
will become representative of the scholarship which the Association is
undoubtedly augmenting in American Catholic circles.53

Guilday’s proposal addressed the problem of the ACHA Executive
Council’s lack of authority in the selection, accountability, or dismissal of
the editor of its official journal. Since 1921, the ACHA’s most visible link
to the CHR consisted of publishing papers presented at the ACHA meeting as articles, the annual report presented at each December’s ACHA
meeting, and Guilday’s Notes and Comment article in every issue. Raising
the possibility of the ACHA Executive Council withdrawing its designation of the CHR as its official journal provided the only leverage that could
be exerted about its policies.
After Guilday’s memo was composed on December 14, the ACHA
Executive Council met on December 18, 1928, at which Guilday presented the following motion that was approved. The council charged him
to carry out it by informing the rector:
Unless the Association’s control be extended over the editorial policy of
the Review, either 1) by assuming full responsibility financial and editorial, for the quarterly publication of the Review, or 2) by the addition of
an advisory board of editors chosen from our membership with its privilege of a deciding voice in its editorial policy, the Association will cease

52. For mailing purposes, the CHR listed on its title page The Catholic University of
America, but Browne’s CHR stationery used for “editorial matters” listed his home address,
1406 Lawrence St., in the Brookland neighborhood near the CUA campus.
53. ACUA, Guilday, “Memorandum on Catholic Historical Review,” December 14,
1929, and Guilday to Ryan, December 19, 1928, Editorial Correspondence (1929), ACHA
Collection.

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249

its affiliation with the Review after the January 1929 issue, and will adopt
other means for the publication of its papers and proceedings.54

As Guilday soon learned, CUA’s Executive Committee affirmed that
the CHR belonged under the rector’s “immediate jurisdiction.”55 Hence,
CUA would continue to own it. Owing to Browne’s poor health, the rector
concluded his service and on January 18, 1929, appointed Guilday the
CHR’s editor.56 The January 1929 issue was Browne’s last, and the April
issue Guilday’s first under his new appointment. With Guilday as ACHA
secretary and editing the CHR, the Association’s interests in having an
official journal of potential high-quality were protected. ACHA members
would thereafter staff the CHR.
When addressing the CHR’s problems in 1928–29, Guilday most
likely saw himself as participating in CUA’s “Renewal of the Graduate
Thrust”—the description by the university’s historian of the regime of its
fifth rector, the dynamic Ryan. The latter was determined to lead its faculty
toward greater scholarly achievement. With the nation’s leading research
universities setting the standard, he made research and publication the goal
for faculty promotion.57 The university already had a strong research base,
as Guilday noted in 1928, with the “many national Catholic learned societies that are centred” there. By then, too, diocesan priests had risen to
national influence in their respective fields. Edward Pace, CUA’s vice
rector and a national leader in education, had published the Catholic Educational Review from its own press since 1911 and had cofounded the American Catholic Philosophical Association in 1926. William Kerby, founder of
Catholic sociology and social work, enjoyed national influence through the
publication since 1917 of the Catholic Charities Review. Kerby had edited
54. Ibid.
55. ACUA, Guilday to Browne, January 20, 1929, Box 31, Editorial Correspondence
(1929), ACHA Collection.
56. ACUA, Ryan to Guilday, January 18, 1929, Box 31, Editorial Correspondence,
ACHA Collection. Ryan stated: “The Review means a great deal to the University and I am
quite sure you, with the aid of the members of the Department of History, will be able to
make of the Review what we wish it to become.”
57. See Nuesse, Catholic University of America, pp. 241–86, which describes Ryan’s role
as CUA’s “second founder,” advancing its status and greatly improving its finances despite
internal opposition and the depression. John T. McNicholas, archbishop of Cincinnati and a
CUA trustee, took to the Holy See his ideological opposition to Ryan’s research agenda as an
attempt to secularize the university. Hence, the rector abruptly was appointed bishop of
Omaha in 1935—an action widely regarded as a punishment and demotion—although the
U.S. bishops had reappointed him to a second term as rector in 1934. Ryan had been
appointed a titular bishop in 1932.

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“IN THE INTEREST OF TRUE HISTORY”

the nationally circulating journal of theology directed to priests, the American Ecclesiastical Review (AER). Published by St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia since its founding in 1889, CUA secured ownership in
1927. In 1926, Catholic philosophers, many associated with CUA, especially the future rector, formed the American Catholic Philosophical Association; its official journal, New Scholasticism, began publication at CUA in
1928. John Montgomery Cooper had introduced the study of anthropology
at CUA and formed the Catholic Anthropological Conference in 1926. Its
official publication, Primitive Man, began publishing there in 1928 with
Shahan listed on the title page as “Editor in Chief.” In this intellectual
atmosphere, the ACHA and its CHR were not to be left behind.58
1930s: Presence and Progress
The year 1929, as Guilday continued his work as ACHA secretary and
resumed the CHR editorship, marked a turning point for his activities, the
Association, and its journal. Pursuing several roles lasted for Guilday until
retiring in 1941. In 1929, too, his productivity as a scholar began to decline
as duties as secretary and editor increased while continuing to teach and to
direct a growing number of graduate students’ Master of Arts theses and
doctoral dissertations. Moreover, he carried on an extensive correspondence
with scholars representing many faiths and interests who inquired about
Catholic history. The years 1929–41 then mark a distinct period for Guilday,
the ACHA, and the CHR, separating it from the founding era of the 1920s.
On February 22, 1929, Guilday embarked on a sabbatical leave in
Europe, intent on archival research for his biography of New York Archbishop John Hughes. He remained there through the summer. Passing
most of 1929 abroad apparently stimulated thought on the range of contributions open to American Catholic historians. Having returned home and
presenting the 1929 ACHA annual report two months after late October’s
stock market “crash” marking the Great Depression’s beginning, Guilday
could maintain an upbeat outlook—the full impact of bad economic times
as yet unknown. As he looked to the future, he offered a penetrating assessment of recent Catholic historical works: “Few of us would defend the
thesis that the quality of historical scholarship in our ranks” stood as “high
and as permanent as the Catholic scholarship of other lands.” For American
58. During the period, Guilday was aware that the Society of Jesus in the United States
began the quarterly journal Thought (1926) and that a group of lay Catholics launched Commonweal (1924), a review treating intellectual and social issues. Of the journals published by
CUA or associated with figures there in this timeframe, only the CHR now remains.

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scholars, he allowed, “the fields of ancient, medieval, and early modern history” presented challenges because of archival sources located abroad. In his
own American Catholic history field, he noted harshly:
Much, indeed, that has been written by American Catholics has been
devoid of reality; that is, written with little or no attention to the social,
intellectual, political, and Catholic religious conditions of the time. A
singularly large number of works has appeared the past twenty-five
years—episcopal biographies, lives of noted priests, nuns and religious,
thousands of parochial histories, a goodly number of diocesan and
provincial histories, an equally large number of histories of religious
orders and congregations, and many volumes on various aspects of
Catholic action—charity, education, social welfare, journalism, etc.,
etc.—but too many of these productions are isolated from American life
and from the European backgrounds so vital to an adequate understanding of present-day cultural movements.59

Too much history already published dealt with an internal history confined
within the boundaries of the Church and/or Catholic interests, failing to
connect with contexts such as current movements in society. Hence, he
had stressed “in our annual meetings” the need for a “critical survey” of the
historical literature published by American Catholics, and of “all our historical resources in archives, libraries and museums in this country.”60
Even if his cherished dream of an endowed historical institute sponsoring varied activities remained unrealized, Guilday pursued some of its
aspects as part of the ACHA’s agenda. In 1930 at his behest the Executive
Council established a “revolving fund” of $2500 for publications. Leo F.
Stock’s project of collecting and editing documents related to the Holy
See’s diplomatic relations with the United States benefitted from this initiative and was published as United States Ministers to the Papal States:
Instructions and Dispatches, 1848–1868 (1933). Through the depression
years and after, the ACHA promoted its sale—best suited for research
libraries—to members. Meanwhile, Stock began collecting for a second
volume of U.S.-Holy See consular documents.
At two annual meetings, papers followed a common theme and were
published as edited volumes: the contemporary Church in 1931 and Catholic
philosophy of history in 1933. Owing to the support of publisher Kenedy,

59. “The Tenth Annual Meeting: American Catholic Historical Association, Catholic
University of America, December 27–28, 1929,” CHR, 16 (1930), 28–43, here 33.
60. Ibid., p. 33.

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“IN THE INTEREST OF TRUE HISTORY”

these papers were published under Guilday’s editorship and without cost to
the ACHA as The Catholic Church in Contemporary Europe: 1919–1931 (New
York, 1932), with chapters on the Church in Belgium, England, France,
Germany, Ireland, Italy, Russia, and Spain. The Catholic Philosophy of History
(New York, 1936) included essays on St. Augustine, Otto of Friesing, St.
Thomas Aquinas, Dante, Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, and Giambattista Vico.
His views, as always, were directed to the ACHA members whose
response to them cannot be ascertained. One measure of the association’s
presence to its varied publics related to growth of its membership. During
the depression’s economically harsh early years, the ACHA achieved its
highest membership levels to that time—715 (1930), 738 (1931), and 726
(1932)—corresponding to the active outreach related to holding the annual
meeting in cities with large Catholic communities. Membership fell to 657
(1934) before gradually recovering to 690 (1940). Although the economic
turmoil of the 1930s affected members’ finances, the ACHA maintained a
stable level of membership despite statements in annual reports about nonrenewals. Therein, figures regarding nonrenewals were listed in a category
with the “loaded” word delinquents—apparently dismissing the members’
financial difficulties during hard economic times.
The ACHA maintained its presence among historians through the
annual meetings mostly held with the AHA and affiliates—twelve by
1939—at Boston (1930), Minneapolis (1931), Toronto (1932), Washington, DC (1934, 1939), Providence (1936), Philadelphia (1937), Chicago
(1938), and New York (1940). On two occasions the ACHA did not meet
with the AHA and its affiliates: which convened at Urbana, Illinois (1933),
and Chattanooga, Tennessee (1935). In those years the ACHA annual
meetings were held respectively at Pittsburgh and Boston where a substantial number of local Catholics were recruited to attend. In 1934, while joining the AHA and affiliates for the annual meeting, the ACHA met with
the American Catholic Philosophical Association. That year, the ACHA
sponsored its first-ever joint session with the American Society of Church
History—an organization that was historically Protestant—and the AHA
on the topic “The Development of Religious Liberty in Colonial America.”
At the ACHA meeting in Toronto the Canadian Catholic Historical
Association was founded.
Through the interwar years, Guilday continued to value the ACHA’s
relationship with the nation’s historians at the annual meeting. At the
ACHA’s twentieth annual meeting in 1939, Guilday described their
“many intangible values” about which “a fair appraisal of their worth to stu-

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dents and teachers and writers in the field is not always easy to reach.” Personal contacts and friendships formed, he found, were “always helpful to
advance Catholic historical scholarship and the opportunity to meet leaders in the [historical] field can hardly be over-estimated.”61
During the period the ACHA Committee on Nominations selected
presidents who projected some positive aspect about Catholicism. Scholarship in church history engaged but a few. Selecting three converts to
Catholicism—Hayes, Sargent, and Bell—suggests that the faith could
attract persons of intellect. Three presidents had associations with highstatus Harvard University—none from Yale. For a list of ACHA presidents from 1930 to 1940, see appendix A.
During the period the AHA president served as first vice-president in
the preceding year, the position of second vice-president became the preserve of priests. Despite a membership heavily consisting of priests, a priesthistorian participating in the ACHA’s leadership knew he could rise no
higher than second vice-president. Similar to the ACHA presidents, not all
priests selected were scholars or held an academic position. The presence of
several prominent pastors reflected their expected outreach on the organizing committees in the locale where the annual meeting was held. Those
serving included diocesan and religious priests (see appendix B).
Priests played a prominent role as scholars at the annual meetings (see
figure 1). In reflecting on the first twenty annual meetings, Guilday’s
survey indicated that “239 papers have been read at our sessions,” revealing
the magnitude of priests’ contributions: diocesan clergy, seventy-four
papers, and religious clergy, sixty-five papers. The latter were divided
among Society of Jesus (Jesuits), thirty papers; Order of St. Benedict
(Benedictines), eight papers; Order of Friars Minor (Franciscans—all
branches), seven papers; Society of Mary (Marists), seven papers; Order of
Friars-Preachers (Dominicans), six papers; Congregation of Holy Cross
(Holy Cross), three papers; Order of St. Augustine (Augustinians), two
papers; Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle (Paulists), one paper;
and Society of the Divine Word (Divine Word Missionaries), one paper.
In contrast, only six religious sisters had presented. The lay presenters consisted of seventy-five Catholic men, six Catholic women, and thirteen
“Non-Catholics.”62

61. “The Twentieth Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association,
Hotel Mayflower, Washington, DC, December 28–30, 1939,” CHR, 26 (1940), 78–91, here 78.
62. Ibid., p. 54.

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“IN THE INTEREST OF TRUE HISTORY”

FIGURE 1. Profile of Presenters at ACHA Annual Meetings, 1920−39
Paper Presenters

Note. Data from Guilday, “Twentieth Annual Meeting,” CHR, 26 (1940), 54.

The overwhelming maleness of those active enough in the ACHA to
present papers prevailed through the period despite the steady rise in the
number of U.S. Catholic women’s colleges. Women’s religious communities generally sponsored such colleges. One may presume they offered history courses, which lay and religious women librarians with graduate
degrees taught. Although women had been present on the council from
the 1920s to the early 1940s in the ex-officio position of archivist, women
academics now moved into official positions with the Committee on
Nominations’ selection of the history professors Elizabeth M. Lynskey of
Hunter College, New York, in 1939 and Sister M. Augustina Ray,
B.V.M., Mundelein College, Chicago, in 1940. A significant presence of
women in leadership roles took place later.
The Catholic Historical Review Renewed
With the April 1929 issue, Guilday began to place his stamp again on
the CHR. Changes appeared immediately on its title page. Shahan, having
retired as CUA’s rector the previous year, was dropped from his honorary
“Editor-in-Chief” role; his successor did not assume the same title. The
Board of Editors drawn from the CUA faculty and likely underused was
dropped. Instead, three CUA faculty members—Peter Guilday; George
Boniface Stratemeier, O.P. (Guilday’s second doctoral student); and Leo

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F. Stock—were listed as editors; Guilday was not designated on the CHR’s
title page as the chief one.63
In the April 1930 issue the CHR title page introduced an “Advisory
Board of Editors” as a second tier of editorial direction, with six ACHA
members drawn from across the country. The first group of advisory editors—all priests—consisted of Joseph M. Gleason (Oakland, CA), Robert
H. Lord (Boston), Thomas Oestereich (Belmont Abbey, NC), Charles M.
Souvay (St. Louis), Francis Borgia Steck (Quincy, IL), and Gerald G.
Walsh (Woodstock, MD).
Through early 1929, Guilday circulated letters to a large number of
church historians, both clerical and lay, in the United States and Europe.
He sought their contributions of articles, reviews, or at least information
about their work and publications for inclusion in his Notes and Comment
section. By doing so, he sought to broaden contacts with Catholic historians; some he contacted personally while he was in Europe that year. Many
replied expressing interest, most professed a lack of time to produce articles, some offered to write book reviews, and others were open to providing
information on historical activities for the Notes and Comment feature.64
In the 1932 ACHA annual report, Leo F. Stock, in discussing the
CHR, “took pride in asserting that never has it reached a higher level of
scholarship than at present”—the good news. At the same time he admitted the editors’ concern about the “number and quality of articles submitted” mostly papers presented at the annual meetings. Then the bad news:
“Few contributors of acceptable scholarship are independently presented,”
which he found “surprising” given the growing number of scholars. Like
most journals, contributors received no honorarium. Yet he hoped scholars
would submit articles contributing original knowledge that would offer
“not a rehash of a hackneyed theme, nor a popular treatment of a topic of
questionable or local interest.”65
Through the decade CUA-based editors were added: Joseph B. Code
(1933), designated “co-editor” in 1937, and Aloysius Ziegler (1938).
Stratemeier (1938) and Stock (1939) departed. As Guilday’s health

63. Although not so stated on the title page, the rector’s exchanges of letters with Guilday indicate the latter was indeed editor, whereas Stratemeier and Stock were his “associates.”
64. See correspondence in ACUA, Guilday Papers, Box 1.
65. “The Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association,” CHR, 19 (1933), 50–63, here 58.

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“IN THE INTEREST OF TRUE HISTORY”

declined, John Tracy Ellis and layman Martin R. P. McGuire were added
as editors in 1939.66
Through the 1930s, the advisory editors, consisting of priests and
laymen residing outside Washington, DC, and a few CUA faculty,
changed regularly as the needs for producing the journal’s issues developed.
Advisory board changes included departures of Souvay (1933) and Walsh
(1935). Those who served up to 1940 included Lawrence K. Patterson,
James F. Kenney, Raymond Corrigan, James A. Magner, William M.
Ducey, Victor Gellhaus, William Michael Ducey, and John Meng.
Continuing through the 1930s, the CHR’s articles started life as
papers presented at the annual meeting. Given the nature of papers, their
level of quality varied according to the authors’ differing talents, expertise,
time for preparation, and writing skills. The trio of editors met quarterly
and, as needed, endured the hassle of content editing, copyediting, fact
checking, and proofreading to maintain the journal’s level of quality.
With the completion of twenty volumes, the CHR reached a milestone.
Rev. Harold J. Bolton—a Muskegon, Michigan, volunteer and ACHA
member—compiled an index of its quarterly issues that encompassed 1915–
35, which was completed and made available for sale in 1938.67
Late in Guilday’s editorship, his associate, Stock, reflected on the journal
as it began its twenty-fifth volume (1939). Although he indicated that “our
quarterly” was not “beyond criticism” or could meet the needs of “all classes”
of its readers, he noted the journal lacked “full-time editorial service” (just the
part-time work of its editors) and the number of its pages per issue was limited. Yet, he believed the CHR had “made a distinct place for itself in the
ranks of historical periodicals and in the service of Catholic scholarship.”68
The Guilday Years in Perspective
Guilday’s report at the 1934 annual meeting marked the ACHA’s fifteenth anniversary. Unlike his annual reports’ usual upbeat recounting of its
founding and progress, he gave remarkable attention to three major failures:

66. Data on editors and advisory editors is based on the author’s examination of
changes on the CHR’s title pages.
67. “The Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association,” CHR, 25 (1939), 59–70, here 62.
68. Ibid., p. 62.

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• First, he discussed the failure to attract a larger membership whose geographic distribution had not grown “proportionately” across the country
from its base in the Northeast and Middle West. He was “loathe” to attribute the problem entirely to hard economic times, but he thought “Catholic
educators and scholars, both ecclesiastical and lay” were not aware of the
ACHA’s aims.
• Second, he mentioned the “inability of our standing committees to make perceptible progress in the work assigned to them a decade ago.” Only three had
made “preliminary reports” recording some progress. He expressed “particular
disappointment” in not obtaining funding to complete a bibliography of
church history for students and teachers. The six committees, as he urged,
“should be augmented until all aspects of historical science are covered, so that
by a natural evolution, the ASSOCIATION will develop in to five or six central conferences with separate sessions at our annual meetings.” To do so “will
require an endowment so that the work go not limping along as at present.” 69
• The third failure, as he related, “to be taken in good spirit owing to the
financial straits of our people” pertained to the lack of “establishment and
endowment of an Institute of Historical Research” at CUA “where, side by
side with the excellent direction” the other area universities could provide
and “in the Library of Congress, and in various governmental bureaus and
institutions, we might be of help to non-Catholic students and teachers in
that field of research which is peculiarly our own, namely, general Catholic
Church history.” In his view the ACHA could accomplish so much more to
advance “historical science” with an endowment of at least $500,000 for the
“building, equipment, maintenance and a permanent salaried staff.”70

As a “fourth part of our activities,” the “singular” success of Stock’s
United States Ministers to the Papal States: 1848–1868 (Washington, DC,
1933, Vol. I of the Documents series) would not be repeated without
maintaining the “Revolving Fund of $2500” to publish more such “sourcebooks.” But, he lamented, “more than one appeal to wealthy Catholics has
met with an indifferent response.”71
Guilday, despite “these shadows,” called attention to the ACHA’s
“accrued assets,” including the “encouragement we have received from the
hierarchy [bishops] . . . with but few exceptions all these spiritual leaders
are members of our society.”72 He did not venture into whether historical
69. “The Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association,”
Washington, DC, December 26–29, 1934,” CHR, 21 (1935), 65–80, here 76. Emphasis in
original.
70. Ibid., pp. 76–77.
71. Ibid., p. 77.
72. Ibid., p. 77.

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consciousness ever penetrated their minds, turned their attention to the
professional management of diocesan archives, or enlightened them to
allow access to scholars for historical research.
In 1940 for the twenty-first and last time, Guilday issued the ACHA
annual report. Without openly expressing disappointment, he reported the
annual delay in his cherished project of a bibliography of American
Catholic history, although work continued. His other project—a bibliography of ACHA members’ publications—had recently begun.73
From Peter Guilday to John Tracy Ellis
The transition of leadership from Guilday brought forward a young
priest-scholar already closely identified with CUA. Born in Seneca, Illinois, in 1905 to a Protestant father and Catholic mother, John Tracy Ellis
was educated in his native town’s Catholic schools and finished high
school and took undergraduate studies at St. Viator College in Bourbonnais, Illinois. With a Knights of Columbus scholarship, he enrolled at
CUA in 1927, where he received his PhD in medieval history under Guilday’s direction in 1930. After teaching at several Catholic colleges, he discerned a call to diocesan priesthood. For theological studies, he enrolled in
1934 at Sulpician Seminary, adjacent to CUA, which the latter acquired
and renamed Theological College in 1940. As a seminarian, he taught part
time at CUA and joined the history department faculty full time after ordination in 1938. Through his graduate studies and dissertation related to
medieval church history, he took up American church history in 1941
when asked to teach Guilday’s American church history courses.74 Ellis
was elected to the CHR’s Board of Editors in February 1939 and the
ACHA Executive Council in December 1940.
Formalities of Ellis’s appointment navigated the protocols of the
ACHA and the CHR. At Guilday’s behest, ACHA president Marshall
W. Baldwin, residing in New York City, called a meeting of the Executive

73. “The Twenty-First Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association, Hotel Pennsylvania, New York City, December 27–30, 1940,” CHR, 27 (1941), 72–79,
here 77–78.
74. John Tracy Ellis, “Fragments from My Autobiography, 1905–1942,” Review of Politics, 36 (1974), 555–91; and Ellis, “The Catholic University of America, 1927–1976: A Personal Memoir” Social Thought, Spring 1979, 35–61. A timeline of Ellis’s life appears in “The
Reverend Monsignor John Tracy Ellis, Curriculum Vitae,” in Studies in Catholic History, ed.
Minnich et al., pp. 666–73; and Mark A. Miller, “Bibliography of the Works of John Tracy
Ellis for the Years 1923–1985,) in ibid., pp. 675–738.

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Council and delegated first vice-president Martin R. P. McGuire to preside in his absence. Attendees at the CUA meeting on February 20, 1941,
included Wilfrid Parsons, S.J., second vice-president; John K. Cartwright,
treasurer; Guilday; and Ellis. Guilday presented his resignation, which the
council unanimously rejected. Then he proposed, and the council unanimously approved, the resolution that Ellis
be appointed by the Executive Council as Acting Secretary of the American Catholic Historical Association with the full powers of the position
of Secretary as specified in the Constitution, and as hitherto exercised by
Monsignor Guilday, . . . to include authority over the services of the staff
of the Executive Office.75

Having made the transition of the ACHA secretaryship, the council
addressed a matter for the CHR’s board to mark a major change of procedure. The council proposed the following policy to its Board of Editors:
a) that papers read at the annual meetings be not excluded as such from
the Review; b) that such papers, however, be considered by the editorial
board on their merits and on the same basis as other contributions submitted; c) that every effort be made by the editors to secure papers written by competent scholars throughout the country. This motion was discussed and adopted unanimously.

A week later, on February 27, 1941, the CHR Board of Editors’ quarterly
meeting convened consisting of Guilday; associate editors Martin R. P.
McGuire, Aloysius K. Ziegler, and Ellis; and treasurer James A. Magner.
Citing failing eyesight, Guilday asked to resign. Instead, the board
declined and appointed Ellis managing editor “with full powers to handle
the editorial business of the journal.” The board then considered the previously mentioned ACHA Executive Council proposal and adopted as
“general policy” the limit of thirty double-spaced, typed pages for manuscript submissions. Aiming for “as much variety as possible,” the board
decided that at its quarterly meetings it would approve “all future contributions submitted as articles” for publication. Another issue was resolved:
It was the sense of the editors that the Review, as the official organ of the
American Catholic Historical Association, should be co-ordinated as
closely as possible with the interests and aims of the Association and thus
best fulfill its purpose.76

75. “Notes and Comments,” CHR, 27 (1941), 109–22, here 109.
76. Ibid., pp. 110–11.

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The transition procedures recognized the separate but companion
relationship of the ACHA and the CHR. The ACHA Executive Council
made the appointment to the key office of secretary, whereas the Board of
Editors representing CUA’s ownership of the CHR selected the managing
editor. Given the reality of the CHR serving as the ACHA’s official organ,
the Board of Editors pledged a close coordination with the organization’s
“interests and aims.”
At the ACHA annual meeting on December 30, 1941, the thirty-sixyear-old Ellis made the transition from its acting secretary to secretary. In
the Business Meeting at the 1941 gathering, members recognized Guilday’s
desire “to be relieved of active duties in the Association.” To recognize his
“tireless and inspiring leadership . . . as its founder and guide for twenty-two
years” the members resolved: “That in addition to his title of Founder of the
American Catholic Historical Association, which is his in fact, he be recognized with the title Honorary President of the Association and that he hold
this title for life.” The CHR’s board named him “Editor-in-Chief”—a title
not used since Shahan’s day and one that lapsed with his death.77
With the 1941 annual meeting, Guilday, at age fifty-seven, concluded an
active role in the ACHA and the CHR, although available to Ellis and others
for advice. Guilday’s goal of completing the Archbishop Hughes biography as
the culmination of his life’s historical work remained unfulfilled. After years
of declining health, he died July 30, 1947, in Washington, DC.
From Wartime through the Postwar Era
For the 1941–61 period, Ellis played the leading role in the ACHA as
secretary and served as the CHR’s managing editor, 1941–63. Like Guilday, Ellis articulated aspects of his own vision for advancing the study of
history, but, unlike his mentor, did not promote projects beyond the capacity of a professional organization. Hence, talk of a national historical institute located at CUA and large-scale editing projects ended. Likewise,
much of Guilday’s outreach to local Catholics wherever the annual meeting was held to promote their attendance apparently ended. In effect, Ellis
more closely identified the ACHA with academics and their interests.
Ellis issued his first annual report at the ACHA meeting in Chicago
in late December 1941, which was three weeks after Japan’s attack on Pearl
77. Ibid., p. 72. Guilday had been honored with the conferral of a domestic prelate;
hence the title “monsignor” in 1935.

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Harbor brought the United States into World War II. Several noteworthy
initiatives began the Ellis era. The Executive Council approved changes in
the ACHA constitution, including selection of officers “by ballot” at the
annual meeting and the discontinuation of the offices of assistant secretary
and archivist. In addition to the president, first vice-president, second vicepresident, secretary, and treasurer serving on the Executive Council ex officio, six other members henceforth were “elected two each year to serve
three years.”78 This added another member to the previous five members
who had been elected to the Executive Council.
Another change in representation was forthcoming. To place the election of officers on a “more democratic basis,” Ellis secured in 1945 the Executive Council’s approval that the Committee on Nominations “select several
names in each case [office] from which the membership would be given an
opportunity to choose one and return the ballot to the executive office several
weeks in advance of the annual meeting.”79 Henceforth, the major officers
and the Executive Council were elected from a slate of two candidates for
each position—except for the offices of secretary and treasurer.
In due course, World War II intervened to affect the ACHA’s routine.
For 1942, the AHA canceled its annual meeting planned for Columbus,
Ohio, as the nation’s wartime transportation needs during the holiday
season precluded holding conventions of national organizations. Instead,
the ACHA held a business meeting and luncheon on January 16, 1943, for
fifty-five at the Hotel Mayflower in Washington, DC. After the war ended
in 1945 the Armed Forces’ rapid demobilization to return its members
home for the holidays precluded holding the usual post-Christmas meeting.
The ACHA again held only a business meeting and luncheon on December
15, 1945, for thirty-four members at the Hotel Statler in Washington, DC.
Otherwise, the ACHA gathered for the annual meeting in 1943 and
1944 with the AHA and affiliated societies. Through the postwar era, the
AHA’s selection of sites determined the locales for the ACHA’s annual
meetings: Washington, DC (1948, 1952, 1955, 1958, 1961), New York
(1943, 1946, 1951, 1954, 1960), Chicago (1944, 1950, 1953, 1959),
Cleveland (1947), Boston (1949), and St. Louis (1956). The ACHA and
AHA reinforced their mutual attachment by sponsoring a joint session at
each annual meeting from the 1940s onward.
78. Ibid., pp. 72–73.
79. “Twenty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association,
Washington, December 15, 1945,” CHR, 32 (1946), 59–68, here 59.

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After World War II ACHA membership grew steadily in the expansion of U.S. higher education that also affected academic organizations.
The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944—the famous “G.I. Bill”—
provided funding for tuition and living expenses to veterans of the Armed
Forces pursuing higher education or vocational training. Although many
thought the legislation would attract relatively few veterans, more than 2
million service members took advantage of benefits. In response to waves
of new students, colleges and universities scrambled to find classroom
space and living quarters, hire qualified instructors, and expand graduate
programs. Accordingly, the constituency surrounding each academic discipline grew, and each academic association increased its membership. Historical associations such as the AHA and its affiliated societies representing historical sub-specialties could expect to expand members and
influence in the future.
In the postwar context, the ACHA’s membership of 745 in 1941
increased steadily to 1011 in 1953—exceeding 1000 for the first time. For
this milestone, Ellis’s annual report recorded as members 419 priests, 113
sisters, eleven religious brothers, 274 laymen and -women, and eightyeight institutions. Of the priests, he noted 106 of the nation’s 198 bishops
were members.80
The nation’s volume of higher education activities continued to “boom”
in numbers of institutions, size of their faculties, and students through the
1950s. The ACHA continued to benefit. When it observed its fortieth
anniversary in 1959, Ellis released another survey of its membership of 1168
distributed into several categories. Institutions accounted for sixty-eight
members, resulting in 1100 individual members. Priests in various categories, as usual, supplied nearly half the membership—526. Of these, 102
(including five cardinals) represented the episcopate, 203 were diocesan
priests, and 221 belonged to forty-three religious orders or clerical communities. Religious sisters had a respectable showing, with 171 college/university instructors and thirty-five high school teachers. Laymen supplied 294
members, with 160 identified as college/university instructors. Laywomen
numbered fifty-seven, with twenty-nine instructors at higher education
institutions.81 Postwar higher education’s expansion had notably increased
ACHA membership among religious sisters and the laity.
80. “Thirty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association,
Chicago, December 28–30, 1953,” CHR, 40 (1954), 46–62, here 54.
81. “Fortieth Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association,
Chicago, December 28–30, 1959,” CHR, 46 (1960), 27–42, here 38–39.

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During the period, Ellis collaborated with a given year’s president in
sending hundreds of letters to Catholic academics and educators, inviting
the recipients to join the ACHA. In Ellis’s last full year as secretary—
1960—membership advanced to 1211.
ACHA Presidents
Selecting laymen to hold the annual presidency continued through the
Ellis years. In 1959, as he reported, the Executive Council considered
opening the presidency to priests, but priests on the council opposed the
change.82 In contrast to the Guilday era, presidents especially those serving
after the war held academic positions in history departments of distinguished institutions. For a list of ACHA presidents from 1941 to 1960, see
appendix A.
Second vice-presidents consisted of priests with the exceptions of
Dora J. Gunderson (1955) and Annabelle Melville (1960), who were
selected during brief surges of concern about the lack of women among the
ACHA’s officers. Late in the Guilday era, as noted, the first women served
officially on the Executive Council. During the Ellis years, women consistently served on the Executive Council and the standing committees. For
a list of second vice-presidents from 1941 to 1960, see appendix B.
The Catholic Historical Review in Transition
Beginning in 1941, Ellis’s annual reports to the ACHA made members aware of the CHR’s several dimensions. It was designated the
ACHA’s official journal, but the CUA Press made it available to individual
and institutional subscribers without requiring membership in the association. That year, subscribers numbered 276, whereas 637 ACHA members
received the journal as part of their member benefits. In another dimension
to its circulation 115 copies were exchanged with other journals and periodicals. Journals received on exchange became part of the CUA Mullen
Library’s wealth of periodical holdings in a range of historical and religious
areas. Hence, 1030 copies of each issue circulated—a majority to ACHA
members. Each year, Ellis reported the CHR’s distribution to ACHA
members, to subscribers, and to individuals and entities through exchange
arrangements. By 1960, Ellis’s last full year as ACHA secretary, the CHR
circulated to 641 subscribers, and 123 were exchanged for similar journals.
82. Ibid.

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With the 1211 sent to ACHA members, the CHR distributed 1975 copies
of each issue.83
Beginning in 1941, as noted, the Ellis era began with the “changed
policy” for the journal to encourage ACHA members to submit manuscripts. He thereby hoped to expand the range of contributors beyond
those presenting papers at the annual meeting. As he explained:
The quality of our official journal has been, and in large measure will
remain, dependent upon the character and number of manuscripts submitted for the judgment of the editorial board. It is our hope . . . , to see
the Catholic Historical Review exercise the utmost influence in Catholic
and non-Catholic historical circles. We have it within our power not only
to continue the high tone which has marked its nearly thirty years of life,
but to improve it. But its improvement and its advancement into the
front rank of American historical reviews is a responsibility which rests in
good measure on the membership of this Association.

Although he wished to see manuscripts “from those outside the Association,” he disclosed that “we do not very often have the opportunity to pass
judgment on such materials, for they are not sent to us.” Of those submitted, he said, some “do not measure up to even the modest standards we
attempt to enforce.” He urged members to submit manuscripts revealing
“fruits of original research and demonstrate a real contribution to our
knowledge.” Preferring manuscripts on American topics, he still welcomed
those treating all areas of Catholic history. In his next annual report, he
noted progress, as seven of the eighteen articles published that year had
been presented as papers.84
In producing each quarterly issue, the “devil,” as always, lay in the
details of evaluating the submitted articles; editing those accepted for content and/or style; and proofreading and printing. Ellis acknowledged two
fellow editors as his closest collaborators in this demanding process: Aloysius Ziegler, diocesan priest who joined CUA’s history department in 1934
to teach medieval history, and Martin R. P. McGuire, layman, professor of
83. “The Twenty-Second Annual Meeting, of the American Catholic Historical Association, Stevens Hotel, Chicago, December 29–31, 1941,” CHR, 28 (1940), 71–84, here 82;
“The Forty-First Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association, New
York, December 28–30, 1960,” CHR, 47 (1961), 15–28, here 25.
84. “Twenty-Second Annual Meeting,” p. 82; “The Twenty-Third Annual Meeting of
the American Catholic Historical Association, Washington, January 16, 1943,” CHR, 29
(1943), 65–75, here 71.

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Latin and Greek at CUA, and long-serving dean.85 As figures on the university campus, they joined Ellis for the quarterly board meetings. Others
serving as editors included Albert C. Rush, C.Ss.R, and John Zeender.
The Advisory Board of Editors, consisting of ACHA members at
CUA and other institutions, contributed their advice in their areas of
expertise as needed. These lay and clerical scholars represented a range of
areas and periods, and changed through the years. In 1941 they included
Raymond Corrigan, Victor Gellhaus, John J. Meng, John T. Farrell, James
F. Kenney, and Francis Borgia Steck. In the early 1940s, Corrigan, Kenny,
Magner, Meng, and Steck retired from the board; Tibor Kerekes and
Frederick Welfle served briefly. Manoel Cardozo of CUA and Thomas
McAvoy, C.S.C., gave lengthy service, 1944–57, as did Robert F. McNamara, 1949–55, and William L. Davis, 1947–55. In 1951, as the pool of
Catholic historians enlarged, advisory editors served at first for four years
and then took up three-year terms.86
As for the kind of history guiding his direction as editor, Ellis held a
view similar to that of Guilday:
I always shied away from too pronounced a “Catholic” philosophy of history during my editorship, and for that matter, in all that I have written
as a historian, lest the apologetic approach should give it a coloration that
would do a disservice to historical truth.

Ellis believed history was no place for sectarian conflict:
grave damage to Catholic scholarship has been done by some Catholics
in the field of history who have viewed their task as a sort of battleground
whereon they were called to fight the Church’s foes and to defend her
against their assaults.87

To evaluate the CHR’s contributions on the occasion of its fortieth
anniversary, Ellis recruited Carl Wittke, a non-Catholic, a distinguished
historian of American history, and dean of the Graduate School of West85. “John Tracy Ellis, “Reflections of an Ex-Editor,” CHR, 50 (1965), 459–74, here 471.
86. Those appointed for terms through 1963 included Paul Kiniery, Joseph N. Moody,
Charles Metzger, George L. A. Reilly, Walter W. Wilkinson, Edward Gargan, Henry G. J.
Beck, Basil Leo Lee, Edward D. McShane, Frederick Pike, David J. Herlihy, Vincent
Tegeder, William Coleman, John F. Broderick, Frank Klement, Vincent DeSantis, Marshall
Dill, Edwin A. Beilharz, and Sister Consuelo Maria Aherne (the sole woman).
87. Ellis, “Reflections,” p. 471.

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ern Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University). Wittke
examined the CHR’s content since its founding. In his article, he praised
the journal as a means of publication for those interested in religious history, although historians had neglected its American aspects. In the journal’s early decades, he noted, some contributors had been preoccupied
with what constituted “Catholic” history. This concern had diminished.
Instead, in his view, “Obviously, there can be only two kinds of history,
good and bad, and the basis of comparison is the verifiable amount of
truth they contain and the method and style of presentation.” The prevalence of book reviews in the journal, he found, “which in recent years
avoid religious disputation, and deal with critical, scholarly analysis, seems
to be increasing.” Reviewers did not propose “one standard of appraisal for
books by Catholic authors.” In praise of its “steady growth in quality,” he
concluded,
It has gradually attained a stature comparable in its field with such journals, the Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique of Louvain, the Revue d’histoire de
l’église de France, and several German and Austrian publications. It has
stimulated interest in, and respect for, higher standards and deserves
larger circulation and support than it has. 88

In his 1958 annual report, Ellis, as usual, announced the number of
article manuscripts received, rejected, and published. The high number
of rejections prompted him to rehearse familiar views about too many
submissions “lacking in originality and a high professional competence”
or irrelevant to church history. His lament: “If we could somehow succeed in conveying to prospective contributors two points regarding their
manuscripts we could, perhaps, greatly lessen the embarrassment that
sometimes accompanies these rejections.” He then reminded members
each issue’s 136 pages lacked space “for popular essays or articles that
merely summarize from secondary sources already known facts.” Instead,
an article must “make a contribution to knowledge either through the
discovery of new facts based on original research or at least show a fresh
interpretation or approach to previously known data.” He indicated, too,
their contents must relate “to the history of Catholicism either in this
country or abroad.”89

88. Carl Wittke, “The Catholic Historical Review—Forty Years,” CHR, 42 (1956),
1–14.
89. “The Thirty-Ninth Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association, Washington, December 28–30, 1958,” CHR, 45 (1958), 24–37, here 36–37.

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The John Gilmary Shea Prize
At the 1944 annual meeting, the ACHA’s treasurer, John K.
Cartwright, proposed, and the Executive Council approved, the conferral
of an annual prize for an outstanding book in Catholic Church history—
the John Gilmary Shea Prize.90 The Committee on the Shea Prize became
a permanent part of the ACHA committee structure. After awarding the
prize—then $200 cash—for the first time in 1946, the committee decided
no book warranted it in 1947, 1948, and 1949.
In 1952 another problem arose concerning eligibility for the Shea
prize. The committee sought to award the prize to John Tracy Ellis for his
two-volume The Life of James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore,
1834–1921 (Milwaukee, 1952)—the work that established his reputation
as an historian. But Ellis prevented its conferral on himself. In two previous years, he excluded awarding the prize to his own CUA students whose
doctoral dissertations he had directed and were published as books—those
of Annabelle Melville and Henry Browne.91 In its 1953 deliberations, the
committee reported previously deferring to Ellis’s “fear that misunderstanding might arise among the membership” if his graduate students were
awarded. A “similar motive” had prompted Ellis to decline the committee’s
recommendation of awarding him the prize in 1952. In 1953, the committee overruled Ellis and awarded the prize to his Benedictine doctoral student, Colman Barry. In the business meeting that year, the committee
secured approval for the eligibility of Ellis’s students for the prize. They
thereby enjoyed the same eligibility as alumni of seven other U.S. Catholic
universities then conferring the doctorate in history.92
In 1956, the committee awarded Ellis the Shea prize for his slender
volume American Catholicism, a general history of U.S. Catholics that was
based on his Walgreen Lectures at the University of Chicago in 1955.
Aimed at a popular readership, the work hardly reflected depth of scholarship. Honoring it compensated for not recognizing him for the more significant Gibbons biography. In the following year, Ellis’s counterpart at
the University of Notre Dame, Thomas T. McAvoy, C.S.C., who presided

90. “The Silver Jubilee Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association,
Chicago, December 28–29, 1944,” CHR, 31 (1945), 80–90, here 81.
91. Their works: Annabelle Melville, Elizabeth Bayley Seton, 1774–1821 (New York,
1948) and Henry J. Browne, Catholic Church and the Knights of Labor (Washington, DC,
1949).
92. “Thirty-Fourth Annual Meeting,” pp. 46–47.

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over its history department and its massive archives of Catholic Americana,
received the Shea Prize for his volume on the Americanist Crisis.
During the period 1946–60, the Shea prize was awarded mostly to
authors treating a subject related to American Catholic history. For recipients of the Shea prize from 1946 to 1969, see table 1.
Projects and Publications
In the 1945 annual report, Ellis announced the publication of the
second volume of the ACHA series of Documents: Consular Relations
between the United States and the Papal States, edited by Leo F. Stock. The
U.S. Bishops’ N.C.W.C. Committee on the Pope’s Peace Points provided
a grant to fund this publication related to the U.S. government and the
Holy See.93 It concluded Stock’s years of work to locate documents, transcribe them, and edit them for publication that began nearly two decades
previous and resulted in the first publication. With the second volume’s
publication, the Guilday-era documents series was concluded.
The challenge that large-scale publication projects posed for the
ACHA did not deter Ellis from starting a more modest effort that
appeared feasible for a professional organization to undertake. At the 1945
annual meeting, the Executive Council approved his proposal for the
ACHA to sponsor a publication series called Miscellaneous—differing
from the Documents series and the three volumes of papers presented at
the annual meetings of 1925, 1931, and 1934. The publication of Ellis’s
own Formative Years of the Catholic University of America (Washington,
DC, 1946) provided the occasion for starting the new series. His Master of
Arts students then supplied theses on the early rectors of The Catholic
University of America for the subsequent volumes.94 As historical works
aiming for objectivity, the books stirred some negative reactions within the
CUA community as too much truth about the university’s early figures and
controversies. Some maintained the Catholic habits of suppressing negative aspects of past leaders.

93. “The Twenty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association, Washington, December 15, 1945,” CHR, 32 (1946), 59–68, here 61.
94. Ibid., p. 59. Other titles included Patrick H. Ahern, The Catholic University of
America, 1887–1896: The Rectorship of John J. Keane (Washington, DC, 1948); Peter E.
Hogan, The Catholic University of America, 1896–1903: The Rectorship of Thomas J. Conaty
(Washington, DC, 1949); Colman J. Barry, The Catholic University of America, 1903–1909:
The Rectorship of Denis J. O’Connell (Washington, DC, 1950). The series then concluded.

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TABLE 1. Recipients of the John Gilmary Shea Prize, 1946–69
Year

Individual

1946
1950
1951
1953
1954
1955

Carlton J. H. Hayes
John H. Kennedy
George W. Paré
Colman Barry, O.S.B.
Philip Hughes
Annabelle Melville

1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969

Work

Wartime Mission in Spain
Jesuit and Savage in New France
The Catholic Church in Detroit
The Catholic Church and German Americans
The Reformation in England (3 vols.)
John Carroll of Baltimore: Founder of the
American Catholic Hierarchy
John Tracy Ellis
American Catholicism
Thomas T. McAvoy, C.S.C. The Great Crisis in American Catholic
History, 1895–1900
John M. Daley, S.J.
Georgetown University: Origin and Early
Years
Robert Graham, S.J.
Vatican Diplomacy
Maynard Geiger, O.F.M.
Life and Times of Junipero Serra or the Man
Who Never Turned Back, 1713–1784
John Courtney Murray, S.J. We Hold These Truths
Francis Dvornik
The Slav in European History and
Civilization
Oscar Halecki
The Millennium of Europe
Helen C. White
Tudor Books of Saints and Martyrs
John T. Noonan
Contraception: A History of Its Treatment
by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists
Robert I. Burns, S.J.
The Jesuits and the Indian Wars of the
Northwest
Robert I. Burns, S.J.
The Crusader Kingdom of Valencia
Edward S. Surtz, S.J.
The Works and Days of John Fisher
Robert Brentano
Two Churches, England and Italy in the
Thirteenth Century

Note. Gaps reflect committee decisions not to award the prize in particular years.

As the Executive Council authorized in 1952, Ellis launched the John
Carroll Papers project with the assistance of Annabelle Melville and
Charles Metzger, S.J., West Baden College (a Jesuit seminary in Indiana);
the latter specialized in the colonial era. As reported in 1953, the project
aimed initially to collect facsimile copies of Carroll letters. In the next year,
Henry J. Browne, founding archivist of the CUA archives and assistant
professor in the history department, joined the committee.95 Locating Car95. Henry J. Browne, “A New Historical Project: Editing the Papers of Archbishop
John Carroll,” American Ecclesiastical Review, 127 (1952), 341–50.

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270

roll’s papers continued over twenty years; the ACHA annual reports
recorded the project’s progress. William D. Hoyt Jr. of Loyola College in
Baltimore took on the editorial tasks of the slow-moving project in 1955.96
Ellis and Catholic Intellectual Life
Carrying on his leadership roles, scholarship, and teaching opened to
Ellis views on American Catholics’ historical background and the role of
intellectual activities. With the publication of the massive biography of
Gibbons, his reputation as a leading Catholic intellectual was secured.
When he spoke or published his views thereafter commanded attention.
Through his years as ACHA secretary and the CHR’s editor, he laid the
foundation.
As a starting point, Ellis continued Guilday’s critique of U.S.
Catholics’ record of producing historical scholarship. As early as 1946, he
deplored the lack of article manuscripts submitted to the CHR’s editors
who “should have a wider margin of choice,” as the journal sought “to maintain high standards and serve the readers in the manner intended by its
founders.” He reported, “Space has not been wanting for scholarly articles
on the history of the Church or on Catholic subjects in our journal, . . . .”
But few make the effort to fill it: “It is, candidly, a bit discouraging to find
so little being done in a scholarly way by American Catholic historians.”97
Ellis’s attention broadened from Catholics’ neglect of history to their
regard for the intellectual life. He noted in his 1954 annual report, “the
widespread lack of interest in intellectual and cultural pursuits which
afflicts almost all learned societies such as ours.” He cited Philip Blair Rice,
associate editor of the Kenyon Review, whose article that year was “The
Intellectual Quarterly in a Non-Intellectual Society.”98 It prompted Ellis to
96. Hoyt reported substantial progress made in finding Carroll letters and transcribing
them in “Thirty-Ninth Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association,
Washington, December 28–30, 1958,” CHR, 45 (1959), 24–37. Paralleling the early years of
the Carroll Papers project, Ellis himself launched a documents project that was kept separate
from his ACHA activities. After gathering and editing a collection of primary sources related
to U.S. Catholic history, he published Documents in American Catholic History (Milwaukee,
1956), later revised (1962) and expanded to two volumes (1966). He also published on his
own A Select Bibliography of the History of the Catholic Church in the United States (New York,
1947) updated in 1959 and with Robert F. Trisco in 1982.
97. “The Twenty-Seventh Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association, New York City, December 27–29, 1946,” CHR, 33 (1947), 31–42, here 41.
98.

Philip

Blair

Rice,

“The

Intellectual

Kenyon Review, 16 (1954), 420 1/n 39.

Quarterly

in

a

Non-Intellectual

Society,”

JOSEPH M. WHITE

271

reflect on “a woeful lack of interest among American Catholics in matters
of an intellectual character.” In what became characteristic of his critique,
he contrasted the booming numbers and resources in U.S. Catholic life
with a lack of “intellectual progress.” He stated, a “modern Diogenes going
about with his lantern in search of intellectuals among the American
Catholics would not have to report the extent of failure attributed to the
ancient Greek cynic’s search for an honest man, but he certainly would
quickly convince himself that, in proportion to the total Catholic population, the intellectuals were and are a small and insignificant minority.” He
reported attending a recent gathering of twenty “to discuss the theme, ‘The
Catholic in American Intellectual Life,’” where he found “unanimous
agreement . . . that the numbers and influence of the Catholics of true
intellectual stature in this country are pitifully small.” A lack of interest in
intellectual matters among Catholics related to
a pathetic fact that a national society such as ours can draw only about
150 people to an annual meeting, and that efforts to enlist the membership of even a number of professional Catholic historians in some of our
universities, colleges, and seminaries has met with no success.

He wondered if “these people” had absorbed “more than they realize” of
Americans’ general attitude about intellectuals as “‘egg heads,’ ‘brain trusters,’
and the like?” While professing not to know, he found it a “not flattering”
situation for U.S. Catholics, who were then supporting “455 seminaries for
dioceses and religious orders with 33,448 students and 250 universities and
colleges with a total student enrollment of 210,920.” Many such institutions
“have one or more of their history faculty as members of the Association, and
some of the larger universities have as high as six or eight. But it may likewise
be truthfully said that too high a number have none at all, and that is not
because they have not been invited to membership.”99
His major critique of American Catholic intellectual life and one
affording him a high public profile emerged in his address to the Catholic
Commission on Intellectual and Cultural Affairs on “American Catholics
and the Intellectual Life” at Maryville College, St. Louis, May 14, 1955,
and published in the Jesuit periodical Thought that year. His own words
summarize his overall critique:
The weakest aspect of the Church in this country lies in its failure to produce national leaders and to exercise commanding influence in intellec99. “The Thirty-Fifth Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association, New York City, December 28–30, 1954,” CHR, 41 (1955), 18–28, here 23.

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“IN THE INTEREST OF TRUE HISTORY”
tual circles, and this at a time when the number of Catholics in the
United States is exceeded only by those of Brazil and Italy, and their
material resources are incomparably superior to those of any other branch
of the universal Church.100

Excerpts of his lecture/article appeared in other publications; and articles
about him in the Catholic press spread his views. In the following year, his
slender volume, American Catholicism, was published that further expanded
his influence. From 1955 Ellis responded to a wide range of opportunities
to lecture, preach, and write about American Catholicism and to take part
with others in an overdue critique of his co-religionists and their Church.101
From Ellis to Robert F. Trisco
At the ACHA’s fortieth anniversary meeting in 1959, Ellis announced
the appointment of Robert Frederick Trisco, priest of the Archdiocese of
Chicago, as assistant secretary. At CUA that fall, Trisco had been
appointed instructor in church history and associate editor of the CHR.102
Ellis thereby had secured assistance in his varied responsibilities and
recruited an eventual successor.
Born in Chicago in 1929, Trisco attended Catholic schools there and
the archdiocesan seminary before completing seminary studies at the
North American College and Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
Ordained a priest of his home archdiocese in 1954, he then undertook
graduate studies in church history at the Gregorian University, completing
the doctorate in 1959. His dissertation, The Holy See and the Nascent Church
in the Middle Western United States, 1826–1850, broke new ground with its
use of sources in several Roman archives.103
100. John Tracy Ellis, “American Catholics and the Intellectual Life,” Thought,
Autumn 1955, 351–88, here 353.
101. For Ellis’s views in his famous lecture and article, see John Whitney Evans,
“American Catholics and the Intellectual Life: Thirty Years Later,” in Studies in Catholic History, ed. Minnich et al., pp. 366–91; for the range of Ellis’s articles, lectures, and talks during
the period divided into major publications, minor publications, and unpublished works see
Mark A. Miller, “Bibliography of the Works of John Tracy Ellis for the Years, 1923–1985,”
in ibid., pp. 674–738. For the reception of Ellis’s views and subsequent debate, see Philip
Gleason, “A Look Back at the Catholic Intellectualism Issue,” U.S. Catholic Historian, 13, no.
1 (1995), 19–37.
102. “Fortieth Annual Meeting,” p. 40.
103. For biographical information, see Joseph C. Linck and Raymond Kupke, eds.,
Building the Church in America: Studies in Honor of Monsignor Robert F. Trisco on the Occasion
of His Seventieth Birthday (Washington, DC, 1999).

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273

Ellis, a fellow Illinois native, had cleared the path to Trisco’s appointment. Trisco came to Ellis’s attention in the early 1950s through his friend,
Harry C. Koenig, priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago and church history
professor in its St. Mary of the Lake Seminary. Ellis himself recounted his
“conspiracy” to “steal” Trisco from service in Chicago for CUA. In midMay 1957 Ellis, armed with authorization from CUA’s history department, called on Cardinal Samuel Stritch, archbishop of Chicago, and
requested Trisco’s release to join CUA’s faculty. Stritch did not rule out a
favorable response, but stated that on his forthcoming trip to Europe, he
would see Trisco in Paris to discuss the possibility of his CUA appointment.104 In due course, Stritch allowed Trisco to join the CUA faculty,
leading to serving as the ACHA secretary and the CHR editor.
As Ellis passed twenty years of service on the CUA faculty (1958) and
the CHR’s board of editors (1959) and nearing the same milestone as
ACHA secretary and the journal’s managing editor (1961), the accumulation of work had taken its toll on his health. At the Executive Council
meeting in December 1960, he submitted his resignation as secretary,
citing his doctor’s advice. To “round out” a full twenty years in the position, his service concluded on February 20, 1961. The council approved the
selection of Trisco to succeed him as secretary
As Ellis approached the end of his official duties for ACHA and
CHR, the Executive Council praised his services, recognizing him as the
“universally acknowledged authority in American Catholic history.” Just as
Guilday was recognized as the founder of the ACHA, Ellis “truly deserves
to be called the second founder.” Moreover, “he has raised our Association
to a high place among learned societies in our country.” He was lauded for
having “courageously insisted on high standards of scholarship” and for the
fact that “[o]ur Review is recognized internationally as an outstanding
scholarly journal in the field of history.”105
Ellis continued to serve as the CHR managing editor. In December
1962 he notified ACHA members that he sought to resign the latter position to spend more time in research and writing; and to allow “someone
with fresh ideas and new approaches” to serve. In his view, he had served
as editor “long enough.” He announced that Trisco had agreed to an
appointment as editor. His resignation took effect on February 1, 1963.106
104. Ellis, “Reflections,” pp. 468–69; “Fortieth Annual Meeting,” pp. 40–41.
105. “Forty-First Annual Meeting,” p. 15.
106. To the Members of the Association, “Forty-Third Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association,” CHR, 49 (1963), 87.

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“IN THE INTEREST OF TRUE HISTORY”

By relinquishing the positions of ACHA secretary and CHR editor,
Ellis began his departure from CUA. By the 1960s, he shared with others
there disaffection with the rector, Bishop William McDonald. At a time
of heightened concern about academic freedom in Catholic higher education, McDonald gained national attention in spring 1963 when he banned
as potential CUA lecturers several individuals proposed by its Graduate
Student Council. The possible speakers included influential Catholic theologians of the Second Vatican Council era: Gustav Weigel, S.J.; John
Courtney Murray, S.J.; Godfrey Diekmann, O.S.B.; and Hans Küng. In
the ensuing publicity, Ellis was quoted in the press as stating “this type of
suppression” had been going on for a decade.107 Ellis left the CUA faculty
in May 1963 to teach in the University of San Francisco’s history department. Despite his sojourn on the West Coast until 1977, he retained his
close association with the ACHA.
1960s: Issues and Challenges
In the 1960s the CHR and the ACHA entered midlife as the former
reached its fiftieth anniversary in 1965, and the latter celebrated its halfcentury milestone in 1969. In the context of postwar developments touching on scholarship, both entities adjusted to changes in the study of history.
Longstanding political and institutional approaches made room for
addressing topics under the category of social history. Around such topics
new historical associations were formed and started journals to enliven the
professional scene. By then, expanded interest in the social sciences challenged the place of history and other disciplines in higher education. Burgeoning scholarship on human behavior in the social sciences prompted
historians to raise new questions about the past. Moreover, in the Catholic
world of the 1960s, several Catholic universities introduced graduate studies leading to the doctorate in theology and/or religious studies whose
scholarship included greater attention to historical dimensions.
Beyond the groves of academia, other changes altered the study of history and the historical role of Catholics in national life. For U.S. Catholics
in the late 1950s the postwar conversation about their place in the nation’s
public life, the freedom to act without the Church’s direction, and the official Catholic position on church-state relations reached a greater intensity
as a Catholic, John F. Kennedy, sought his party’s nomination for president and was elected president of the United States in 1960.
107. Gleason, Contending with Modernity: Catholic Higher Education in the Twentieth
Century (New York, 1995), p. 306.

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Catholicism entered a new relationship with other faith traditions. In
the Catholic world, Pope John XXIII announced in January 1959 his
intention to convene an Ecumenical Council. In the years of preparation
leading to the Second Vatican Council’s opening on October 11, 1962,
theologians and historians examined the work of previous councils to gain
a better understanding of the role of the current one. In the course of the
Council religious freedom emerged as the “American” issue and advanced
John Courtney Murray, S.J., to greater influence in Catholic thought. In
other major dimensions of the Council’s work, defining the Church as the
People of God, attending anew to scripture, and committing to Christian
unity through the ecumenical movement diminished longstanding Protestant-Catholic hostility.
The “interesting times” of the 1960s unfolded as the energetic Trisco,
at age thirty-two in 1961, began service as ACHA secretary and the CHR
editor. For this decade and continuing into the twenty-first century, he
served as a model of imaginative, capable, and faithful discharge of varied
duties on behalf of the Association and its journal. At CUA, he advanced
through academic promotions to ordinary (full) professor and directed
graduate students’ theses and doctoral dissertations.
In the early 1960s, Trisco juggled his official duties with a unique
service. He served on the U.S. Bishops’ Press Panel at each of its fall sessions at the Second Vatican Council, 1962–65, assisting English-language
journalists in understanding the Council’s events. Since, as peritus, he
enjoyed the opportunity to attend the daily general congregations during
its four sessions, he served in effect as the “ACHA’s man” at the Council.108 He encountered there more than 100 U.S. bishops belonging to the
ACHA. In annual reports in those years he drew attention of ACHA
members to developments there highlighting church history. From John
XXIII’s famous opening address, he quoted approvingly the papal remarks
scoring critics who “act as if they had nothing to learn from history, which
is the teacher of life.”109 Likewise, from the deliberations regarding ecumenism, he described the need to recognize the positive contributions of
other Christian bodies. He indicated the historic dimensions involved in
the contentious issue of religious liberty addressed at the Council. Shortly
after the Council’s conclusion, he noted, “The Council’s awareness of the
108. For his personal account of experiences at the Council, see Robert F. Trisco, “The
U.S. Bishops’ Press Panel at the Second Vatican Council,” U.S. Catholic Historian, 30, no. 3
(2012), 1–20.
109. “Forty-Third Annual Meeting,” p. 80.

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“IN THE INTEREST OF TRUE HISTORY”

historical dimension of Christianity can be said to pervade all its pronouncements, . . .”110
ACHA Membership and Direction
Sustaining the ACHA’s membership came to terms with a changing
world of academia and historical scholarship. On the occasion of the
ACHA’s fiftieth anniversary in 1969, Robert F. Byrnes, ACHA president
in 1961, delineated the varied types of the ACHA members:
(1) historians who are Catholic but have little interest in the history of
the Church; (2) historians of the universal Church; (3) those interested
in the history of American Catholicism; and (4) those interested in the
spiritual values that Catholicism represents.111

One can imagine that someone in Byrne’s first category may have had limited interest in the ACHA. A Catholic historian completing graduate
studies at the time and pursuing an academic career of college/university
teaching, research, and publication had a wider range of choices of learned
societies including many new ones. Each Catholic historian’s professional
specialization may have resulted in joining another group, whereas benefits
of ACHA membership appeared less useful. The expense of joining one or
more associations may have precluded joining the ACHA.112 For a look at
fifty years of ACHA membership numbers, see table 2.
In examining membership trends, Trisco reported in 1961 that among
the 230 new members joining that year, 40 percent were active in higher
education, 17 percent were in secondary education, and 10 percent were
students who were mainly at graduate level. Priests accounted for 38 percent; religious sisters 12 percent. Among those maintaining membership
after one year, those in education had fewest “defections.”113

110. “The Forty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association,” CHR, 52 (1966), 86–104, here 99.
111. “Fiftieth Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association,” CHR, 56
(1970), 94–148, here 95.
112. From the AHA’s Web site listing 118 currently affiliated associations and institutions, the author counted fourteen formed before 1945, fifteen founded 1945–60, twenty-two
formed 1961–69, thirty-four established 1970–79, and the remaining thirty-three founded
since 1980.
113. “The Forty-Second Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association,” CHR, 48 (1962), 53–63, here 62.

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TABLE 2. ACHA membership, 1919–69
Year

Membership

1919
1920
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1934
1940
1941
1953
1959
1960
1961
1969

50
155
638
634
715
738
726
657
690
745
1011
1168
1211
1333
1148

Note. Data from Guilday, Ellis, and Trisco reports, CHR.

In view of college instructors’ large cohort of members, the ACHA provided a useful service providing an additional incentive for membership. To
serve members, either those seeking teaching positions in colleges and universities, or heads of history departments seeking candidates for such positions, a “professional register” was established in 1962. The register listed
Catholics “regardless of the institutions at which they studied and earned
degrees,” and graduates of Catholic institutions regardless of religion. Trisco
sent letters to history departments of nearly 300 Catholic colleges announcing the professional register, which expanded over the next few years.114
Several other actions of the ACHA responded to promoting the professional interests of lay faculty members growing presence in Catholic
higher education institutions in light of their inherited institutional habits.
The 1963 controversy at CUA regarding the rector’s actions to prevent
influential Catholic theologians from speaking there bore similarities to
incidents at other Catholic universities.
In fall 1965, Joseph Cahill, C.M.—president of St. John’s University
in Jamaica, New York—abruptly dismissed thirty-one instructors in mid114. “The Forty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association,” CHR, 50, (1964), 52–70, here 59–60.

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“IN THE INTEREST OF TRUE HISTORY”

semester, not even allowing them to complete the courses they were teaching. In the wake of this breach of due process, St. John’s faculty and students went on strike.115 Catholic educators and several learned societies,
including the ACHA, issued public protests of St. John’s actions. At the
business meeting at the 1965 annual meeting as former president Robert
F. Byrnes proposed, the ACHA sent a letter of protest to St. John’s president. While objecting to the lack of due process, the letter argued that St.
John’s not only suffered from the incident but also it “cast a shadow . . .
upon the achievements, prospects, and standing of all Catholic higher education in the United States.”116
As the St. John’s controversy continued to unfold, a case involving
academic freedom arose in 1966 at the University of Dayton. There, accusations of heresy were made within the faculty of the philosophy department. An investigation cleared those accused, but the controversy focused
attention on academic freedom in Catholic higher education. At the
ACHA annual meeting in late December 1966, the Executive Council
voted to endorse the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom
and Tenure issued by the American Association of University Professors
and Association of American Colleges.117
In the interests of the membership consisting of priests teaching in
theological seminaries, the annual meeting provided an occasion for them
to meet and share ideas and learn of new approaches to teaching church
history. By 1965, the Colloquium on Seminary Professors of Church History convened and issued annual reports for several years.118
In an era of increasing complexity in higher education and the
Church, ACHA membership levels began to fluctuate. In 1961, membership reached its highest level—1333—then faltered in the following years.
To sustain and grow membership, Trisco, following longstanding practice
each year, collaborated with that year’s president to mail several hundred
letters, inviting academic historians and/or other categories of Catholics to
join the ACHA.

115. Gleason, Contending with Modernity, pp. 308–09.
116. “Forty-Sixth Annual Meeting,” p. 87.
117. Gleason, Contending with Modernity, pp. 310–12; “Forty-seventh Annual Meeting,” p. 69. The entire AAUP statement was reprinted in the annual report.
118. “The Forty-Seventh Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association,” CHR, 53, (1967), 67–90, here 78–79, for example.

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Annually Trisco issued a detailed accounting of membership, including new members, renewals, and those who had dropped their membership. Names of deceased members were listed. Some years, he read the
signs of the times affecting fluctuation of membership. In 1963, he
attached the main responsibility as a failure to perceive the following
values:
cohesion of those who share a common belief in the ultimate principles
in the light of which they interpret all past human events . . . , collective
labor of those who try to judge the work of others in whom such basic
convictions are lacking or obscured . . . [and] studying both the internal
history of the Catholic Church and the effect of the Christian religion in
general on the intellectual, cultural, political, and social development of
human society throughout the ages.119

In view of shifts in Catholics’ identity during the era, historians of
Catholic background and/or interests began to question the value of
Catholic learned societies. As Trisco noted in 1967, some potential members found even the modest cost of ACHA membership a deterrent, but “a
more decisive reason” perhaps related to “a doubt about the rationale of a
Catholic historical association in this age of both ecumenism and engagement in secular concerns.” In response, he noted that in relating to nonCatholic colleagues the ACHA served as an “aid to attainment.” The
Association had brought them into “closer contact through such means as
joint sessions which otherwise would not be held. . . .” He articulated a
rationale that informed the ACHA’s direction for many years ahead:
With respect to its own members the Association has striven to perform
a two-fold function: first, to stimulate a greater interest in, and to promote a deeper knowledge of, ecclesiastical and religious history understood in the broad sense, and secondly, to provide various services to offer
opportunities of employing talent, and to give public recognition to
demonstrated merit.120

Despite the challenges of the decade, vigorous efforts sustained membership numbers within a stable range. By 1969, the ACHA had 1148
members—in retrospect, a figure representing success in promoting a high
level of membership in a period of rapid change.

119. “Forty-Fourth Annual Meeting,” p. 64.
120. “The Forty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association,” CHR, 54 (1968), 80–101, here 96–97.

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At the annual meetings, the ACHA, as always, maintained the
Catholic presence among about fifty AHA-affiliated societies representing many historical interests and periods. All meetings took place with
the AHA in Washington, DC (1961, 1964, 1969); New York (1966,
1968); Chicago (1962); Philadelphia (1963); San Francisco (1965); and
Toronto (1967).
Strengthening the ACHA’s Catholic identity, the annual meeting
inaugurated in 1965 a Mass for the living and deceased ACHA members
as part of the program. A priest holding the highest official position in the
ACHA was invited to preside and preach the homily.121
At the annual meeting, the ACHA continued to sponsor a joint session with the AHA—a practice in place since the 1940s. Reflecting perhaps the era of the Second Vatican Council, the ASCH and ACHA
sponsored a joint session. During the 1960s, relationships developed
with other groups by sponsoring joint sessions with the Canadian
Catholic Historical Association (1961), Mississippi Valley Historical
Association (1961), Western History Association (1965), Polish American Historical Association (1966), Society for Italian Studies (1966),
Centre de recherche en histoire religieuse du Canada (1967), Conference on
Peace Research in History (1968), American Society for Reformation
Research (1969), and AHA Late Medieval Seminar (1969). Apart from
the annual meeting, the ACHA-sponsored joint sessions with the Mississippi Valley Historical Association (renamed Organization of American Historians in 1965) at its annual spring meeting at Omaha (1963),
Kansas City (1965), and Dallas (1968). The ACHA had thereby brought
together, as Trisco noted, “scholars from Catholic and non-Catholic
institutions both through its own activities and through its joint sessions
with other learned societies.”122
A challenge left from the 1950s remained: the publication of the John
Carroll Papers. Since 1955, William Hoyt had chaired the committee
gathering the documents and by 1964 carried on the work practically
alone. With the passing of years, as Trisco reported in 1969, it became evident “the responsibility would have to be entrusted to one person who
would be free of other obligations and near some research center if the task
was ever to be completed.” The committee was then dissolved. Thomas
121. “The Forty-Fifth Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association,” CHR, 51 (1965), 45–64, here 56.
122. “Forty-Sixth Annual Meeting,” p. 88.

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O’Brien Hanley, S.J., was thereupon engaged as editor, and office space in
the Mullen Library was provided to carry on the work into the 1970s.123
ACHA Presidents
Presidents serving 1961–69 held academic appointments as senior
professors of history at their universities. The Executive Council made a
major change in their selection by ending the lay-only tradition and
extending eligibility to priests. Clergy whose scholarship and reputation
would previously have made them leading candidates for the position if
they had been laymen thereafter served. Philip Hughes, British priest-professor at Notre Dame, was elected first vice president in 1965, thereby
becoming president in 1966. Unfortunately, illness prevented him from
giving the presidential address at the annual meeting that year. For a list of
those serving as president from 1961 to 1969, see appendix A.
As priests became eligible to serve as first vice-president/president, the
near monopoly of clergy holding the office of second vice president became
unnecessary. After 1964, laypersons and priests became eligible for the
position. For a list of those serving as second vice-president from 1960 to
1969, see appendix B.
John K. Cartwright, rector of St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, DC, retired as ACHA treasurer in April 1969. He had served since
1931, contributing, as Trisco remarked, “solicitous and productive management of the Association’s finances.”124
The Catholic Historical Review at Midlife
Preceding its fiftieth anniversary in 1965 and after, the CHR enjoyed
steady growth in circulation, although the issues circulated to ACHA
members declined as their numbers diminished. On the other hand, subscribers increased dramatically, rising from 665 in 1961 to 960 in 1968.
Exchanges with other journals to enrich the Mullen Library’s periodical
holdings grew from 125 to 155 in the same period. In 1969 the figure for
exchanges remained 155, whereas subscribers declined to 910, reflecting a
retrenchment of academic libraries’ budgets and a wave of closings of
Catholic seminaries and several colleges. Despite the fluctuating ACHA

123. “Fiftieth Annual Meeting,” p. 111.
124. “Forty-Ninth Annual Meeting,” p. 61.

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“IN THE INTEREST OF TRUE HISTORY”

membership, the CHR’s total circulation rose slightly from 2121 in 1961
to 2213 in 1969.125
In 1962, as Trisco reported, the editors deemed that the quality of
submitted article manuscripts had not “greatly improved” in recent years—
about half were rejected in 1961 and well over half were rejected in 1962.126
By 1965, he reported that the overall quality of manuscripts had steadily
improved, according to long-serving editor Martin R. P. McGuire.127
Sharing the burdens of editing the CHR involved changing personnel,
as always. When Trisco became managing editor in 1963, Ellis and
McGuire were designated associate editors. Upon relocating to the West
Coast, Ellis moved to advisory editor status, and John K. Zeender of
CUA’s history department became an associate editor. Joseph N. Moody,
having joined the CUA faculty, replaced Zeender in 1965. The six advisory
editors serving at the beginning of the period retired after serving three
years, and seven historians affiliated with institutions across the country
replaced them.128
Observance of the CHR’s fiftieth anniversary prompted attention to
publishing an index of its contents, since the previous published one
indexed volumes for the period 1915–35. James A. Magner, director of the
CUA Press, engaged as bibliographer Edward Heiss, a student of library
science, to compile an index for the CHR’s issues dating from April 1935
to January 1965. Upon completion in 1969, the index was marketed to
members and libraries.
In addition to funding the index project, Magner had served well the
CHR’s interests by allowing an increase to 152 pages per issue in 1961 and
as needed for expanded issues for its fiftieth anniversary and for the 400th
anniversary of the founding of St. Augustine, Florida, in 1965 and the
Polish Millennium in 1966. At the end of 1969 Magner retired as director
after three decades of service, including duties as the CHR treasurer.

125. “Forty-Second Annual Meeting,” p. 65; “Forty-Ninth Annual Meeting,” p. 61;
“Fiftieth Annual Meeting,” p. 113.
126. “Forty-Third Annual Meeting,” p. 80.
127. “Forty-Sixth Annual Meeting,” p. 98.
128. Those retiring included Edwin A. Beilharz, John F. Broderick, Eric Cochrane,
Consuelo Maria Aherne, Vincent DeSantis, and Frank Klement. Those joining as advisory
editors included Marie Carolyn Klinkhamer, Albert Shannon, Josef Altholz, Karl Schmitt,
Albert J. Loomie, John Sommerfeldt, and Robert T. Handy. Non-Catholics served for the
first time: Altholz was Jewish, Handy a Baptist.

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The ACHA at Fifty
As the ACHA approached its fiftieth year of existence, it enjoyed a
stable membership, provided opportunities such as the annual meeting for
members to share scholarship, and represented church history and
Catholics’ historical scholarship among the nation’s Catholic learned societies. Since 1929, ACHA members had collaborated successfully in producing the CHR with The Catholic University of America and its press.
In anticipation of the ACHA’s fiftieth anniversary meeting in 1969,
the Committee on Nominations provided its best-known figure as its sole
candidate for first vice-president in 1968—John Tracy Ellis––who subsequently served as president in the association’s milestone anniversary year.
For the same year, the American Society of Church History chose Ellis as
president—the first Catholic to hold its top office. At the 1969 annual
meeting, the two organizations held a joint luncheon with an unprecedented 266 attendees. This interfaith audience listened to Ellis’s presidential address on one of his favorite figures, Blessed John Henry Newman.129
Such an occasion—convening scholars who identified with Catholic and
historically Protestant societies—signaled that the decade had undergone a
remarkable pattern of change.

129. John Tracy Ellis, “John Henry Newman, A Bridge for Men of Good Will,” CHR,
56 (1970), 1–24.

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284

APPENDIX A. ACHA presidents, 1920–69
Year Individual

Occupation

Comments

1920 Lawrence F. Flick

Physician

Key in treatment of tuberculosis; cofounder of the
American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia.

1921 James J. Walsh

Prominent New York
physician and noted
Catholic apologist

Held leadership roles in
the United States Catholic
Historical Society (New
York). Authored massive
pro-Catholic works such as
Thirteenth: Greatest of Centuries (New York, 1907).

1922 Robert Howard
Lord

Associate professor
of history, Harvard
University

First trained historian and
first convert to Catholicism
to serve as president. In
1926, he left Harvard to
study for the priesthood and
was ordained a priest of the
Archdiocese of Boston in
1928; he then taught church
history at St. John’s Seminary, Brighton, MA.

1923 Charles Hallan
McCarthy

Knights of Columbus Guilday’s former high
Professor of American school teacher in
History, CUA
Philadelphia

1924 Gaillard Hunt

Editor, U.S. Department of State
publications

Second convert to Catholicism to serve as president;
died in office at age sixtyone on March 20, 1924.

1925 Henry Jones Ford

Professor emeritus of
politics, Princeton
University

Third Catholic convert to
serve as president, he was
acting president after Hunt’s
death. Ford was then elected
in his own right, but he died
in office on August 29,
1925, at age seventy-four.

1926 Parker Thomas
Moon

Assistant professor of A convert to Catholicism
international relations,
Columbia University;
editor of the Political
Science Quarterly

JOSEPH M. WHITE

285

APPENDIX A. (continued)
Year Individual

Occupation

1927 Clarence E. Martin Catholic lawyer and
CUA alumnus

Comments
Resident of Martinsburg,
WV; served as president of
the American Bar Association, 1932–33.

1928 John C. Fitzpatrick Acting chief,
Manuscripts Division,
Library of Congress
1929 Leo Francis Stock

CUA history professor
and associate of the
Carnegie Institute for
Research, Washington, DC

1930 Francis Tschan

Professor of history,
Pennsylvania State
College

German-born author of
numerous articles in
medieval history

1931 Carlton J. H.
Hayes

Seth Low Professor
of History, Columbia
University

Expert in the history of
nationalism. Convert to
Catholicism. Cochair of the
National Conference of
Christians and Jews, 1928–
35. Served as U.S. ambassador to Spain, 1942–45.

1932 James F. Kenney

Director of Historical Served as president the year
Research and Publicity, the Canadian Catholic
Public Archives of
Historical Association was
Canada
formed.

1933 Constantine
McGuire

Founder of the School Harvard alumnus. Editor
of Foreign Service,
and consultant to interGeorgetown University national businesses.

1934 Michael Williams

Founder and editor of Prolific writer on
Commonweal magazine Catholicism

1935 Jeremiah J. Ford

Smith Professor of
Spanish and French,
Harvard University

Editor of Speculum, quarterly
review Medieval Academy of
America. First “cradle”
Catholic faculty member of
Harvard University.

1936 Daniel Sargent

Alumnus of and tutor
at Harvard University

Prolific writer on Catholic
spirituality and popular topics.

286

“IN THE INTEREST OF TRUE HISTORY”

APPENDIX A. (continued)
Year Individual

Occupation

1937 Herbert C. F. Bell

Professor of history,
Wesleyan University,
Middletown, CT

Comments

1938 Ross J. S. Hoffman Professor of history,
New York University,
1926–38; Fordham
University, 1938–67
1939 Carlos Castañada

Librarian for Latin
American literature,
the University of
Texas at Austin

1940 Herbert Coulson

Associate professor
of history, St. Louis
University

1941 Marshall E.
Baldwin

Assistant professor
of history, New York
University

1942 Martin R. P.
McGuire

Professor of Latin and
Greek; dean of the
College of Arts and
Sciences, CUA

1943 Richard F. Pattee

Division of Cultural
Affairs, U.S. Department of State

1944 Paul Kiniery

Professor of history,
Loyola University
Chicago

1945 John J. Meng

Assistant professor,
Hunter College,
New York

1946 Thomas F.
O’Connor

St. Joseph Seminary,
Yonkers, NY; historian
of the Archdiocese of
New York

1947 Friedrich
Engel-Janosi

Professor of history,
CUA

1948 Francis A.
Arlinghaus

Professor of history,
University of Detroit

Author of monumental
works on Texas Catholic
history

CUA alumnus. Specialist in
Latin American history and
culture.

CUA alumnus

JOSEPH M. WHITE

287

APPENDIX A. (continued)
Year Individual

Occupation

Comments

1949 Henry A. Lucas

Professor of history,
University of
Washington

1950 Waldemar Gurian

Professor of politics,
University of Notre
Dame

1951 A. Paul Levack

Professor of history,
Fordham University

1952 Raymond Sontag

Professor of history,
University of California,
Berkeley

1953 John T. Farrell

Professor of history,
CUA

1954 Thomas P. Neill

Professor of history,
Fordham University

1955 Aaron J. Abell

Professor of history,
University of Notre Dame

1956 Oscar Halecki

Professor of history,
Fordham University

1957 Thomas H. D.
Maloney

Professor of history,
Massachusetts Institute
of Technology

Founding editor, Review of
Politics

1958 Stephan A. Kuttner Professor of canon law,
CUA
1959 Harry W. Kirwin

Professor of history,
Loyola College of
Baltimore

1960 Paul Horgan

Author

1961 Robert F. Byrnes

Indiana University

1962 Manoel Cardozo

CUA

1963 Gerhart B. Ladner

University of California

1964 Vincent P.
DeSantis

University of Notre
Dame

Resident of Roswell, NM;
influential author, especially
Lamy of Santa Fe (New
York,1975)

288

“IN THE INTEREST OF TRUE HISTORY”

APPENDIX A. (continued)
Year Individual

Occupation

1965 Brian Tierney

Professor of medieval
history, Cornell
University

1966 Philip Hughes

University of Notre
Dame

1967 Carl B. Cone

University of Kentucky

1968 Francis L.
Broderick

Academic dean,
Lawrence University
(WI)

1969 John Tracy Ellis

University of San
Francisco

Comments

Former director, Peace
Corps, Ghana

JOSEPH M. WHITE

289

APPENDIX B. ACHA Second Vice-Presidents, 1930–69
Year Individual

Position

Comments

1930 Michael Splaine

Vicar general, Archdiocese of Boston

Resident of Brookline, MA

1931 James M. Reardon

Rector, Basilica of St.
Mary, Minneapolis

1932 Edward
McGoldrick

Pastor, Brooklyn, NY

1933 Gilbert Garraghan, Research professor of
S.J.
history, Loyola
University Chicago

Associate of Institute of
Jesuit History; editor of the
historical journal MidAmerica; author of threevolume The Jesuits of the
Middle United States (New
York, 1938).

1934 John LaFarge, S.J.

Associate editor,
America (the Jesuits’
national magazine)

Emerging Catholic expert
on race relations; founder of
Catholic Interracial Councils
movement.

1935 Claude Vogel,
O.F.M. Cap.

St. Fidelis Seminary,
Pennsylvania

Guilday’s doctoral student

1936 Valentine Schaaf,
O.F.M.

Professor and dean of Later Minister General,
School of Canon Law, Order of Friars Minor
CUA

1937 Edward Hawks

Pastor, Philadelphia

1938 Samuel Knox
Wilson, S.J.

President of Loyola
University Chicago

1939 Edward P.
McAdams

Pastor, Washington,
DC

1940 Gerald Groveland
Walsh, S.J.

Professor of history,
Fordham University

1941 Wilfrid Parsons,
S.J.

Professor of politics
Editor of America
and dean of the gradu- magazine
ate school, Georgetown
University; professor
of politics, CUA

Former history professor and
dean of graduate school at
Loyola University Chicago

1942 Theodore Roemer, Professor of modern hisO.F.M. Cap.
tory, St. Lawrence College, Mt. Cavalry, WI

290

“IN THE INTEREST OF TRUE HISTORY”

APPENDIX B. (continued)
Year Individual

Position

1943 Joseph H. Brady

Professor of history,
Hall College (later
University)

1944 Francis Borgia
Steck, O.F.M.

Professor of Spanish
American history, CUA

1945 John Sexton

St. John Seminary,
Brighton, MA

1946 Peter Dunne, S.J.

Chair of the history
department, University of San Francisco

1947 Felix Fellner,
O.S.B.

Professor of history,
St. Vincent Archabbey,
Latrobe, PA

1948 Edward T.
Harrington, S.J.

Professor of history,
Regis College, Weston,
MA

1949 Peter Leo Johnson

Professor of church
history, St. Francis
Seminary, Milwaukee

1950 Michael J. Hynes

St. Mary’s Seminary,
Cleveland

1951 Edward A. Ryan,
S.J.

Professor of church
history, Woodstock
College, MD

1952 J. Joseph Ryan

Professor of church
history, St. John’s
Seminary, Brighton,
MA

1953 Ignatius Brady,
O.F.M.

Franciscan Institute,
St. Bonaventure University, Olean, NY

1954 Francis Dvornik

Professor of Byzantine Cofounder of the journal
history, Dumbarton
Byzantinoslavica
Oaks, Harvard
University

1955 Dora J. Gunderson Mercy College,
Detroit

Comments

Specialist on Jesuit missions
in colonial Mexico and the
Southwest

Chaplain with the American
Expeditionary Forces,
World War I

JOSEPH M. WHITE

291

APPENDIX B. (continued)
Year Individual

Position

1956 Gerald E. Dupont, Dean at St. Michael’s
S.S.E.
College, VT
1957 Astrik Gabriel,
O.Praem.

Director, Medieval
Institute, University
of Notre Dame

1958 Thomas T.
McAvoy, C.S.C.

Professor and chair
of history department,
University of Notre
Dame

1959 Eric McDermott,
S.J.

Assistant professor of
history, Georgetown
University

1960 Annabelle Melville Professor of history,
Bridgewater State
College, MA
1961 Charles Metzger,
S.J.

West Baden College,
IN

1962 Adrian Fuerst,
O.S.B.

St. Meinrad Archabbey
and Seminary, IN

1963 Antonine Tibesar,
O.F.M.

Academy of American
Franciscan History

1964 Lowrie J. Daly, S.J. Saint Louis University
1965 Marian McKenna

Manhattanville College,
University of Calgary,
Alberta

1966 Marie Carolyn
Klinkhamer, O.P.

Barry College, Miami,
FL

1967 Elisa A. Carillo

Marymount College,
Tarrytown, NY

1968 Frank Klement

Marquette University

1969 Michael M.
Sheehan, C.S.B.

University of Toronto

Comments
Later president of St.
Michael’s College

Against the Grain:
Pope Gregory XVI’s Optimism Toward Russia
in His Censure of Polish Clerics in 1831
CHRISTOPHER KORTEN*
Pope Gregory XVI (1831–46) was an experienced church diplomat in
Russian affairs when he agreed to assist the Russian government in
quelling the Polish uprising of 1830–31, a revolt that involved not a
few prominent Polish clergy. Impensa Caritas (February 1831)
admonished clergy to remain devoted to their spiritual duties, to
refrain from revolutionary activity, and to obey legitimate authority.
The pope’s decision to cooperate resulted from a series of positive collaborations that began in 1825, most notably with the Armenian Church.
Meanwhile, Russia’s request for assistance was made in good faith by
Prince Grigory Gagarin, the Russian envoy, to quell the Polish revolt.
Keywords: Prince Grigory Gagarin, Pope Gregory XVI, Tsar
Nicholas I, papal diplomacy, Russian diplomacy

A

t first glance, the subject of Gregory XVI (born Bartolomeo Alberto
[Mauro] Cappellari, r. 1831–46) and the Polish uprising seems well
covered, given the scholars of merit who have written on it. In fact, historians all but consider the matter closed; according to the doyen of Polish
ecclesiastical history for the period, no work in the last seventy years has
been attempted because there is little to add to Mieczysław Żywczyński’s
seminal work, Geneza i następstwa encykliki “Cum primum” (1935).1 What
is more, it is not difficult to see how the Catholic Church would have been
negative toward revolution—all conservative powers at this time were,
notably, Austria with which the Church had a close relationship. Revolution upset the balance and stability of monarchical Europe. Nowhere was
*Dr. Korten is a member of the Faculty of History at Adam Mickiewicz University in
Poznań, Poland, email: chriskorten@yahoo.com. Unless otherwise noted, translations are
provided by the author. The author wishes to thank Professor Anna Barańska, Catholic University of Lublin, Poland, for providing valuable insight and comments on a draft version of
this article.
1. Zygmunt Zieliński, Epoka Rewolucji Totalitaryzmów: studia i szkice [Epoch of Totalitarian Revolution: Studies and Sketches] (Lublin, 1993), p. 42.

292

CHRISTOPHER KORTEN

293

the risk of upheaval greater than in Italian lands, where antiquated administrations served a privileged few and disenfranchised the rest. Nonetheless,
the circumstances surrounding this papal decision were atypical. It
involved the Roman Catholic primate collaborating with—and, indeed,
supporting—Russia, a non-Catholic government, in condemning the
actions of his own clergy. What is more, strained relations between Russia
and the Catholic Church had existed since the time of Catherine the Great
(1762–96); multiple attempts by Rome to establish a permanent papal
nunciature in St. Petersburg had been frustrated during this period, creating an “unevenness” in the relationship.2 So when Gregory decided to collaborate with Russia in censoring Polish bishops in 1831, this action
understandably piqued the interest of many writers.
Among the key works on this topic, several discernible and predominant views have been posited on why Pope Gregory XVI condemned
Polish bishops for their participation in the uprising of November
1830.3 None of them is particularly flattering where the pope is concerned. Prevalent in the historiography is the general notion that Gregory was coaxed into issuing the censure by Russia (out of fear or deception), by Austria (out of feebleness and need for direction), or by papal
advisers (out of disinterest). For Adrien Boudou, Russia deceived Gregory with false reports on the activities of Polish clergy in the
revolution. 4 Louis Lescoeur, who drew on General Władysław
Zamoyski’s correspondence, depicts a very remorseful pontiff, feeling

2. For the relations with Russia between the time of Catherine and Alexander I, see
especially Eduard Winter, Russland und das Papsttum: Von der Aufklärung bis zur grossen
sozialistischen Oktoberrevolution, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1960–61), p. 1; Paul Perling, La Russie et le
Saint-Siége. Études diplomatiques, vol. 5: Catherine II. Paul I. Alexandre I (Paris, 1912), and
Anna Barańska, Między Warszawą, Petersburgiem i Rzymem [Among Warsaw, St. Petersburg,
and Rome] (Lublin, 2008).
3. A fuller treatment of the historiography appears in Christopher Korten, “Historiographical Reflections on Pope Gregory XVI’s Condemnation of Clerical Involvement in
the November Revolutions: Building the Case for Reassessment,” TEKA, 8 (2011), 175–
84; and Mieczysław Żywczyński, Geneza i następstwa encykliki Cum Primum z 9.VI. 1832r.
(Warsaw, 1935), pp. 9–21. See also Mieczysław Żywczyński, Watykan i sprawa polska w
latach 1831–1836 [Vatican and Polish Affairs, 1831–1836] (Warsaw, 1934), pp. 190–98;
and Zygmunt Zieliński, Boski czy ludzki? Kościół w Polsce i na świecie wczoraj i dziś [Divine
or Human? The Church in Poland and the World, Yesterday and Today] (Częstochowa,
2002), pp. 61–70. For background reading on the Polish Catholic Church, see the works
of Jerzy Kłoczowski, most recently A History of Polish Christianity (Cambridge, UK, 2000),
pp. 205–07.
4. Adrien Boudou, Le Saint-Siège et la Russie, 2 vols. (Paris, 1922–25), 2:179–83.

294

AGAINST THE GRAIN

misled by Russian intentions.5 He also believed, along with Nicomede
Bianchi and Felicité de Lamennais, that Russia had bullied the pope into
a decision.6 The most attractive theory in the historiography is the supposedly large role of Austria, especially in Cum Primum (1832). The earliest
proponent of this view was Bronisław Pawłowski, who emphasizes Austria’s own interests in achieving detente given its common political concerns
and its vulnerable territorial positioning.7 Since Austria was participating,
the inevitable view was that Russia and the Papal States had strained relations. For Maciej Loret, Secretary of State Tommaso Bernetti’s expertise
in foreign affairs compensated for his boss’s deficiencies.8
Żywczyński postulated that Gregory was following recent papal
policy, which condemned revolutionary activity against legitimate governments, which will be discussed later.9 Third, and on a related point, the
extenuating circumstances induced papal compliance. For Jean Leflon and
many others, the political situation in Europe at the time—especially the
revolution within the Papal States—made Gregory more empathetic with
the tsar’s plight and induced a papal decision.10
However, there are three serious, interlinking flaws that persist in the
historiography, which hinder a just assessment. Namely, the main participants, Pope Gregory (the depicted protagonist) and Tsar Nicholas I (the
depicted antagonist, r. 1825–55) are little understood, mirroring the
archival gaps in the story. So although Gregory and his Russian counterparts (Prince Grigory Gagarin and Tsar Nicholas) are meant to occupy
central roles, they are largely absent or understood through secondhand
sources—namely Austrian, Polish, and select Vatican documents. The picture of Gregory that develops from these accounts of the affair is one of a

5. Louis Lescoeur, L’Église Catholique en Pologne sous le Gouvernement Russe (Paris,
1860), pp. 54–61, and Jean Leflon, La crise révolutionnaire, 1789–1846 (Paris, 1949), pp. 457–
60, versus Boudou, Le Saint-Siège et la Russie, 1:187–88.
6. Nicomede Bianchi, Storia documentata della diplomazia Europea in Italia, vol. 3:
(1830–1846) (Turin, 1867), pp. 212–22; Felicité de Lamennais, Affaires de Rome (Paris,
1836–37), pp. 107–08.
7. Bronisław Pawłowski, Grzegorz XVI a Polska po powstaniu listopadowym (Warsaw,
1911), pp. 501–03. Alan J. Reinerman, “Metternich, Pope Gregory XVI, and Revolutionary
Poland, 1831–1842,” The Catholic Historical Review, 86 (2000), 603–19, here 606–08.
8. Maciej Loret, “Watykan a Polska. (1815–1832),” Biblioteka Warszawska, 2 (1913),
209–40, here 231. Loret’s other contributions include elucidating a Roman view of the uprising and discussing the Congress of Poland period in the run up to the November uprising.
9. Żywczyński, Geneza, pp. 24–31.
10. Leflon, La crise révolutionnaire, pp. 456–57.

CHRISTOPHER KORTEN

295

lame-duck pontiff, flappable and indecisive.11 He formed his political
opinions, it is claimed, based largely on outside influences.
That so many of the sources derive from men around the pontiff
speaking on this subject—and so few from Gregory himself—historians
have understandably concluded that he was in over his head or uninterested in such secular affairs. However, the more compelling reason for
Gregory’s taciturn representation is the dearth of primary sources linking
him with this affair. To his credit Żywczyński understood this and admitted—eighty years ago—that there was a lack of understanding of the pontiff himself: “we are able to talk about the Vatican relations to the Polish
condition but not about the pope himself.”12 In 1994 Andrzej Wroński
reiterated these sentiments, observing that there has been no attempt to
understand the politics of Gregory.13 Even more problematic is the complete absence of a Russian perspective on this crucial event. Yet this has not
dissuaded nearly all in the field from vilifying Nicholas I in particular and
Russia in general.14

11. See, for example, Pawłowski, Grzegorz XVI a Polska, pp. 498–513; Louis Lescoeur,
L’Église Catholique en Pologne sous le Gouvernement Russe (Paris, 1860), pp. 54–60. The topic
is also treated in passing in the following works: Reinerman, “Metternich, Pope Gregory
XVI, and Revolutionary Poland, 1831–1842,” and Boudou, Le Saint-Siège et la Russie, vol. 1.
The latter tries to rehabilitate Gregory’s image, but is overtly pro-papal. Nonetheless, this
work is still considered the standard account for its unfettered access to Vatican archives as
well as its thoroughness.
12. Żywczyński, Watykan I sprawa polska, p. 190: “możemy mówić o stosunku Watykanu, ale nie samego papieża, do sprawy polskiej.”
13. Andrzej Wroński, Duchowieństwo i Kosćioł Katolicki w Królestwie Polskim wobec
sprawy narodowej w latach 1832–1860 (Warsaw, 1994), p. 59.
14. For example, see Jean Leflon, La crise révolutionnaire, pp. 456–60. Important works
from a Russian perspective include Olga A. Litsenberger, Rimsko-Katolicheskaia tserkov’ v
Rossii: istoriia i pravovoe polozhenie [The Roman Catholic Church in Russia: Historical and
Legal Perspectives] (Saratov, 2001), which offers a rather more descriptive account of events,
and Ekaterina N. Tsimbaeva, Russkii katolitsizm: zabytoe proshloe rossiiskogo liberalizma [Russian Catholicism: The Forgotten History of Russian Liberalism] (Moscow, 1999). On the
situation of the Catholic Church in Russia through law codes, see Polnoe Sobranie Zakonov
Rossiiskoi Imperii [Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire], 3rd ser. (St. Petersburg, 1916). Key works on Alexander I and Nicholas I include the following: Nikolaj
Karlovich Schil’der, Imperator Aleksandr I. Ego zhizn i tsarstvovanie [Emperor Alexander I:
His Life and Reign], (St. Petersburg, 1897–98, 1903); L. V. Vyskochkov, Imperator Nikolai
I: Chelovek I gosudar’ [Emperor Nicholas I: The Man and the Emperor] (St. Petersburg,
2001). Also see Mark Steinberg, A History of Russia (New York, 2011); Patricia Kennedy
Grimsted, The Foreign Ministers of Alexander I: Political Attitudes and the Conduct of Russian
Diplomacy, 1801–1825 (Berkeley, 1969); and the many relevant works by Nicholas V.
Riasanovsky.

296

AGAINST THE GRAIN

Another methodological problem is to derive papal thinking solely
from an understanding of the second brief, Cum Primum (1832), in which
a large cast of characters is present in the deliberations. This naturally leads
to the conclusion that Gregory was confused, weak, or unsure what to do.
However, Cum Primum was not—and should not be—the beginning point
for this survey. An earlier papal decision, Impensa Caritas (1831), has too
often been overlooked, chiefly because it was ultimately suppressed. It is the
contention of the present work that this decision—regardless of the brief’s
ultimate outcome—must be gauged on its own merits, particularly since it
provides the historian with a view of Gregory’s earliest and original motives.
Thus, this essay will discuss anew the reasons that Gregory condemned the actions of the Polish clerics in the November uprising of
1830–31. It will recount the story from the perspectives of Pope Gregory
and Russian officials, revealing a pontiff steeped in Russian affairs and cognizant of and deliberate in his actions. His many experiences involving
Russian affairs prior to 1831 prepared him for his decision to work with
Russia in helping to quell the Polish Uprising. Gregory acted on Russia’s
request more or less autonomously and without much deliberation, and
certainly without any of the unpleasant inducements that are so often
(wrongly) associated with the decision. The major impetus for Gregory
issuing Impensa Caritas was, foremost, the personal belief that relations
between Rome and St. Petersburg were improving, in addition to his principled opposition to such political activity on the part of clerics. On a personal level, he highly regarded Prince Gagarin despite their earlier contretemps over a Polish ecclesiastical matter. On a political level, Gregory
was deeply beholden to the tsar for the care given to the Armenian
Catholics in both the Ottoman and Persian empires.
Desiring to build on this foundation and reciprocate goodwill, Gregory responded forthwith to the request of Russia’s envoy in Rome, Prince
Gagarin, for help in quelling political disturbances in the Kingdom of
Poland. His unspoken hope that accompanied Impensa Caritas was that
Catholics in the Russian empire would receive more favorable treatment,
just as the Armenian Catholics had in the late 1820s.
As for Russia, the results of this article are even more consequential.
There is none of the subterfuge normally associated with their officials in
this affair. They were forthright in their desire to have Polish clergy heed
authority and truly believed the pope was just the person that could convince wayward clerics of this. In fact, this request was not even the brainchild of Tsar Nicholas; it originated with Prince Gagarin, who presented

CHRISTOPHER KORTEN

297

his request to the pontiff without consulting St. Petersburg. This
impromptu act by Gagarin undermines the conspiratorial notions ascribed
to Nicholas I so rampant in the historiography. Rather than pursuing any
far-reaching plan to cripple the Catholic Church, Russian diplomacy
begins to appear more ad-hoc and less patterned, although very skillful.15
In addition to the rich secondary literature, the materials for this story
are derived from two previously unexplored sources: documents related to
Pope Gregory’s time as consultant for the Roman curia (1815–30) and the
official Russian diplomatic papers housed in Moscow.
Gregory’s experience in Russian affairs reached all the way back to
1814, at the onset of the Restoration and following the defeat of Napoleon.
His dealings with them over the next fifteen years or so as consultant for
the Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs affords one the
chance to understand his views of Russia, of which early on there are three
discernible ones: distrust, uncertainty, and caution. These also reflected the
prevailing sentiment inside the curia at the time, which informed the
future pope’s view. All told, he accrued experience in Slavic matters to
become one of the curia’s leading experts.16
In late November 1814 Gregory, as the Benedictine priest Mauro
Cappellari, was given his first assignment pertaining to Russia. He had to
decide the appropriateness of the request by Tsar Alexander I (1801–25)
to transfer the archbishopric in Mohilev to Vilnius with the added title of
primate for Archbishop Stanisław Siestrzeńcewicz Bohusz, along with
enlarged responsibilities analogous to other Metropolitans.17 The decision
took on greater importance because of the enhanced position held by the
tsar. Alexander was at the height of his fame and popularity, credited by

15. This assessment does not include the Ruthenian Church, which was also under
Rome’s control. Nicholas viewed these two institutions very differently and did not regard them
as composing one church body. Prince Gagarin is a fascinating figure who lacks a biographer.
16. Another Russian matter handled by the future Pope Gregory, which is not covered
in this article, can be found in Vatican City, Archivio Segreto Vaticano (hereafter cited as
ASV), Sacra Congregazione degli Affari Ecclesiastici Straordinari (hereafter cited as
AAEESS), Raccolti dei Rapporti, 8:143–50.
17. Indice delle Sessioni, 1 (1814), p. 229, ASV, AAEESS. See also Barańska, Między
Warszawą, pp. 101–03. During later negotiations Rome suggested that Vilnius might be a
second archbishopric, besides Mohilev (ibid., pp. 116–18, 126–27, 131–33). The archbishopric in Mohilev was erected in 1783. For a more general political picture during Alexander I’s
reign, see Anna Zamek-Gliszczyńska, “Polityka polska Aleksandra I w historiografii polskiej,” Przegląd Humanistyczny, 27, no. 6 (1983), 35–46.

298

AGAINST THE GRAIN

many, including himself, with the defeat of Napoleon.18 He also believed
that he had played a large role in returning the Italian legations to the
Church during the Congress of Vienna and that such a favor as he was
requesting should be granted.19 His expectations and demands created
much consternation not only for Secretary of State Ercole Consalvi in
Vienna, who was being pressed by Count Gustav Ernst von Stackleberg,
an impatient Russian diplomat, for an answer to the tsar’s demands, but
also for the Roman curia.20 Church officials feared that a negative response
could provoke Alexander to sever ties with Rome.21 On November 5, 1814,
Cardinal Bartolomeo Pacca told the Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs that this case was “most serious and in need of extreme
care.”22 Through the secretary of the congregation, Francesco Fontana,
Cappellari alone was asked to draft a response:
The Secretary of the Congregation of Ecclesiastical Affairs asks you to
occupy yourself with the three enclosed annexed papers from the Eminent Consalvi, which deal with truly regrettable and thorny matters—
that of the petitions of the Emperor of Russia. With your great prudence
and wisdom, I entrust this to you for a judicious response.23

The biggest problem for the Catholic Church in Russia pertained to
the Ruthenian Catholics, who experienced open hostility by those in the
Russian Orthodox Church. Since the creation of the Ruthenian Catholic
Church in 1596, Russian tsars and Orthodox hierarchies took its members
for traitors and apostates. In 1793–94 1.5 million Ruthenian Catholics in
Ukraine, Podolia, and Volhynie (ancient Polish lands) joined the Russian

18. Janet Hartley, Alexander I (London, 1994), p. 139; Dominic Lieven, Russia against
Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807 to 1814 (London, 2009).
19. Barańska, Między Warszawą, p. 99. See also Boudou, Le Saint-Siège et la Russie,
1:60; Edward Elton Young Hales, Revolution and Papacy: 1769–1846 (London, 1960), pp.
232–33. Alan Reinerman claims the tsar “displayed a total disinterest in Italy,” an assertion
that is wide of the mark; see “Metternich, Alexander I, and the Russian Challenge in Italy,
1815–1830,” Journal of Modern History, 46 (1974), 262–76, here 265–66.
20. Boudou, Le Saint-Siège et la Russie, 1:57.
21. Indice delle Sessioni, 1:229, ASV, AAEESS.
22. Cardinal Bartolomeo Pacca to Monsignor Tomasso Arezzo, November 5, 1814,
Russia e Polonia, 1 (1814–17), pp. 340–41, ASV, AAEESS.
23. Secretary Fontana to Mauro Cappellari, November 25, 1814, Russia e Polonia, fasc.
6, folder 18, no. 5, ASV, AAEESS: “Il Seg.rio della S.a Congne degli Affari Ecclci prega
V.P.Rma ad occuparsi sopra i tre annessi Dispacci (con carte analoghe) dell’Emo Consalvi,
che concernono un oggetto veramente dolente, e spinoso, delle Petizioni dell’Impera.e delle
Russie. Lo scrivente lo affida alla somma prudenza, e saviezza di V.P. Rma, da cui ne attende
a suo tempo il di lei giudizioso sentimento.”»

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Orthodox Church—partly through propaganda, partly through force, of
Catherine the Great (r. 1762–96). After 1815, the Ruthenians had just four
dioceses in Lithuania and Belorussia, and one in the Kingdom of Poland.24
Siestrzencewicz, Metropolitan of the Latin Church in Mohilev since 1783,
expressed his loyalties first to the tsar and was often complicit in the policy
against the Ruthenian Catholics. Siestrzencewicz’s pronounced dislike of
the more conservative elements of the Catholic Church was well known by
this time.25 These facts and the difficulties experienced by Ruthenians
caused all requests to be viewed with suspicion, especially since the rupture
in diplomatic relations between Russia and the Holy See in 1804.
In his official opinion, Cappellari suggested that most of the tsar’s fifteen requests for greater authority for the Metropolitan should be denied,
including the power to confirm bishops and grant marital dispensations.
He felt that acceptance of these requests would represent a loss of jurisdiction, prestige, and power for the Church and set a dangerous precedent.26
Cappellari’s efforts were praised, and, as a result, more work followed.
Fontana wrote afterward: “no one is able to do it better. With so much
penetration, you have examined this whole, most complicated affair and
have written with so much wisdom and doctrine.”27
Cappellari’s service as consultant in the curia taught him to be leery of
Russian ecclesiastical designs and aware that the rules of diplomacy could
be summarily altered or usurped at any time. Despite Cappellari’s reasoned

24. For more, see Bolesław Kumor and Zdzisław Obertyński eds., Historia Kościoła w
Polsce [History of the Church in Poland], vol. 1, pt. 1 (Poznań-Warsaw, 1979), pp. 219–35,
497–511; Edward Likowski, Dzieje Kościoła unickiego na Litwie i Rusi [History of the Uniate
Church in Lithuania and Russia], 2nd ed. (Warsaw, 1906); Hanna Dylągowa, Dzieje unii
brzeskiej [History of the Union of Brest] (Warsaw-Olsztyn, 1996); and Marian Radwan,
Carat wobec kościoła greckokatolickiego w zaborze rosyjskim 1796–1839 [The Actions of the Tsar
Toward the Greek-Catholic Church in Russian Lands, 1796–1839] (Lublin, 2004).
25. Albert Maria Ammann, Storia della Chiesa Russa e dei Paesi Limitrofi (Torino,
1948), p. 407. About Siestrzeńcewicz, see André Brumanis, Aux origines de la hiérarchie latine
en Russie. Mgr Stanislas Siestrzencewicz-Bohusz premier archevêque-métropolitain de Mohilev
(1731–1826) (Louvain, 1968); Zygmunt Zieliński, Kościół w kręgu rzeczywistości politycznej
[The Church in the Sphere of Political Reality] (Lublin, 2003), pp. 25–34.
26. ASV, AAEESS, Indice delle Sessioni, 1:240–41. The voto submitted by Cappellari
that forms the basis of this summary is in this index (pp. 236–45). His opinion can be found
in “Prospetto delle dimande della Corte di Russia,” Russia e Polonia, 1:547–68, ASV,
AAEESS.
27. Fontana to Cappellari, December 30, 1814, ASV, AAEESS, Russia e Polonia, fasc.
7, folder 18, no. 10: “Niuno può far meglio di lui questo Sacro, che con tanta penetrazione ha
esaminato tutto questo complicatissimo affare e ne ha scritto con tanto saviezza, e dottrina.”

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AGAINST THE GRAIN

argumentation, the Church felt it was somewhat powerless in the face of
possible defiance by the tsar. Cappellari observed that Alexander was prepared to follow his own agenda regardless of Rome’s decision; Siestrzencewicz was eventually granted the title of Metropolitan in Vilnius. In fact,
from Rome’s view, the tsar trampled on ecclesiastical procedure in his
appointment of all bishops with the possible exception of Metropolitan
Joseph Ignacy Buhlak of the Ruthenian Catholic Church.28 Regional loyalty among Catholic prelates fell predominantly to the tsar, with Rome
occupying a clear second place. Writing on a separate Russian matter
around this time, Cappellari assessed the bleak state of ecclesiastical affairs;
nations of the past, he believed, had similar goals. They attempted to gain
prerogative over religious affairs, but they now were usurping church
authority to achieve their aims.29
In another important assignment related to Russia, distrust colored
Cappellari’s arguments. He was asked (along with his future secretary of
state, Luigi Lambruschini, and two other consultants) to recommend an
appropriate response for the Church to Alexander’s invitation to join the
Holy Alliance.30 Created in September 1815, the alliance was designed to
unite Christian monarchs cooperating for the good of the political order
under the general Christian precepts of justice, peace, and charity. Pope Pius
VII (r. 1800–23) had earlier declined the Russian offer, but the country’s
envoy in Rome, Baron de Tuyll, then stated that appropriate concessions to
the three articles of the alliance’s charter could be made to accommodate the
Church’s ideals. Asked to review the matter anew, Cappellari saw irreconcilable differences between the principles of the alliance and those of the
Church, not to mention the fact that Pius was addressed in his capacity as a
temporal rather than spiritual leader. Cappellari believed that the articles
insinuated inclusion and tolerance of all religions without distinction, adding
that this neutrality ran counter to the Church’s mission and teachings. Cappellari also did not trust Russia’s claim that it would inform the public of
revisions to the charter such as inserting the words Religione Cattolica (the
Catholic religion) for Religione del Dio Salvatore (Religion of God the
Savior). The risk for the Church, he warned, was too great if Russia reneged
on these promises. Moreover, these exceptions were so extensive that it made
the term alliance devoid of any real meaning. Cappellari advised the pope to
28. Ibid., fasc. 17, folder 30, fol. 51.
29. Ibid., fasc. 8, folder 19, “Attentati de’ Principi,” 2.
30. This paragraph is drawn from Russia e Polonia, 1:455–71, ASV, AAEESS. See also
M. Godlewski, Cesarz Aleksander I jako misty [Tsar Alexander I the Mystic] (Kraków, 1923);
Barańska, Między Warszawą, pp. 118–19.

CHRISTOPHER KORTEN

301

maintain his refusal to join and perhaps win the respect of the tsar by standing firm on his principles. Pius VII and the curia concurred.
Caution about offending Russia marked his next decision regarding a
request by Wojciech Skarszewski, bishop of Lublin. On February 3, 1815,
the bishop complained that the government of the Duchy of Warsaw (that
followed the Napoleonic Code) was imposing oppressive measures and
inhibiting the Church’s ability to practice the faith. His requests included
the readmittance of the Jesuits to his diocese so they could instruct youth
in religion as well as the introduction of two-week retreats for the common
people, especially in rural parishes (composed of a offices, devotions, sermons, and so forth).31 Cappellari denied the bishop’s requests, believing
that Alexander’s critical posture toward the Jesuit order did not make it
feasible.32 He deferred to Russia’s wishes over the interests of Catholic
missions—a noteworthy action given that he would later be known as the
missionary pope and a staunch supporter of the Jesuits.33
To such a degree did he accrue experience and enhance his reputation
in the curia that under Pope Leo XII (r. 1823–29) he was the acknowledged expert in Russian affairs. In 1825 he took a leading role in a matrimonial legal issue in the Kingdom of Poland.34 He was appointed prefect
of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide in October 1826. In August
1827, Leo XII relied on Cappellari for direction in addressing legislation
instituted by Nicolas I, as well as his predecessors, which were deemed
detrimental to the Church.35
When an appointment to a contentious vacant bishopric in Chelm
needed to be made, it was Cappellari who explained the rather complicated, ever-changing history of the region, via an introduction to the opinion by curial consultant and monsignor Paolo Polidori.36 Polidori replied
that he had nothing to add to Cappellari’s remarks. The Austrian
emperor’s authority to nominate the bishop of Chelm, whose previous
purview had included Austrian territory, clashed with the tsar’s claim to the
31. See Barańska, Między Warszawą, pp. 665–68.
32. Indice delle Sessioni, 3:159–65, and Russia e Polonia, fasc. 8, folder 19, “Lublino, e
Liegi,” 4, ASV, AAEESS. See also Marek Inglot, La Compagnia di Gesù nell’Impero Russo
(1772–1820) (Rome, 1997), pp. 120–21, and Barańska, Między Warszawą, p. 667.
33. Georges Goyau, Missions and Missionaries (London, 1932), p. 157.
34. Barańska, Między Warszawą, pp. 697–98.
35. Sophie Olszamowska-Skowrońska, La Correspondance des Papes et des Empereurs de
Russie (1814–1878) (Rome, 1970), p. 32 and Barańska, Między Warszawą, pp. 721–22.
36. Russia e Polonia, fasc. 21, folder 43, fols. 6–12, ASV, AAEESS.

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AGAINST THE GRAIN

same privilege.37 Cappellari believed that the pope should nominate the
new bishop and, in this way, attempt to placate both sides. Prince Klemens
von Metternich, the Austrian statesman, countered with a proposal to
place Chelm under the authority of the Metropolitan of Kiev. Rather than
deny the prince’s plan, Cappellari tactfully suggested to Cardinal Giuseppe
Albani, the secretary of state, that a letter generated from the nuncio in
Vienna to the prince, explaining Chelm’s unfortunate history, would
convey the point that his plan was not viable.38
Despite the marked reservations found in Cappellari’s opinions as consultant in Catholic affairs in Russia, events after 1825 gave rise to the belief
that genuine cooperation and harmony with Russia could exist. However,
historians have, for good reason, painted just the opposite picture of this
period, highlighting the ukases of 1826, 1827, and especially 1828 that
placed limits on Catholic institutions and, in particular, the Ruthenian
Catholic Church.39 Nicholas I tightened his grip on Ruthenian Catholics in
1828 when he created a separate seminary for Ruthenian Catholics. Previously, Ruthenian Catholic seminarians had been trained and governed by
the Roman Catholic seminary in St. Petersburg that had two departments:
Latin and Greek. In 1829, the government forbade the new construction of
Catholic chapels and churches in Mohilev and Podolia.40
Cappellari was aware of these events and more. Leo had created a
committee in August 1827 to examine the conditions of the Church in
Russia and appointed Cappellari as leader.41 Cappellari drafted a ten-page
report on the ecclesiastical state of affairs in the region. The following year,
in a letter to Albani regarding the situation in Chelm, he commented on
the poor state of the Ruthenian Church in Russia. He made special reference to the ukase of April 22, 1828, which he believed was an attempt to
destroy the Ruthenians.42
37. Secretary of State Albani to Cappellari, September 3, 1829, ASV, Segretario di
Stato (hereafter cited as SS), Esterni, Epoca Moderna (hereafter cited as EM), folder 405/2.
See also Albani to Cappellari, November 3, 1829, Congressi: Moscovai, Polonia, Ruteni,
Archivio della congregazione de Propaganda Fide (hereafter cited as APF), folder 19, fol.
690; letter to Cappellari, November 7, 1829, APF, folder 19, fol. 692.
38. Cappellari to Albani, December 20, 1829, ASV, SS, Esterni, EM, folder 405/2.
39. Dennis J. Dunn, The Catholic Church in Russia: Popes, Patriarchs, Tsars and Commissars (Aldershot, UK, 2004), p. 51.
40. Polonia; or, Monthly Reports on Polish Affairs (London, 1832), 1:381–82.
41. Boudou, Le Saint-Siège et la Russie, 1:152n; also Barańska, Między Warszawą, pp.
721–22.
42. Afanasiy̆ Grygoriy̆ Welykyj, Litterae S.C. de Propaganda Fide Ecclesiam Catholicam
Ucrainae et Bielarusjae Spectantes, Analecta OSBM, 2. ser. 3, sec. 7 (Rome, 1957), p. 182.

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303

Despite the gloomy picture created by these actions of the Russian
government against the Catholic Church, a trio of events after 1825
impelled Cappellari to embark on a course of personal cooperation and
openness toward Russia. First, Cappellari was tapped as the Church’s point
man in a secret mission initiated by Russia.43 Alexander wanted to explore
ways that the Orthodox Church could be merged with the Latin Church.
The plan was furtively relayed to Leo XII during the Jubilee of 1825 by
Russian general Michaud de Beauretour, a Catholic who had used the
excuse of the Jubilee as cover for his real reason for sojourning to Rome. So
secretive was the project that Alexander had requested that no written reference be made to it; not even the Russian ambassador in Rome was aware
of de Beauretour’s actual mission. At the meeting with Leo, the general
requested that the pontiff appoint a trusted envoy who understood the
ecclesiastical situation in Russia and would travel to St. Petersburg for
exploratory talks on a merger. Leo’s first choice for this task was Cappellari. But the Camaldolese monk withdrew from consideration, apparently
because of his lack of fluency in French, the language of the negotiations.
Alexander’s death ended this short-lived undertaking.
The second circumstance and by far the one of most significance to
Cappellari regarding the potential for Russian goodwill encompassed events
over a three-year period in the Caucasus region. Armenian Catholics in the
Ottoman Empire were subject to increasing hostility following the outbreak
of the Greek revolution and the Battle of Navarino in October 1827, when
the allied fleet of Russia, England, and France quickly decimated the Turks
and Egyptians. Most Christians, including Catholic clergy and their flock
loyal to Rome, were in harm’s way.44 Some buildings were confiscated or
partially destroyed, clergy were sent into exile, and adherents were pressured
to convert. As prefect of Propaganda Fide, Cappellari was in the vanguard
of the Church’s efforts between 1827 and 1830 to protect them; there was
arguably not a more pressing concern for him during this time. He lobbied
all sympathetic diplomats in Constantinople, telling them “to protect the
poor, persecuted Armenians, to send subsidies to the clerics who remain in
Constantinople and to assist financially those clerics exiled from the capital
[of the Ottomans] who display a hatred for our Holy Religion.”45 He leaned

43. Anna Barańska, “Czy car Aleksander I przyjął wiarę katolicką? Tajna misja generała
Michaud de Beauretour do papieża Leona XII,” Przegląd Wschodni, 11, no. 2 (2009), 319–39.
It contains an excellent historiography and general retelling of the story.
44. Coressi to Cappellari, September 10, 1827, APF, Greci, Scritture Riferite nei Congressi, vol. 3.

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AGAINST THE GRAIN

on Austria and France to do the Church’s diplomatic bidding, because these
countries offered the most aggressive support for the Church’s plight. It was
Russia, however, that was in the best position to offer tangible assistance, as
it had a substantial military presence in the area after victorious wars against
the Ottomans and Persians.46
The result of these victories meant heavier reliance on Russia by
Catholics in the Transcaucasus. Thousands of Armenians from Turkey
and Persia immigrated to Russia following the wars. Cappellari was very
thankful for the care given to these new immigrant Catholics. On more
than one occasion he expressed satisfaction about Russian assistance on his
or the pontiff’s behalf.47 Knowledgeable officials acknowledged at the time
that the diplomatic assistance of Austria and France, although helpful, was
insufficient and that Russian military superiority was the critical element in
ensuring concessions from the Ottoman Empire.48
By mid-1828, Leo XII, too, was focused on the well-being of the
Armenian Catholics when dialoguing with Russia. He urged the tsar to
take action so that the dire circumstances of the “massacred Armenians”
could be alleviated and that “‘their religious and civil liberty’” could be
ensured following the peace accord with the Porte.49 To Leo’s mind, the
tsar was “‘the glorious instrument’” of their liberation. Nicholas assured the
pontiff “of my readiness to favor, in concert with my allies [France and
England], all combinations which would be judged efficacious for the
reestablishment of the freedom of religious cults in the Ottoman States.”50
45. Cappellari to Bernetti, June 21, 1828, ASV, SS, Esterni, EM, folder 404/4: “a proteggere i poveri perseguitati Armeni, per mandare Sussidi agli Ecclesiastici che restano in
Costantinopoli, e per preparare i mezzi di sussistenza agli Ecclesiastici esiliati da quella Capitale in odio della nostra Santa Religione.”
46. For example, see Moscow, Archiv Vnešnej Politiki Rossijskoi Imperii (hereafter
cited as AVPRI), 190/525/366, report 8, no. 47, Gagarin to Count Karl Nesselrode, February
27/March 11, 1830.
47. Cappellari to Albani, January 22 and February 13, 1830, ASV, SS, Esterni, EM,
folder 404/4; Cappellari to Albani, February 24, 1830, folder 532 (1830 Misc. letters).
48. Gagarin to Nesselrode, April 1/13, 1830, AVPRI, 190/525/366, fol. 71, report 19.
49. Leo XII to Nicholas I, May 28, 1828, in Skowrońska, La Correspondance, pp. 29–
30: “et spécialment des Arméniens massacres, surtout durant les futures negotiations de paix
avec la Porte Ottomane, pour ‘assurer la liberté religieuse et civile.’”
50. Nicholas I to Leo XII, July 2, 1828, in ibid.: “Le Pape invoquait l’Empereur comme
‘instrument glorieux’ de leur liberation.’” And May 28, 1828, in ibid.: “[il] donnait à Léon XII
‘l’assurance positive de mon empressement à favoriser, de concert avec mes Alliés, toute combinaison qui serait jugée efficace pour le rétablissement de la liberté des cultes dans les Etats
Ottomans.”’Assurances were made though under certain conditions. See Barańska, Między
Warszawą, p. 187.’

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305

Under Leo’s successor, Pius VIII (r. 1829–30), the feeling of cooperation
resulting from Russia’s efforts in the Caucasus region still predominated.
Nicholas desired to maintain “the rapport of friendship ‘that exists between
us and the Papal States.’”51
Just how important this relationship was to Cappellari, Pius VIII’s
successor, is seen in a parallel, highly controversial case involving a wayward Sicilian priest who had left his diocese and found himself, by 1828,
in Constantinople.52 The young man had taken a Turkish wife, converted
to Islam, and produced at least four offspring. Repenting and desiring a
return to the Church, the young man sent a letter to the pope requesting
forgiveness. Cappellari feared grave repercussions for the Church if the
priest abandoned his Muslim wife and children, returned home, and provided a source of unwelcome scrutiny from the Porte. Church officials
decided to sneak the cleric’s family members out of the empire; provide
them with financial cover; and create a new identity and life for them in
northern Italy, effectively removing the problem. In the end, Cappellari, as
pontiff, went one step further and absolved the marriage (after earlier
upholding the priest’s spiritual commitments), judging the situation too
risky for the Church.
Cappellari’s preoccupation with Armenian Catholics extended into
the conclave of 1830–31. In January 1831 the Armenian Catholics were
awarded a millet, signifying official political recognition of their group by
the Ottoman Empire.53 As late as January 31, two days before his election,
Cappellari was discussing an aspect of this affair in the conclave—a practice normally prohibited but reflecting the critical nature of the matter.54
After three years of effort, the Church had finally achieved its aim, legitimizing its Church in the area. On the heels of this Armenian issue came
Russian envoy Prince Gagarin’s request that the Church assist Russia in
quelling the Polish uprising.

51. Nicholas I to Pius VIII, April 17, 1829, in Skowrońska, La Correspondance, p. 33:
“experiment le désir de maintenir les rapports d’amitié ‘qui existent entre Nous et les Etats de
l’Eglise Romaine.’”
52. Found in Archivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede, Dispensationes
Variae, 1828–30, no. 120; the story will appear in Christopher Korten, “The Prodigal Son:
Gregory XVI and a Wayward Priest,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History, forthcoming.
53. Kemal Beydilli, II. Mahmud Devri’nde Katolik Ermeni Cemâati ve Kilisesi’nin
Tanınması [Recognition of the Armenian Catholic Community and the Church in the Reign
of Mahmud II] (Cambridge, MA, 1995), p. 32.
54. APF, Scritture Riferite nei Congressi, Fondo Armeni, vol. 35, fol. 48.

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AGAINST THE GRAIN

In addition to the active collaboration with Russia on Armenian
Catholic matters in the political sphere there were personal considerations
that suggested a turning of that the tide in a more positive direction. In 1825
Cappellari was the recipient of encomia by Russian envoy Andrej Italińsky.
As the story goes, Cappellari presented Italińsky with a copy of his book, Il
Trionfo della Santa Sede (Rome, 1799); the envoy was grateful for this kind
gesture and supposedly urged Leo to raise “the dotto religious” to cardinal.55
Italińsky apparently enjoyed the favor of many in the Roman curia; at
his death, Russophile and Secretary of State Tommaso Bernetti wrote,
“We have lost the good Italińsky.”56 More significantly for Cappellari,
however, was his somewhat volatile relationship with Italińsky’s successor,
Prince Gagarin. It began well and soured in the middle, but the two men
reconciled and enjoyed an even stronger friendship by 1831. Gagarin’s initial impressions of Cappellari were favorable, as his reports around the time
of the conclave of 1829 reveal. He reported on Cappellari’s reputation as
“wise” and “a moderate,” highlighting the cardinal’s efforts in the concordat talks with the Low Countries in 1827.57
However, in September 1829 the two became embroiled in a messy
affair involving the Church of Saints Serge and Bacchus in Rome (also
called Madonna del Pascolo), occupied by the Basilian order since 1641 and
the current seat of its procurator.58 At the death of the incompetent procurator Anatole Wilczyński that autumn, Propaganda Fide and the Russian
legation battled for control of the establishment.59 Cappellari fervently
asserted that his Congregation (Propaganda Fide) should administer the
monastery, immediately dispatching an underling to lock the doors and thus
barring entry to Russian officials. Rather more calm but just as firm,
Gagarin asserted that the Kingdom of Poland had legally conveyed the
monastery to Russia in 1818. Therefore, it alone had jurisdiction over this
55. Cappellari’s election to cardinal was published in early 1826. Gaetano Moroni, Il
Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastica da San Pietro sino ai nostri giorni, 106 vols. (Venice,
1840–79), 103:501. It seems Italińsky spoke highly of Cappellari to the tsar, who later congratulated Leo XII on his selection of Cappellari (Moroni, Dizionario, 59:317).
56. Rome, Biblioteca Risorgimento, Bernetti to Amat, June 29, 1827, vol. 10, folder 7,
letter 11v: “Abbiamo perduto il bravo Italinski.”
57. Gagarin to Nesselrode, February 4/16, 1829, AVPRI, 190/525/366, report 9, fols.
56–58.
58. This episode is unremarked upon in the historiography except by Boudou, Le SaintSiège et la Russie, 1:168–69, and very briefly by Alan J. Reinerman, Austria and the Papacy in
the Age of Metternich, 2 (Washington, DC, 1989), p. 328.
59. Gagarin to Nesselrode, January 13/25, 1831, AVPRI, 190/525/366, report 5.

CHRISTOPHER KORTEN

307

extraterritorial property. Neither side budged, and acrimony ensued. The
affair quickly escalated and drew both the pope and the tsar into the fray.
Cappellari’s initial fear that the Ruthenian Catholics were being
slowly and surreptitiously taken from the Church—a fear no doubt reinforced by the recent ukases—were, ironically, trumped by Secretary of
State Albani (and later Pius VIII), who sided with Gagarin in the matter.
Cappellari was eventually cut out of the proceedings. The report from
Propaganda Fide, which essentially expressed the thoughts of prefect Cappellari, charged Russia with attempting to separate the Ruthenians from
Rome and reunite them with the Oriental Church.60 Gagarin fired back,
writing that Propaganda Fide had taken “arbitrary measures.”61 In the end,
Gagarin reached a compromise with Pius VIII composed of a tripartite
division of powers: the Polish government in Warsaw would preside over
the administration of the order, the Basilian order would control matters
concerning the monastery property, and Propaganda Fide would oversee
spiritual concerns.62 Months later, Gagarin recounted a meeting with Cappellari held in Rome after a period of no contact:
there was the dispute with Cappellari over the Pascolo affair. I had not
seen Cappellari since, until returning from Paris where the nuncio [Lambruschini] asked me to take him a package. I did it very willingly, and I
desired to show to this dignified cleric that I did not harbor any grudge;
so I hastened my return in order to bring him the commissions of monsignor Lambruschini. Cappellari received me most cordially, and after
the compliments at the beginning [of our meeting], he took me very
affectionately by the hand and said, “would it be possible that you would
forgive me for this disagreeable Pascolo affair? I assure you that there was
a misunderstanding, for which I am very sorry, and I have accepted the
conditions which you proposed consistent in the three points cited in the
report #62.” I responded that in this moment it would be impossible to
return to that affair, but that, on this occasion, I would report [what you
have told me] to my Court. That visit finished in the friendliest manner
possible, and afterward, it has seemed to me that he has given me very
much attention.63

60. Ibid., report 1, Gagarin to Nesselrode, January 2/14, 1829.
61. Ibid., report 60, Gagarin to Nesselrode, September 4/16, 1829.
62. Gagarin to Nesselrode, October 25/November 6, 1829, AVPRI, 190/525/468,
report 70, fol. 40r.
63. Gagarin to Nesselrode, January 13/25, 1831, AVPRI, 190/525/366, report 5: “…tres
volontiers and voulant prouver á ce digne religieux, que ja n’avais pas de rancune, je me hatais
à mon retour d’aller lui porter les commissions de Mgr Lambruschini. Il me reçut avec la plus
grand cordialité et après les premiers complimens, me pregnant affectuesement par la main il

AGAINST THE GRAIN

FIGURE 1. Pope Gregory XVI. Engraving in the United States Catholic Magazine
and Monthly Review, Sept. 1846, frontispiece.

In one final episode, the two were again drawn into controversy, but
this time they were on the same side. Prior to the conclave of February
1831, Albani met with Gagarin to determine whether Russia had withdrawn its support of Cappellari as a result of the Pascolo affair. It is plausible that Albani was unaware that Cappellari and Gagarin had made
amends. Gagarin stated that his court opposed no papal candidate. However, the prince later became aware of the intrigue by the inveterate, conniving Albani, as he attempted to dilute support for Cappellari by suggesting Russia did not approve of Cappellari’s candidacy. Offended by the
deception, Gagarin went public with his feelings, offering what was, in
effect, a defense of Cappellari. The Russian minister stated that his government had no principled objection to a Cappellari pontificate, did not
favor any particular candidate, and would not permit misinformation about
Cappellari to be disseminated.64 Cappellari was elected one week later,
taking the name Pope Gregory XVI (see figure 1).
dit: serait-il possible que vous m’en vouliez pour cette désagréable affaire du Pascolo? Assurez
vous que c’est un malentendu, dont je suis désolé et que je suis prêt à accepter les conditions
que vous avez propose consistent dans les 3 points, cites dans mon rapport #62. Je répondis
que dans ce moment il m’était impossible de reprendre cette affaire, mais que dans l’occasion
j’eu parlerai à ma Cour. Cette visite finit le plus amicalement possible et depuis il n’est forte
d’attention don’t il ne m’ait cemblé.”
64. Ibid.

CHRISTOPHER KORTEN

309

With the election of a new pontiff, Gagarin may have thought the
time was opportune to request Gregory’s help in quelling unrest in the
aftermath of the November 1830 uprising in Warsaw and rebuking participating Polish clergy. Gagarin reported the pontiff’s attitude to Count Karl
Nesselrode, the Russian foreign minister, a few days later: “Gregory XVI
has complied with my request and has lent himself to it with an infinite
amount of grace.”65 Gregory was buoyant about the direction of their relations. In fact, only five days separated the request and the finished Impensa
Caritas brief (February 11 to 15)—unheard of in Rome in administrative
terms. Gagarin recalled his conversation with Gregory: “It was . . . [Gregory’s] intention to dictate [the brief] [in the manner he did] in order to
give it a character of spontaneity.”66 It required no action by committees
and very little, if any, outside consultation. Gregory believed it was the
right action to take at a time when, from his perspective, Russian relations
were promising. Clergy should not participate actively in overturning
established governments. “The Holy Father is not happy that clerics
actively participated,” stated Bernetti the following week.67 Gregory’s brief
emphasized that the primary duty of the clergy was to care for the spiritual
needs of their flock. Gregory maintained this same attitude the following
year as well as in meetings with Gagarin leading to Cum Primum; on this
occasion it was clear that, for Gregory, it was the importance of the relationship that mattered most: “Last Monday [April 24/May 6, 1832] the
Pope granted me an audience, in which after his most kind reception [he
offered] the most positive assurances of his constant desire to meet those
requests which are agreeable to [Nicholas I].”68
Given that the historiography lacks any mention of this warm relationship, historians have consequently assigned too much importance to

65. Gagarin to Nesselrode, February 6/18, 1831, AVPRI, 190/525/366, report 15:
“Gregoire XVI a daigné déférer à ma demande et s’y est prête avec infinement de grace.” For
more information on Nesselrode, see Grimsted, The Foreign Ministers of Alexander I, pp. 269–
86; her descriptive chapter title informs the reader of her views on him: “a spokesman for the
status quo.”
66. Vienna, Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv (hereafter cited as HHSA), Russland III, 97
Weisungen (VII–XII), Varia 1832, Gagarin to Nesselrode, April 24/May 6, 1832: “c’est avec
intention que je l’ai dicté sur le son de plus ?? pour lui donner un’ caracterè de spontaneitè.”
67. Bernetti to nuncio Ugo Pietro Spinola, February 19, 1831, in Żywczyński, Geneza, p.
86: “nie może być satysfacją dla ojca św.—pisał [Bernetti]—że duchowni biorą czynny udział….”
68. Gagarin to Nesselrode, April 24/May 6, 1832, HHSA, Russland III: “Lundi [sic]
dernier le Pape m’a accordé une audience dans la quelle après l’accueil le plus bonveillant et
les assurances les plus formelles de son constant désir d’aller au devant de Sont [sic] ce qui
peut être agreeable à N.A. Maitre.”

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AGAINST THE GRAIN

Gregory’s principled opposition to revolution in assessing his decision. It is
true that the pontiff stood staunchly opposed to such political actions by
members of his Church. Furthermore, his own problems in dealing with
revolution made him more sensitive to the position in which Russia found
itself. These issues, taken in tandem, were no doubt part of Gregory’s
thinking at the time.
But the crucial issue in the pope’s decision to issue Impensa was the
status of the relationship at the time—Gregory was dealing with a nonCatholic power. His conduct and attitude toward Russia in the period
prior to 1825 and later in his pontificate—all years marked by tension—
exemplifies this situation. In the previously mentioned case involving Tsar
Alexander’s request for expanded powers of his Metropolitan, Cappellari’s
denial of the petition was predicated not only on the merits of the case but
also on the degree of trust. Cappellari wrote in his decision that Alexander
was trying to deceive Rome by appearing to be friendly when in fact he
desired to subvert the Church.69
In the case of the Holy Alliance, Alexander’s invitation to the pope to
join the alliance essentially differed little from Gagarin’s initiative in 1831.
On both occasions, Russia asked the pope to make public statements
upholding legitimacy and condemning revolutionary activity. In 1815,
with a weak relationship between the Church and Russia, Cappellari and
the rest of the curia thought it best to decline Alexander’s offer, unsure if
such cooperation would be used against the Church; in 1831, with more
confidence in Russian intentions, Gregory signed off on Impensa.
Following Russia’s decision to suppress the Ruthenian Church in
1839, Gregory refused to cooperate with the tsar for a period of time. He
even went on the offensive, condemning the tsar’s actions in an allocution
on July 22, 1842.70 Not only had Russia taken many members from Gregory’s Church, it had done so without a word to the pontiff (Gregory
learned of Russia’s actions from missionaries, affected clergy, and nuncios).
The trust and optimism that was so apparent in the relationship at the
beginning of the decade had suddenly and completely vanished.

69. Russia e Polonia, fasc. 7, pos. 18, no. 7 (“Posizione di Russia”), fol. 10, ASV,
AAEESS.
70. Gregory XVI, Allocuzione [della santità di Gregorio PP. XVI] al Sagro collegio nel concistorio segreto del 22 luglio 1842, seguita da una espozizione corredata di documenti sulle incessanti
cure della stessa santità sua a riparo dei gravi mali da cui è afflitta la religione cattolica negli imperiali e reali dominii di Russia e Polonia (Rome, 1842).

CHRISTOPHER KORTEN

311

Gregory’s unwillingness to cooperate with Russia on even rather
straightforward matters was evident after this episode and reveals his posture during periods when there was little or no trust. Following the death
of Bishop Klemens Bąkiewicz of Sandomir on January 2, 1842, Gregory
stubbornly declined to appoint his replacement. The tsar had nominated
Abbot Józef Joachim Goldtman as well as two bishop suffragans, Thadée
Kotowski and Antoine Lubienski. In May 1843, Gregory refused “to examine the bulls of institution” of these men.71 Frustrated, Tsar Nicholas
called the pontiff’s objections “trite.”72 He could not understand Gregory’s
behavior, feeling that the procedures were transparent and the process fair
for all sides. Even more frustrating was Gregory’s long periods of silence
on the matter.73
In the case of one suffragan, Russia felt him to be exemplary and
embodying the principles that both sides desired in a candidate: he was
“moral, charitable and enlightened”; he was a gifted preacher; he helped the
poor, oversaw religious education for children, and consoled the sick in hospitals and asylums. What is more, he opposed revolution and championed
legitimate government.74 In the case of Goldtman, he was one of the few
men who had not taken part in the revolution of 1830–31, advocating peace
and tranquillity instead.75 By November, the tsar was clearly frustrated by
what he perceived as papal arrogance in the matter.76 Nicholas noted that his
government had been careful to adhere to canon law. On January 2, 1844,
Gregory finally acted, and Goldtman was installed in April of that year.
This two-year delay in appointment is especially significant considering that Gregory well understood the importance of filling vacant diocesan
positions. As a consultant in the Roman curia, Cappellari had witnessed
the ill effects on the Church when a bishopric remained vacant for too
long. Schism occurred in Guatemala in 1825 after several years of gridlock
between Spain and its breakaway republics left the diocese without a permanent bishop.77 The matter centered on spiritual jurisdiction and the

71. Nesselrode letter, May 1, 1843, AVPRI, 190/525/598, 1842–47, letter 71.
72. Nesselrode letter, May 1, 1843, AVPRI, 190/525/598, 1842–47, letter 70: “banalité.”
73. Nesselrode letter, May 1, 1843, in ibid., letter 71. It is inferred that Gregory objects
to their views on mixed marriages.
74. Ibid., on Kotłowski.
75. Ibid.
76. Nesselrode, November 8, 1843, AVPRI, 190/525/598, 1842–47, letter 110.
77. Documents on the schism, ASV, SS, Esterni, EM, b. 436/2, Della Somaglia to
Cappellari, May 2, 1826. He was also part of a curial commission in May 1829 tasked to
resolve the schism in San Salvador (Luis Ernesto Ayala Benítez, La iglesia y la independencia

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AGAINST THE GRAIN

appointment of bishops after countries such as Colombia, Chile, and
Mexico, declared their independence from Spain. These fledgling governments refused to accept the ecclesiastical appointments of King Ferdinand
VII (r. 1808, 1813–33). Meanwhile, Spain asserted its right of motu proprio, a 300-year prerogative to name bishops in its own territories.
Cappellari’s concerns from the beginning of the discussion were clear.
If the Church was to avoid further schism in Latin America, it must nominate bishops directly and without delay.78 In other words, his priority was
the welfare of the Church, avoiding engagement in the dispute over political sovereignty. So important was this matter to Cappellari that he pressed
for direct papal appointments in the area despite loud protests from Spain.
The fear of repeating what took place in Guatemala influenced his attitude: “In the examination of some affairs concerning the Republics of
Mexico, Columbia and Bolivia, the Guatemala affair came to my mind.”79
Later in the same letter, he stated, “the fact of Guatemala [means that] one
must fear very much [the issue of naming permanent bishops] with respect
to the other American republics.” In the end, Leo XII sided with Spain and
upheld its right to name bishops in the Americas.80 However, when Cappellari was elected pontiff in February 1831, he reversed this course: one of
política de Centró América: “El caso de el estado de El Salvador” (1808–1833) (Rome, 2007), pp.
238–40). There were concurrent schisms that Cappellari was also dealing with at the time—
although the petit église dissidents in Poitiers did not involve a vacant bishop, the legitimacy
of the bishop was at the center of the controversy (Cappellari to Della Somaglia, deacon of
Sacred College, and Secretary of State, June 9, 1826, ASV, Archivio Particolare di Gregorio
XVI, busta 17, 221–23 and 225–28; cf. ASV, AAEESS, Francia, fasc. 241, pos. 332).
78. For an assessment of this subject, see Pedro de Leturia, “Gregorio XVI y la emancipation de la America Española,” in Gregorio XVI: miscellanea commemorative, 2 vols.
(Rome, 1948), 2:295–352. See ASV, SS, Esterni, EM, 592/5, for Cappellari’s views in one
instance in this long affair. His opinion can be found in ASV, SS, Esterni, EM, 600/1,
“America Nuova Repubblica di Columbia,” pp. 64–86 (January 29, 1825) and ASV,
AAEESS, Messico, fasc. 573, pos. 7. For Cappellari’s overall opinion, see “America Meridionale Republica di Colombia, e dell’Altro Perù, ossia Boliviana,” in ASV, AAEESS, Messico, fasc. 289, pos. 14.
79. Cappellari to Della Somaglia, November 12, 1826, ASV, SS, Esterni, EM, 592/5;
cf. America, fasc. 3, pos. 10, fol. 11, ASV, AAEESS: “Nella supposizione, che nell’esame
commessomi di alcuni affari concernenti le Reppubliche Messicana, Colombiana, e Boliviana,
potesse occorrermi di aver in vista anche quello di Guatimala” and “Il fatto di Guatimala non
può non far temere assai anche rispetto all’altre americane Repubblica.”
80. Leo XII at first was receptive to Cappellari’s suggestions but reversed his course
after Spain’s adverse reaction; he then installed only apostolic vicars. See Paulino C. Delgado,
“Relaciones iglesia-estado en hispanoamérica. Gregorio XVI,” in Homenaje a Alberto de la
Hera, ed. José Luis Soberanes Fernández and Rosa María Martínez de Codes (Mexico City,
2008), pp. 171–97, here 171.

CHRISTOPHER KORTEN

313

his first acts was to name six resident bishops in Mexico.81 That Gregory
chose to delay the bishop’s appointment in the Diocese of Sandomir, even
though the Ruthenian Church there had experienced schism, reveals the
critical role of the relationship with Russia. The loss of trust greatly
affected the pope’s willingness to cooperate.
Impensa and Cum Primum were unprecedented in the relationship
between Rome and St. Petersburg. There is nothing in their history that
suggested Gregory ought to comply with Gagarin’s request. Even Gagarin
himself, despite his cordial relations with Gregory personally, was somewhat surprised and said as much in his letter to Nicholas I, which revealed
not only that the request was far from a foregone conclusion but also that
Gregory’s attitude toward Russia was the predominant factor—that is, his
“willingness”:
I dare to flatter myself . . . that the Emperor will be pleased to recognize
in this act of deference from the Holy See, the willingness to which he
goes in order to meet the [Emperor’s] wishes . . . and I do not have to
hide from your Eminence that the history of the Catholic Church does
not provide another example of similar exhortations, addressed to members of the catholic clergy, in a country governed by a sovereign who does
not profess the religion of that of the Roman church.82

Gagarin himself—not Tsar Nicholas—came up with the idea to
approach Gregory; he was moved by the “pernicious activity” of “a few
Polish bigots”83 and recounted his activities to Nesselrode:
The culpable conduct of some bishops in the Kingdom of Poland, who
are unaware of the benefits of the government, have offered . . . to support the revolution. The idea came to me, as I have already had the
honor of writing to your Excellency [Nesselrode], of entreating the Holy
Father to address Polish high clergy with a paternal exhortation to

81. Ibid., p. 176.
82. Gagarin to Nesselrode, February 6/18, 1831, AVPRI, 190/525/366, report 15:
“J’ose me flatter, M.r le Cte, que M L’empereur se plaira à reconnoitre dans cet acte de deference du S.t Siège, l’empressment qu’il met à aller que devant des voeux qui lui soit exprimes
au nom de N.A.M. et je ne dois pas cacher à V.E. que l’histoire de l’Eglise catholique ne fournit pas d’example de paraille exhortations, addressees aux members du clerge catholique, dans
un pays gourvernú par un soverain qui professe [sic] une religion de celle de l’Eglise romaine.”
83. Gagarin to Nesselrode, January 2/14, 1829, AVPRI, 190/525/468, report 1, fols.
11–13. Although this letter is anachronistic, his negative opinion on ultramontane Polish
clerics endured and was confirmed by the November uprising. See Grimsted, The Foreign
Ministers of Alexander I, pp. 18–19, about frequent individual initiatives of Russian envoys.

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AGAINST THE GRAIN
remind them of the conduct most conforming to the holiness of their
episcopal character.84

Austrian nuncio Ugo Pietro Spinola’s take on events corroborates
Gagarin’s, showing that he believed the prince was the catalyst in urging
Gregory to send a reprimand to Poland. Gagarin had encouraged the pontiff to exhort the bishops to preach peace and submission.85
The tsar was, in turn, supportive of Gagarin’s initiative: “I [Gagarin]
was very happy . . . to see that my demand relative to the Bishops of Poland
has been received with high approval . . . and imperial satisfaction.”86
Gagarin underscored common concerns that he held with the pontiff,
in particular the unorthodox actions of Polish Catholic clergy.87 He complained about the conduct of some clerics, feeling that their activities in the
war effort were incompatible with their “spiritual and pacific” functions.88
He added that two bishops openly backed the revolution and even donated
a sizable portion of their dioceses’ income to its cause.89 As was his practice, he included recently published news clippings in his diplomatic letters
that, although they often were not directly relevant or reliable as a source
of confirmation, did serve to legitimize his message.
What is lost in nearly all accounts of this event is the degree to which
Russia and Gagarin genuinely believed that the papacy exercised great and
84. Gagarin to Nesselrode, February 6/18, 1831, AVPRI, 190/525/366, report 15: “Le
conduit coupable de quelques Evêques du Royaume de Pologne, qui méconnoissant les bienfaits du govt ont effert une partie de leur traitement pouir soutenir la cause de la revolution;
m’a suggéré l’idée, ainsi que j’ai déjà eu l’hr [honneur] d’écrire à V.E. de supplier le St. Père,
d’adresser au haut clergé Polonais une exhortation paternelle pour les rappeler à me conduit
plus conforme à la saintété de leur caracterè épiscopal.” On January 25, 1831, the Parliament
(Seym) of the Polish Kingdom dethroned Nicholas I. The act was signed also by bishops as
members of the Upper House (Senate).
85. Russia e Polonia, fasc. 23, folder 56, “Relazione sullo stato delle cose Ecclesiastiche
nei Domini Russi,” nuncio Spinola, fols. 30r–31r, ASV, AAEESS.
86. Gagarin to Nesselrode, March 31/April 12, 1831, AVPRI, 190/525/366, report 50:
“J’ai été fort heureux, M. le Cte, de voir que ma demarche relative aux Evêques de Pologne a
recontré la haute approbation de N.A.M., quell plus grand Bonheur, quelle plus noble recompense peut-il y avoir pour moi que de recevoir de la part de V.E. un témoignage de la Satisfaction Imperiale.”
87. Żywczyński, Geneza, pp. 125–54. He was the first one to substantiate Gagarin’s
general message of clerical participation, calling it “partially valid.”
88. Gagarin to Bernetti, February 11, 1831, ASV, AAEESS, SS, Esterni, EM, 576,
folder 1 (1831).
89. Ibid.

CHRISTOPHER KORTEN

315

even unique power over the prelacy. The Russian envoy spoke confidently
about the efficacy of the said document. He understood the strength of the
Catholic faith among Polish people and believed that a papal declaration
would have a positive effect on the attitudes of the faithful, especially given
their high regard for the pontiff.90
Gagarin has also been greatly misunderstood and much maligned in
the historiography. In the discussions leading up to Impensa, Gagarin
spoke with resolve and conviction. He reminded the pontiff of his own
government’s protection of its political rights and demanded that the
Polish clergy be ordered “not to overstep their spiritual functions.”91 As has
been shown, Gagarin was fond of the pope personally, however “profound”
his “aversion” was to most everything else about the Papal States and the
Catholic faith.92 This detached attitude to his surroundings could explain
his effectiveness; English agent George Seymour’s description of him substantiates such a view: “strange to say, the only Minister I see here who has
escaped this influence [of the Vatican] is Prince Gagarin.”93 This author’s
reading of the correspondence leads to the conclusion that Gagarin’s rather
stoic and steely personality was most effective with the pontiff. Prussia’s
envoy, Baron Christian von Bunsen, certainly thought so, as he claimed
that Gregory was susceptible to the Russian ambassador’s persuasion.94 In
fact, Gregory accorded Russia and Gagarin in particular large degrees of
honor and latitude. He even later admitted that he was more lenient
toward Russia than its counterpart, Prussia.95 In a meeting in 1840 with a
member of the Russian delegation in Rome, he also confessed that he had
been very truthful and upfront with Gagarin at all times.96
The decision, therefore, to issue Impensa Caritas in the middle of February 1831 came as part of a longer, personal diplomatic relationship with
Russia and was not an isolated decision thrust upon him by an intimidating
Russia. Earlier feelings of frustration and distrust were replaced with opti90. Ibid.
91. Henri Daniel-Rops, The Church in an Age of Revolution, 1789–1870 (London,
1965), p. 187.
92. Narciso Nada, Metternich e le Riforme nello Stato Pontificio: La missione Sebregondi a
Roma (1832–1836) (Torino, 1957), pp. 4–5.
93. Seymour to Palmerston, April 1, 1832, in Emilia Morelli, La Politica Estera di Tommaso Bernetti (Rome, 1953), p. 200.
94. Winter, Russland und das Papsttum, 2:220.
95. Charge d’affairs Fuhrmann, Russian, to Nesselrode, end of 1840, AVPRI,
190/525/17, A. M. Fuhrmann papers, fols. 77–91.
96. Ibid., fols. 87–88. His audience with Gregory XVI was on September 28, 1840.

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AGAINST THE GRAIN

mism and hope after 1825, highlighted by the cooperation between the
two sides in the Armenian affair. Any discontent resulting from the ukases
of the 1820s was forgotten for the time being, as the pontiff tried to build
on this cooperation in the Caucasus region and continue the positive
momentum in the relationship. The papal censure of the Polish clerics in
early 1831, in Gregory’s mind, was another step along this path.
For Russia’s part, the idea to ask for a papal censure was based on a
sincere conviction that the office of the papacy held great influence on the
Polish Church and that it needed Rome’s assistance in putting down this
unlawful revolt. This diplomatic maneuver was certainly not part of a
manipulative conspiracy by Russia to cripple the Catholic Church, beginning with the ukase of 1826 and concluding with the suppression of
Ruthenian Catholics in 1839, as some contend.97 There was nothing premeditated about the decision to ask Gregory for a censure, as this diplomatic action did not even initiate with Nicholas. Instead, it was an
impromptu measure on the part of Gagarin, who only later reported it to
St. Petersburg.
The legacy of Impensa—and especially Cum Primum—was indeed
long. Gregory hoped that they would bring relief for his Polish Church.
His strategy was clear—and sound. Metternich and Heinrich Graf von
Lützow, the Austrian ambassador to Rome, also applauded the initiative.98
But in the end, his strategy failed, as Russia did not act as he expected it
would, and conditions for his Church actually deteriorated.
With the benefit of hindsight, one can see that Gregory mistakenly
assumed that relief for the Armenian (and Georgian) Catholics in the late
1820s was an indicator of a more general policy toward Catholics in Russia.
However, Nicholas saw things differently—Armenian, Polish, and Ruthenian Catholic matters were considered separately and not as one unified
(Catholic) policy. On the Polish front, Nicholas would remain frustrated for
most of Gregory’s pontificate at the perceived truculence on the part of the
Polish hierarchy. Gregory underestimated the degree to which these clerics
unnerved Nicholas. Their participation in the uprising would never be forgotten and often would be recalled during Gregory’s entire pontificate.

97. For example, Wasył Leńcyk, The Eastern Catholic Church and Czar Nicholas I
(Rome, 1966).
98. Jene Rene Derré, Metternich et Lamennais d’après les documents conservés aux Archives
de Vienne (Paris, 1963), pp. 41–42.

Revolutionary Priest:
Pascal Mardel of Grenada
CURTIS JACOBS*
Fédon’s Rebellion in Grenada (1795–96) was the most spectacular
antislavery, anticolonial, proto-nationalist struggle in the British
Caribbean during the “Age of Revolution” (1770–1830). Although
most published works cite the Roman Catholic-Protestant rivalry as a
major underlying cause of the rebellion, the relationship of its religious
leadership to the uprising has been neglected. This article discusses the
role of Pascal Mardel, the only known Roman Catholic clergyman to
take active part in the rebellion led by Julien Fédon and face execution
for his activities.
Keywords: Capuchins; Fédon’s Rebellion; Grenada; Mardel, Pascal
Some also of the white insurgents came to us, amongst them the
Catholic priest of the Parish, named PASCAL MARDEL, in the uniform of an artillery-man . . .1

T

his incident was observed by Francis McMahon, the Anglican parish
priest of Charlotte Town (also known as Gouyave) at the beginning
of Fédon’s Rebellion on March 2–3, 1795, in the then-British Caribbean
colony of Grenada. In this section of his memoir, McMahon was describing his capture by the revolutionaries. On April 8 the lives of McMahon,
John Hay, and William Kerr were spared when Fédon ordered the executions of Governor Ninian Home (1792–95) and forty-seven other prisoners during a British attack on the post where they were held. The rebellion
continued until June 1796, when it was suppressed by the British. Most of
its leaders were captured and executed, including Pascal Mardel.2
*Dr. Jacobs is an independent scholar living in Grenada, email: jacobscurtis555@
gmail.com. The author thanks John Angus Martin for sharing a Philadelphia Mercury account
with him and the c. 1748 map of Fort Royal (St. George’s).
1. Francis McMahon, A Narrative of the Insurrection in the Island of Grenada in the Year
1795 (Grenada, 1823), p. 11. Emphasis in original.
2. See Thomas T. Wise, A Review of the Events which have happened in Grenada, from
the Commencement of the Insurrection to the 1st of May, by a Sincere Well-Wisher to the Colony (St.
George’s, Grenada, M,DCC,XCV); [A Grenada Planter], A BRIEF ENQUIRY into the

317

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REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST: PASCAL MARDEL OF GRENADA

Mardel was a Capuchin, part of the Franciscan family that sought to
return to the original ideals of its founder, St. Francis of Assisi. The
French Capuchins of Grenada apparently originated from Normandy.3
They arrived after the Dominicans in 1658 and were for some sixty years
the only Christian religious order in Grenada.4 They established the physical infrastructure of the Roman Catholic Church in Grenada and in the
dependency of Carriacou.5
McMahon’s identification of Mardel in military uniform hints at the
religious leadership of the rebellion, a theme hitherto ignored by amateur and
professional historians. His observation that a Roman Catholic priest had
taken up arms against the state emphasized that the religious conflict between
the British Protestants and the French Roman Catholics had escalated to the
point of internal war by the morning of March 3, 1795. For the Roman
Catholics, March 3 fell during Lent—two weeks after Ash Wednesday.
Mardel was a leader of the insurgents who, aided and abetted by
Victor Hugues and his associates, restricted the British presence to the
capital, St. George’s, for most of the rebellion. French military and civilian
officials established their capital at Charlotte Town (renamed Port Libre
in late 1795). This polity possessed legislative powers.6 It was considered
part of the Republic of France, which meant that its residents were
regarded as French citizens and that chattel slavery was not permitted. The
Causes of, and Conduct Pursued By, The Colonial Government, For Quelling the Insurrection in
Grenada, From its Commencement on the Night of the 2nd of March, to the Arrival of General
NICHOLLS, on the 14th of April 1795, In a Letter From a Grenada Planter to a Merchant in
London (London, 1796); An Eye-Witness [Gordon Turnbull], A Narrative of the Revolt and
Insurrection of the French Inhabitants in the Island of Grenada (Edinburgh, 1795); Henry Thornhill, A Narrative of the Insurrection and Rebellion in the Island of Grenada, From the Commencement to the Conclusion (Barbados, 1798); John Hay, A Narrative of the Insurrection in the Island
of Grenada which Took Place in 1795 (London, 1823); D. G. Garraway, A Short Account of the
Insurrection of 1795–6 (Grenada, 1877); Raymund Devas, Conception Island (London, 1932);
Raymund Devas, The History of the Island of Grenada 1650–1950 (St. George’s, Grenada,
1964); Edward L. Cox, “Fedon’s Rebellion 1795–96: Causes and Consequences,” Journal of
Negro History, 67 (1982), 7–19; Michael Craton, Testing the Chains: Resistance to Slavery in the
British West Indies (Ithaca, NY, 1982); Edward L. Cox, Free Coloreds in the Slave Societies of St.
Kitts and Grenada, 1763–1833 (Knoxville, 1984); George Brizan, Grenada Island of Conflict
(London, 1998); Beverley Steele, Grenada: A History of Its People (London, 2003).
3. Devas, Conception Island, p. 30.
4. John Angus Martin, Island Caribs and French Settlers in Grenada 1498–1763 (St.
George’s, Grenada, 2013), pp. 230–31.
5. Devas, Conception Island, pp. 20–29.
6. To date, one such piece of legislation that was actually proclaimed has been found:
the “Ordinance of the Police,” repr. in Thornhill, Narrative, appendix VIII.

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British Expeditionary Force in 1796 restored “a black republic under arms,
with St. George’s the single imperial enclave” to a fully restored British
colony by June 1796.7
The rebellion was influenced by and became part of the Caribbeanwide revolutionary upheaval engendered by the Haitian Revolution, the
French and American Revolutions, and the repercussions of these conflicts
in the Americas. However, the underlying causes of Fédon’s Rebellion are
moored in the struggle for civil rights between the colonists of French and
British origin following the French cession of Grenada to Britain after the
Seven Years’ War (1756–63). If the participation is included of enslaved
Africans—the ethnicity of the majority of the belligerents on both sides of
the conflict—the rebellion’s origins may be located in the ongoing struggle
against slavery since the establishment of French colonial rule and chattel
slavery in 1649.
The French Revolutionary War differed from previous conflicts in the
Caribbean partly because it combined traditional imperial rivalries with
civil war and unprecedented racial strife. It was a contest between opposing
worldviews in which opponents were dehumanized and generated exceptional brutality. In Fédon’s Rebellion, the revolutionaries fought under one
banner but did not profess identical objectives. The enslaved Africans
fought for their personal and collective freedom, whereas the whites and
free coloreds sought to preserve their way of life.8
Developments that occurred simultaneously in the internal politics of
Grenada, the Caribbean, and elsewhere led contemporary and subsequent
observers to attach primacy to them and deflect attention away from the
state-sponsored civic repression that had existed since 1763 and escalated
between 1783 and 1793.9
Since Mardel’s execution, the academic discourse on Fédon’s Rebellion has been largely silent on the role of the religious leaders who actively

7. Craton, Testing the Chains, p. 189.
8. David Patrick Geggus, “Slavery, War, and Revolution in the Greater Caribbean,
1789–1815,” in A Turbulent Time: The French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean, ed. David
Barry Gaspar and David Patrick Geggus (Bloomington, 1997), pp. 1–50, here p. 22.
9. The most important examples of this line of argument may be observed in the
Proclamation of the Acting Governor of March 4, 1795, but may also be found in Thornhill,
Narrative, and An Eye-Witness [Gordon Turnbull]. The Home Monument, created by
Young Westmacott and erected in the nave of the St. George’s Anglican Church in 1799 in
memory of the British prisoners executed on April 8, 1795, also reflects this position.

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participated in the conflict. From 1795 to 1877, the rebellion was discussed
in eyewitness accounts, soldiers’ memoirs, general histories, and narratives
by descendants of participants. From 1894, the rebellion attracted the
attention of amateur and professional historians who, although largely recognizing the underlying deep-seated religious rivalries, hardly addressed
the role of religious leaders in the rebellion and emphasized its secular
leaders, particularly Julien Fédon.
Systematic academic inquiry into Fédon’s Rebellion may have begun
in 1894, when John W. Fortescue published a series of articles in Macmillan’s Magazine.10 Fortescue discussed the rebellion from a secular, military
perspective but did not mention the civil conflict that preceded its outbreak
and attributed the rebellion to the impact of the French and Haitian Revolutions.11 There is no reference to Mardel or other religious leaders.
Fortescue’s Macmillan’s Magazine articles later were incorporated into his
History of the British Army, which appeared from 1899 to 1930.
Academic inquiry began in earnest in 1932, with the publication of
Conception Island or The Troubled History of the Roman Catholics in Grenada
by the British Roman Catholic clergyman Raymund Devas and later in his
The History of the Island of Grenada 1650–1950 in 1964.12 In both works,
Devas discusses in detail the religious grievances that informed the outbreak of the rebellion but remains relatively silent on the question of leadership of the French Roman Catholic clergy. He focused on the secular
leadership of Fédon, as well as the role of his free colored and white followers, viewing them as the prime movers in the conflict.13
Mardel is cited as a curiosity: a revolutionary priest who was attainted
with high treason for his involvement and executed. Devas never addresses
Mardel’s leadership of the insurrection and the possible laying down of his
life in defense of the interests of the Roman Catholic Church in Grenada.
In Conception Island, Devas referred to the rebellion of 1795–96 as “The

10. As private secretary to the governor of the Windward Islands, Fortescue had the
opportunity to travel throughout the Windward Islands, particularly Grenada and St. Lucia.
Fortescue’s articles show his rigorous research into sources and visits to battle sites.
11. J. W. Fortescue, “The West Indian Rebellion, 1795. I–Grenada,” Macmillan’s Magazine May–October 1894, 456–63.
12. See W.B.N.C., review of Conception Island, The Tablet, August 6, 1932, 11,
http://archive.thetablet.co.uk/article/6th-august-1932/11/grenada.
13. An examination of Devas’s notes does not indicate that Fortescue’s article and
books were consulted.

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321

Insurrection.” Thirty-two years later, Devas became the first writer in the
historiography to name the event Fédon’s Rebellion.14
This change suggests Devas’s emphasis on Fédon at the expense of
such other leaders as Mardel, despite clear evidence of Mardel’s leadership
in the primary sources. The popular view of Fédon today is largely that created by Devas between 1932 and 1964: a French free-colored planter who,
influenced by the French and Haitian Revolutions as well as his hatred for
the British, led the abortive revolution that bears his name today. His
estate, Belvidere, was the rebellion’s headquarters. After the rebellion was
finally suppressed in June 1796, Fédon’s fate remained a mystery. At first
he was believed to have drowned in his attempt to escape to Trinidad, but
it was discovered in 1814 that he had escaped to Cuba.15 Recently discovered evidence suggests that Fédon may have been part of a group from
Grenada that fought in the Haitian Revolution between 1796 and 1804.16
All of the published secondary literature subsequent to Devas largely
followed his example and analyzed the rebellion through the lenses of colonial rule, race, slavery, and women.17 This is evident in the works of
Edward Cox, George Brizan, Beverley Steele, and Nicole Phillip.
Seeds of the rebellion were sown in 1763, when Britain acquired
Grenada as part of a larger Caribbean acquisition called the Ceded
Islands.18 Its failure to apply the terms of the 1763 Treaty of Paris and provide identical treatment to the French Roman Catholics of Québec and
Grenada fomented discontent.19 More than a century of French governance left significant numbers of Roman Catholics who believed British
rule would be preferable. They were called the “New Subjects,” and King
George III undertook to “make the most precise and most effectual orders,

14. Devas, The History of the Island of Grenada 1650–1950, pp. 117–55.
15. St. George’s, Grenada, National Archives of Grenada, Minutes of the Council,
December 16, 1814, and February 21, 1815. See also Craton, Testing the Chains, pp. 180–210.
16. London, National Archives, Colonial Office Group [hereafter C.O.] 101/40, fol. 13,
Acting Governor Samuel Dent to Secretary of State for War and the Colonies Robert Hobart,
March 2, 1803.
17. For a discussion of the role of women in Fédon’s Rebellion, see Nicole Laurine
Phillip, Women in Grenadian History 1783–1983 (Kingston, Jamaica, 2010).
18. Lowell Joseph Ragatz, The Fall of the Planter Class in the British Caribbean 1763–
1833 (New York, 1928, 1977), pp. 111–41.
19. “The Definitive Treaty of Peace and Friendship between His Britannic Majesty,
the Most Christian King, and the King of Spain, concluded at Paris, the 10th Day of February, 1763, To which the King of Portugal acceded on the same Day,” Laws of Grenada, 1852,
p. xxix.

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REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST: PASCAL MARDEL OF GRENADA

that his new Roman Catholic subjects may profess the worship of their
religion according to the rites of the Romish church, as far as the laws of
Great Britain permit.”20
For Roman Catholics in Grenada, the contradictions posed by the
Treaty of Paris, the 1673 and 1678 Test Acts that required an oath refuting transubstantiation and other Catholic beliefs, and the failure of the
British government to enact these “most precise and effectual orders” so
that Roman Catholics could hold positions of public trust meant serious
implications for the constitution and therefore required legislative
action.21 This set the stage for conflict among home government officials,
colonists of British Protestant origin, and individuals of French Roman
Catholic background.
In Québec the British governors refused the urging of the British-born
colonists to call the legislature into session, but their Grenada counterpart
acceded to similar demands and convened the assembly in 1766. The
colonists of British Protestant origin openly opposed the participation of
the Roman Catholics in the process from the beginning. In at least one
incident, Protestants attempted to block Roman Catholics from casting
their votes. After the elections were over, the British Protestant members
of the legislature disrupted the proceedings by walking out and boycotting
meetings. The legislature did not convene for years at a time. As the five
British Protestant members of the Council who were suspended by the
governor for disrupting the proceedings of the body wrote in 1771, the
only legal way to admit Roman Catholics to positions of public trust was
to enact a new law.22
A royal order of 1768 increased the elected assembly from twenty to
twenty-four members; three French Roman Catholics were to be elected
to serve in the assembly, and another two were to be nominated to the
Council. The French Roman Catholics were exempted from the oath
required under the Test Acts. The royal order stipulated that no New Subject could ever become a senior member of the Council, a position that was
ex officio acting governor.23
20. Laws of Grenada, 1852, p. xxix.
21. These were “An Act for Preventing Dangers Which May Happen From Popish
Recusants,” passed in 1673, and “An Act for the More Effectual Preserving the King’s Person
and Government by Disabling Papists From Sitting in Either House of Parliament.” See
English Historical Documents, ed. Andrew Browning (London, 1953), 8:389.
22. C.O. 102/5, fols. 126–32. See also Devas, Conception Island, pp. 48–49.
23. Cited in Devas, Conception Island, p. 42. Devas cites C.O. 101/12.

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323

The British-born colonists opposed this measure, as it would give the
French Roman Catholics an institutionalized minority in the legislature.
Although the French Roman Catholics were in the majority in terms of
actual numbers of residents, they did not have full representation in the
legislature, even under the provisions of the royal order of 1768. Demographic statistics are, according to Edward Cox, “sparse.” However, a few
conclusions may be drawn. The white population in 1763 was 1225, which
increased to 1661 in 1771.24 If the majority of the white colonists in 1763
were of French origin, and the increase of some 442 by 1771 may be attributed to those of mainly British origin, then the observation in 1795 that
the French Roman Catholics in Grenada were double the number of
British Protestants may well be close to the mark.25
The Campbell vs. Hall case over the king’s 1764 attempt to rule by
royal order after he had granted a constitution to Grenada resulted in a
judgment in Campbell’s favor in late 1774.26 The ruling of William
Murray, first Earl of Mansfield, rendered untenable the royal order of
1768, but hinted at how such matters should be addressed in the future.
Six months before the Campbell vs. Hall decision, the British Parliament passed the Quebec Act (1774), granting the Roman Catholics of
Quebec their full civic rights as specified in the Treaty of Paris.27 There
was no identical treatment for the French Roman Catholics of Grenada, a
development that apparently left the Roman Catholics disaffected.28
In 1784 the colonists of British origin challenged the legality of the
1768 royal order following Grenada’s conquest by France and restoration to
Britain during the American Revolutionary War. The 1783 Royal Instructions to Governor Edward Matthew (1784–85) replicated the 1768 royal
order of Wills Hill Downshire, Lord of Hillsborough, which purported to
ensure the guarantees to the New Subjects under Articles VII, VIII, and
XIII of the Treaty of Versailles.29 Matthew’s instructions represented the
British government’s failure to follow Murray’s hint in the Campbell vs. Hall
24. Cox, Free Colored in the Slave Societies of St. Kitts and Grenada, 1763–1833, pp.
13–14.
25. A Grenada Planter, A Brief Enquiry, p. 2.
26. See Devas, The History of the Island of Grenada 1650–1950, pp. 68–69.
27. For a detailed discussion of this matter, see Reginald Coupland, The American Revolution and the British Empire (London, 1965).
28. Governor George Macartney to Lord George Germain, secretary of state for colonial affairs, June 30, 1776, C.O. 102/7, fols. 17–18.
29. “Royal Instructions to Governor Edward Matthew,” C.O. 101/8, fols. 36–91.

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judgment or extend the Quebec Act to Grenada’s Roman Catholics, a circumstance that was exploited by the British-born colonists.30
Between 1783 and 1795, the state-sponsored “pillage and persecution” of
the Roman Catholics intensified.31 By acts of the legislature, the Anglican
Church appropriated French Roman Catholic church buildings and glebe
lands. All baptisms, marriages, and burials had to be solemnized before
Protestant ministers, even if they had been conducted by clergy of other
faiths.32 Mardel’s appointment to Gouyave in 1788 strongly suggests that,
despite the repression, the Church’s ecclesiastical structure remained in place.
The British colonists were outnumbered. In 1783 free coloreds numbered 1125, with 185 of British origin and 940 of French origin.33 The free
coloreds composed 53 percent of free people in Grenada, with the whites
composing 47 percent.34 The British used their domination of the state
apparatus as an instrument of repression. For example, free colored persons
were required by law to walk about at night between 9 p.m. and 4 a.m. carrying a lighted lantern. More repressive laws were enacted to regulate the
manumission of colored people and the hours of business for such establishments as public houses.35
The state-sponsored persecution and the migration of many French
Roman Catholics to Spanish Trinidad brought the free coloreds into positions of leadership, and they forged an alliance with enslaved Africans who
were given positions of trust by their masters.36 The 1767 law that assembled the enslaved Africans and free coloreds into an armed force to recap-

30. Alan Burns, History of the British West Indies (London, 1954), p. 543.
31. This was the title given to chapter VI of Conception Island.
32. Laws of Grenada, C.O. 103/8, fols. 5–10; C.O. 103/8, fols. 42–46. See Devas, The
History of the Island of Grenada, pp. 103–16.
33. Cox, “Fedon’s Rebellion 1795–96: Causes and Consequences,” p. 10.
34. Edward Cox, Free Coloreds in the Slave Societies of St. Kitts and Grenada, 1763–1833,
pp. 13–15. The fall in the white population is largely due to the migration of white and free
colored families to Trinidad where the 1783 Cedula of Population proclaimed by Spain offered
attractive concessions to settlers. See Eric Williams, History of the People of Trinidad and
Tobago (Port of Spain, Trinidad, 1962); Bridget Brereton, History of Modern Trinidad 1783–
1962 (Exeter, NH, 1982); and Douglas Archibald, The Story of Trinidad to 1797 (Port of
Spain, Trinidad, 2010).
35. Cox, Free Coloreds in the Slave Societies of St. Kitts and Grenada, 1763–1833, pp.
92–95.
36. For a discussion of this phenomenon, see An Eye-Witness [Gordon Turnbull], A
Narrative of the Revolt and Insurrection of the French Inhabitants in the Island of Grenada, pp.
11–13.

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ture the Maroons in Grenada’s interior and return them to slavery
strengthened the alliance between the Maroons and the free coloreds.37 As
Edward Cox has observed, like the Haitian Revolution, Fédon’s Rebellion
“seemed to promise something to all of its participants.”38
It was into this situation that Mardel arrived in Grenada in 1788 to
take up his duties as a Capuchin curé:
At St. John’s was Father Pascal, a Capuchin, aged 35. He had been five
years at Gouyave, and had his “obedience” from Europe . . . At Gouyave
both church and presbytery had been taken by the Protestants.39

Details on Mardel are sketchy at present, but if he obtained his obedience from “Europe,” he came to Grenada via Martinique. To complicate
matters, the Catholic Church in Grenada had been administered at a distance since 1763 by Richard Challoner (1691–1781), vicar apostolic of the
London District. After his death, supervision may have passed to his successor, James Robert Talbot (1726–90, vicar apostolic 1781–90).40
Mardel had no formal church building where he could minister to his
flock. Masses were conducted in private homes of friendly and sympathetic
parishioners.41 The deprivations of buildings, lands, and revenues previously held by the Roman Catholic Church must have been most keenly felt
by the Capuchins, as these represented the usurpation of nearly a century
of labor.
Felicien Gachier, Mardel’s immediate superior and the Capuchin curé
assigned to St. George’s, wrote in 1793 that he “knew nothing” of Mardel,
as he had seen little of Mardel and the other priests. Devas observes that
these clergy did not consider themselves subject to Gachier’s authority.42 At
the time, even Gachier was forced to convert his presbytery into a church.43
The 1768 royal order was reversed in 1789, nullifying no. 15 of
Matthew’s 1783 Royal Instructions. The French Roman Catholics were
shorn of their civic rights and legally acceptable means of articulating their
37. See Hay, Narrative, p. 52. Hay witnessed some of these joining the rebellion.
38. Cox, “Fedon’s Rebellion 1795–96: Causes and Consequences,” p. 15.
39. Devas, Conception Island, p. 95.
40. See Devas, Conception Island.
41. Devas, The History of the Island of Grenada, p. 107. See also Conception Island.
42. Devas, Conception Island, p. 96. Devas offers no further information on Mardel’s
superiors.
43. Devas, The History of the Island of Grenada, pp. 106–07.

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grievances in the colony’s highest public forum. Their memorials and petitions to the king between 1783 and 1795 were never answered.
In 1789 the French Revolution broke out. Roman Catholic priests in
France were prominent, particularly the Abbé Henri Baptiste Grégoire and
the Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (the latter wrote the influential pamphlet What Is the Third Estate?). During the Enlightenment, the Abbé
Guillaume Thomas François Raynal published A Philosophical and Political
History. . . .44 Raynal redefined the concept of revolution in Western political science from “restoration to one’s original position” to the cataclysmic
transformation of an existing social order, predicting its occurrence in
Europe’s slave colonies.45
Raynal, Grégoire, and Sieyès illustrated growing radicalism amongst
the French Roman Catholic clergy during the late-eighteenth century. As
part of the educated elite, they could not remain unaffected by the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. When placed alongside the state-sponsored repression of the Roman Catholics, the Enlightenment and revolutions in France and St. Domingue (later known as Haiti), it was little
wonder that such clerics as Mardel became politically radicalized. Mardel
must have known the history of the Capuchins in Grenada. The sight of the
buildings at the Quartier de L’Ance Gouyave during his daily rounds (see
figures 1 and 2) would have engendered in Mardel, a relatively young priest,
feelings of resentment and deprivation at the hands of the Protestants, who
used the colonial state apparatus to seize the Church’s material possessions.
On the other hand, it is possible that the pillage of the Roman
Catholic Church may have been perceived by Mardel as a challenge to live
the life of solitude and penance in the service of his fellow men, as advocated by St. Francis and his reformist disciple, Capuchin founder Matteo
de Bascio. As a Capuchin, Mardel may have regarded himself as an eighteenth-century St. Francis or even Matteo, charged with a sacred mission
to work amongst the poor and dispossessed, even as British rule had dispossessed the Church. This is a possible motivation for Mardel between
1788 and 1796. It is not far-fetched to associate the original ideology of the
Franciscans, reinterpreted into the Capuchin order, with Mardel’s outlook
and behavior.

44. Abbé Guillaume Thomas Raynal, A Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies, 5 vols. (Geneva, 1770; London,
1798; New York, 1969).
45. Raynal, History, IV:129.

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FIGURE 1. L’Eglise de St. Pierre, St. Dominic Street, Gouyave, Grenada. Author’s
collection. The Protestants seized this church from the Roman Catholics in 1784.

Perhaps Gachier’s comment indicated the growing alienation of some
of the Roman Catholic clergy from their mother Church, which remained
generally committed to the status quo. Gachier wrote in 1793, the year that
Home arrived as governor. As Home had been “an implacable and active
enemy of the adopted subjects for near thirty years,” it is unlikely that his
appointment would make the French Roman Catholics feel that their
issues would receive a sympathetic hearing in official quarters. As “A
Grenada Planter” wrote:
All social intercourse between them and the natural-born subjects was
now at an end; and neither the lieutenant governor nor any of us were
ignorant, that, to a man, they were ready to act against us on the first
opportunity.46

The evidence strongly suggests that Home’s appointment precipitated
the rebellion. The establishment of the staple food supply—the thirtythree acre plantain and tannia field on the edges of Fédon’s estate—dates
46. A Grenada Planter, A Brief Enquiry, pp. 9–10.

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FIGURE 2. Map c. 1748 showing the church building on Church Street in St.
George’s, Grenada, when it was in Catholic hands. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale
de France, “Plan du port de la ville et du Fort-Royal de l’isle de la Grenade.” From
Jean-Baptiste Pierre Le Romain, Recueil de cartes et description topographique de l’isle
de la Grenade et dequelques petites isles des environs… (n.p., 1749).

from “. . . near eighteen months before [March 1795], for the express purpose of the present revolution . . .” thus indicating that it was planted
around September 1793.47 This necessarily followed the decisions to follow
the course of armed revolution, choice of a leader, and establishment of a
revolutionary headquarters. Thus the decision to rebel was made between
the arrival of Governor Home in January 1793 and September 1793.
As Mardel was reported to be wearing a soldier’s uniform during the
attack on Goyuave on March 2–3, it strongly suggests that he was an active
participant prior to the outbreak of the rebellion and may have been an
early organizer. He did not join afterward, as many other free coloreds and
whites had done.48 Mardel brought much to the enterprise. As a mission-

47. Hay, Narrative, pp. 52–53.
48. Hay, Narrative, pp. 42–43.

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329

ary priest, Mardel would have been a leader amongst all groups, whether
white, free colored, black, or the enslaved. He was literate, possibly eloquent, and had certain skills necessary in the frontier communities in the
Caribbean. Before his appointment as missionary, Mardel was expected to
acquire expertise in such secular areas as architecture and construction;
mass psychology; music; literature; the physical sciences; metallurgy; carpentry; and, as McMahon wrote, military science.49
The role of the Roman Catholic clergy may have assumed greater
importance after the Roman Catholics were disqualified in 1789 from
serving in the legislature. Membership in the legislature, albeit limited
between 1768 and 1789, nevertheless provided opportunities for civic leadership; with such opportunities removed in 1789, the Roman Catholic
Church, despite its deprivations, remained the only social organization
that could claim allegiance to men’s souls. Without an official physical base
from which to perform his priestly duties, Mardel would have been obliged
to traverse the parish of St. John, giving pastoral care and, quite possibly
after 1793, assisting in organization of the rebellion. He must have been a
regular sight throughout the parish, which extended from Petit Havre to
Duquesne Valley, some ten miles distant.50
Religion was central to everyday social life. All of life’s major events—
baptisms, marriages, and burials—were presided over and recorded by the
clergy. As Devas shows, religion exerted a pervasive influence on Grenada’s
politics, particularly between 1763 and 1832.51 A cleric was a respected and
influential member of the society. As a preacher, he was likely to have been
articulate. His opinions and outlook were critical in the general shaping of
public opinion in St. John. As such, Mardel’s appearance in a French military uniform at the beginning of the rebellion suggests the level of his personal discontent and possibly his influence within Grenada’s Roman
Catholic community.
Mardel represents the social leadership to which his parishioners traditionally turned for guidance in both religious and secular matters. What
makes his position remarkable is that, as a member of the white élite, he

49. The author is grateful to John “The Culture Man” Cupid of Trinidad and Tobago,
who first explained this phenomenon to him in 1975. See C. H. Haring, The Spanish Empire
in America (New York, 1947, 1975), pp. 166–93; and J. H. Parry, The Spanish Seaborne Empire
(London, 1966), pp. 152–72.
50. Hay, Narrative, p. 22.
51. See Devas, Conception Island.

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seemed prepared to accept a somewhat subordinate role to the free coloreds. This shows a remarkable maturity. The “Grenada Planter” observes
that the free coloreds, having less to lose, were perhaps more desperate and
more dangerous.52 As such, they were more prepared to challenge the
existing order with direct action.
Mardel’s wearing of military garb raises the question of his motivations. No record has thus far been found in which he stated the reasons for
his rebellion. If he was fighting to defend the Catholic faith, retention of
clerical garb would have been more symbolic of this, but then a Capuchin
habit was not designed for military action. His multiple motivations
included defending Catholicism, ending slavery, and liberating Grenada
from British rule.
France emancipated her colony St. Domingue’s half a million enslaved
Africans, thereby creating an army to resist British and Spanish invaders.
On February 4, 1794, the French National Convention not only ratified
Léger-Félicité Sonthonax’s general emancipation in St. Domingue of
August 1793 but also declared emancipation in all of France’s colonies,
extending unqualified citizenship of the Republic of France to all people
therein.53
When Victor Hugues arrived from France in June 1794 to implement
the French National Convention’s mandate in the eastern Caribbean, the
plot to overthrow British rule and slavery in Grenada was already
advanced. However, contrary to Laurent Dubois’s observation, Fédon did
need help in terms of arms and ammunition.54 Although many revolutionaries possessed the latest firearms and had mastered the era’s military technology, many of the self-emancipated actually began war with modified
machetes mounted on long wooden staves.55
Nevertheless, Hugues recruited thousands of self-emancipated
Africans during his eastern Caribbean campaign, which helped to convert
the Caribbean into a major theater of war. France’s revolutionary step in
emancipation transformed the war in the Caribbean to one fought over
slavery itself. By offering freedom and social equality to large numbers of
52. “A Grenada Planter,” A Brief Enquiry, p. 10.
53. See Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution
(Cambridge, MA, 2004).
54. Laurent Dubois, A Colony of Citizens: Revolution & Slave Emancipation in the
French Caribbean, 1787–1804 (Chapel Hill, NC, 2004), p. 231.
55. Hay, Narrative, p. 42.

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enslaved and formerly enslaved, France gained an important strategic and
propaganda advantage and transformed the nature and impact of warfare
in the region.56 It had embarked upon a bold, radical experiment in European colonial administration. France had declared itself at one with her
colonies. There were no distinctions between colonial power and colony;
all French laws were equally applicable in France and in her territories outside of Europe.57 Grenada was considered politically a part of France.58
Therefore, to rise against slavery in Grenada was to rise against British
colonial rule for the express purpose of replacing it with a greater association with France.
One of the rebellion’s most symbolic scenes was recorded by McMahon:
Some of the white Insurgents came to us, amongst them the Catholic
priest of the parish, named PASCAL MARDEL, in the uniform of an
artillery-man, and one Montette. These two persons had quarrelled, and
were bound to appear at the ensuing Sessions; but they made themselves
very merry on this occasion, for, they said, they would not give the judges
much trouble to consider their case—that times were altered—that they
would judge the judges; and forewarned me that some extraordinary
things would happen in St. George’s.59

McMahon establishes Mardel’s involvement at the outset of the rebellion, which implies his participation in its organizational stages. McMahon
does not detail the dispute between Mardel and the other individual but
suggests that it involves a civil matter before the law courts. However, both
had set aside their differences in common cause to overthrow of British rule.
The uniformed Mardel should also be considered in the context of the
struggle of the Roman Catholics in Grenada for the right to practice their
religion freely. It is ironic that the author of the anecdote was the Anglican
parish priest of St. John—the very member of the Anglican clergy who had
benefitted personally from the seizure of the Roman Catholic Church’s
assets in the parish itself. McMahon represented the British Protestants

56. Dubois, A Colony, p. 224.
57. See Caitlin Anderson, “Old Subjects, New Subjects and Non-Subjects: Silences
and Subjecthood in Fédon’s Rebellion, Grenada, 1795–96,” in War, Empire and Slavery
1770–1830, ed. Richard Bessel, Nicholas Guyatt, and Jane Rendall, (New York, 2010), pp.
201–17.
58. Dubois, A Colony, p. 172.
59. McMahon, Narrative, p. 11, emphasis in original. McMahon was never able to
know the precise nature of the extraordinary things of which Mardel hinted. The revolutionaries never captured St. George’s.

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REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST: PASCAL MARDEL OF GRENADA

who legislatively seized the Roman Catholic Church lands and buildings;
Mardel represented Grenada’s dispossessed French Roman Catholics and
illustrated the depths of dissatisfaction experienced by certain sections of
its clergy over the failure of the British government to fulfill the terms of
the Treaties of Paris and Versailles. Most important, the uniformed
Mardel underlined the lengths to which the Roman Catholics of Grenada
were driven in their efforts to obtain redress of their grievances.
Mardel had changed from a religious to a military leader. During the
period leading up to the outbreak of the rebellion, he was, ostensibly, a
clergyman who administered religious services to his parishioners. From
March 3 until his execution, Mardel’s leadership straddled his priestly and
military roles.
On March 4, 1795, Kenneth Francis Mackenzie, senior member of
the Council and acting governor, issued a proclamation condemning the
insurrection and offered “a general pardon and amnesty” to “all persons
concerned in the said insurrection, upon their surrendering themselves,
excepting only those individuals who have committed the cruel and
unmanly murders. . . .” Mackenzie offered a “reward of twenty Johannes’s
to any person bringing in any of the said Insurgents either dead or
alive.”60 Mardel neither surrendered nor handed over any insurgent, dead
or alive.
Through his active and enthusiastic participation in Fédon’s Rebellion
and refusal to surrender, Mardel unambiguously identified with the cause
of antislavery. He also identified himself as an emancipator. Europeans
during the period were, by and large, slave owners, both in the Americas
and Europe. Even Roman Catholic church officials in Grenada owned
enslaved Africans and generally supported the colonial order. Certain sections of the European intelligentsia, particularly the Societé des Amis des
Noirs, had adopted an antislavery outlook. It was, however, a completely
different matter to find Europeans actually bearing arms against slavery
and colonialism.
Mardel’s stand was not unprecedented. In August 1793 Sonthonax,
the French commissioner sent to St. Domingue, had unilaterally declared
general abolition. Converted republican Philip Rose Roume de St. Lau-

60. Wise, A Review of the Events. . . , pp. 30–31. See also An Eye-Witness [Gordon
Turnbull], A Narrative of the Revolt; A Grenada Planter, “A Brief Enquiry”; Thornhill, Narrative; and Garraway, A Short Account.

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333

rent—a man born in Grenada who was later known as Roume—was
appointed a commissioner to St. Domingue and worked closely with Toussaint L’Ouverture.61
Mardel joined the whites and the free coloreds who had manumitted
their enslaved property. However, not all of them were totally supportive
of the cause, as this incident shows from c. March 18, 1795:
Fedon made Mr. Lussan indorse [sic] two Bills of Exchange, one drawn
by Clozier Darceuil for £750 Sterling, and the other by Clozier Saint
Marie for £300 Sterling, which last Saint Marie was compelled to draw
against his inclination. Several made what they called Patriotic Gifts.
Pere Pascal gave 40 Joes without being asked, which occasioned great
Applauses.62

Wise, self-described as “a sincere well-wisher to the colony” whose
Review appeared in St. George’s on May 1, 1795, does not appear to have
been imprisoned but apparently possessed reliable information on the
events at Belvidere.
Wise suggests that these transactions were conducted in full view of the
revolutionaries. The incident shows Mardel’s involvement and his widespread popularity. At that moment, the rebels were raising funds to purchase
arms and ammunition in Trinidad, but several of the more affluent revolutionaries were reluctant to contribute. Mardel showed his tangible commitment to and enthusiasm for the cause. A “Joe”—the shortened form of
Johannes, which was a Portuguese-minted gold coin widely circulated in the
Caribbean during the eighteenth century—was worth about £3 (approximately US$14 at the time). Thus Mardel’s reported contribution represented
almost the entirety of his annual stipend of £150. Given his limited financial
means, Mardel’s action was obviously regarded as special. Whereas more
affluent revolutionaries were “compelled . . . against their inclination,”
Mardel’s don patriotique—patriotic gift—was voluntary and unsolicited.
For Mardel and the revolutionaries, his “patriotic gift” held added significance. It was made c. March 18, which occurred during the fourth week
of Lent.63 Devout Roman Catholics routinely give up some worldly pleas61. See C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo
Revolution (New York, 1963).
62. Wise, A Review, p. 52.
63. Wise, A Review, pp. 52–53; A Grenada Planter, A Brief Enquiry, pp. 73–74; and,
Turnbull, Narrative, pp. 80–83.

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REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST: PASCAL MARDEL OF GRENADA

ure during this season, yet Mardel had actually contributed most of his
annual stipend to purchasing arms, ammunition, and other supplies for the
republican cause.
The onlookers would have immediately grasped the significance of
Mardel’s sacrifice, particularly as it was made during Lent. Compared
with the more affluent revolutionaries, Mardel’s contribution constituted
a proverbial “widow’s mite,” a gesture perhaps calculated as a subtle
rebuke for their disinclination to make a more enthusiastic contribution
to the republican cause. True to form, Mardel was leading by example,
and the onlookers, who must have included many of his parishioners,
were visibly impressed. Little wonder, then, that his donation “occasioned great applauses.”
Mardel’s don patriotique strongly suggests that, despite his identification with the revolutionary cause and his label as “vile,” he seemed to have
been a deeply spiritual and religious man, whose faith informed the sacred
and secular aspects of his life. His contribution suggested his penitence and
sacrifice during the Lenten season. As a leader in times of peace, Mardel
used his position of the parish priest of Gouyave to lead by example in a
time of war.
After Mardel’s appearance in Wise’s anecdote, he is mentioned in the
Narrative of the Revolt Insurrection of the French Inhabitants in the Island of
Grenada by “An Eye-Witness,” who later was identified as Gordon Turnbull.64 A colonist of British origin, Turnbull actually fought for the British
in Fédon’s Rebellion. He does not cite Mardel in the attack on Gouyave
but mentions him in his discussion of the capture, trial, and execution of
Pierre Alexandre who, with Lussan and others, had traveled to Trinidad to
purchase supplies with the money raised at Belvidere. Turnbull corroborates Wise: “This money has been given by several in the rebels’ camp, as
dons patriotiques; and a vile priest, named Pascal Mandel [sic], contributed
forty johannes’s.”65
“Mandel” [sic] also appears among “the French white inhabitants as
were known to have joined the free coloured insurgents.” He is placed
fourth in the left-hand column after Clozier Darceuil, Clozier St. Marie,
64. See Gordon Turnbull, An Apology for Negro Slavery (London, 1786). See also Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings, ed. Vincent Carretta (New York,
1995), pp. 330–32.
65. An Eye-Witness [Gordon Turnbull], A Narrative of the Revolt, p. 82.

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335

and Jean-Baptise Ollivier, and immediately above [Augustine, the chevalier] De Suze, “and two sons.”66 Mardel’s position in this list strongly suggests that he was one of the leaders.
Turnbull’s narrative was not published until November 1795. In the
meantime, Mardel was cited in the Act of Attainder. Officially titled An
Act to attaint certain persons named therein of High Treason unless they shall
render themselves and submit to justice on or before the first day of September,
One thousand seven hundred and Ninety five, the Act pronounced judgment
by legislation on the revolutionaries, but the British were then unable to
suppress the insurrection and enforce the legislation.67
Turnbull placed an asterisk with the names of those who surrendered
and rendered themselves to justice after the proclamation of the Act. The
name of Mandel [sic] had no such asterisk.
Edward Hyde East comments:
High treason . . . [which] denotes treachery or breach of faith, is a violation of the allegiance which is due from the subject to the king, as sovereign lord and supreme magistrate of the state. It is . . . the greatest crime
against faith, duty, and human society, and brings with it the most fatal
dangers to the government, peace, and happiness of the nation.68

By 1795, there were at least a dozen grounds upon which a person
could be charged with high treason, ranging from the “Compassing or
imagining the Death of the King” to “Misprision of Treason.”69 Mardel’s
appearance in a French military uniform—a nation with which Britain had
been officially at war since 1793—in the early stages of the rebellion provided prime facie evidence of his guilt in “Levying War against our Lord
The King in his Realm”; “Adherence to the King’s Enemies in his Realm,
giving to them Aid and Comfort in the Realm or elsewhere”; and, “Serving
or procuring others to serve Foreign States.” Of the latter, East comments:
Entering into the service of any foreign state without the consent of the
king, or contracting with it any other engagement which subjects the
party to an influence or control inconsistent with the allegiance due to
our own sovereign, such as receiving a pension from a foreign prince

66. An Eye-Witness [Gordon Turnbull], A Narrative of the Revolt, p. 160.
67. C.O. 103/9, fols. 15–21.
68. Edward Hyde East, Pleas of the Crown 1803 (London, 1972), I:48.
69. East, Pleas of the Crown, I:57–140.

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REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST: PASCAL MARDEL OF GRENADA
without the leave of the king, is at common law a high misdemeanour,
and punishable accordingly.70

After Mardel’s appearance in the Act of Attainder and in accounts by
Turnball and others, his name seems to have disappeared. His contribution
to the rest of the abortive revolution remains obscure. Mardel’s precise
contribution to the military situation, where, at the beginning of 1796, the
revolutionary army had 10,000 battle-hardened soldiers and led in the field
by capable commanders, is not yet known.71
From March 1796, the tide turned permanently against the revolutionaries. An attempt to arrest Fédon and take him to Guadeloupe in October
1795 and the uneasy relationship between the French at Guadeloupe and
the French Grenadians resulted in two separate commands by early 1796.
The defeat of a combined French and Grenadian force in March 1796 at
the battle of Post Royal Hill, in eastern Grenada, marked the beginning of
the end. On June 10, 1796, the French military force and the civilian
authorities surrendered to the British.72 Nine days later, the revolutionary
stronghold was captured by a British force led by a crack German mercenary
unit, the Lowenstein Jägers, which scaled the mountains during the night
of June 18. The revolutionaries awoke the morning of June 19, 1796, to find
themselves surrounded. Many leapt off the mountain to avoid capture.
Mardel was captured along with many leaders of the insurrection. The special Court of Oyer and Terminer opened on June 27, 1796, and on June 30,
Mardel was among forty-seven brought before the special court of Oyer et
Terminer.73 A “Mr. Wise”—presumably Thomas Turner Wise, the “sincere
well-wisher to the Colony”—was retained by the court to represent the prisoners, whereas Gordon Turnbull was a member of the grand jury.74
“Pere Pascal Mandel” [sic] was in the third batch of prisoners brought
before the court on June 30. The court “demanded what they had to say [as
to] why execution should not be awarded against them.” The records show

70. East, Pleas of the Crown, I:81.
71. Fortescue, “The West Indian Rebellion,” pp. 456–63.
72. London, National Archives, W.O. [War Office] 1/85, 231, Terms of Capitulation
agreed upon by Oliver Nicolls, Commanding His Majesty’s forces in the Island of Grenada
and Captain Jossey, Commanding the Troops of the French Republic in the same Island,
Mount Nesbit, June 10, 1796.
73. London, the British Library Endangered Archives Project [hereafter EAP],
EAP295_2_6_1, Court of Oyer and Terminer for Trial of Attainted Traitors Record Book
[1796]. Transcription.
74. EAP295_2_6_1-EAP_295-SCR_21-22.

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337

that a “Mr Hery & Mr. Ker” were called as witnesses, after which the jury
retired and returned with a verdict “that the Prisoners at the Bar are the
same Persons named in the Act of Attainder.”75 The court records show
that “[t]he Chief Justice then passed sentence and the Prisoners were taken
away.”76 The court then ordered a warrant be prepared directing the marshall to execute the sentence the next day—July 1, 1796.
Since Mardel was attainted with high treason, he was merely identified as a person cited in the Act of Attainder.77 He was among forty-seven
condemned to death. However, Governor Alexander Houston (1796–97)
raised a controversy when he refused to order the executions of the fortyseven condemned persons, on the grounds that the Court of Oyer et Terminer did not grant them sufficient time to appeal to the king for mercy.78
Instead, Houston ordered the executions of fourteen of “the most notorious” on July 1, 1796.
Mardel was counted among “the most notorious,” which suggests
strongly that he was a ringleader. The official record does not explicitly
state whether or not he and his fellow revolutionaries shouted, “Vive la
république!,” as their fellow republicans from St. Lucia to Grenada shouted
before their deaths.79
The Philadelphia Mercury of September 6, 1796, reported that Mardel
was among the first batch of seven executed at the Market Square (also
known as “The Parade”) in the forenoon of July 1, 1796. The newspaper
reported that they “were launched into eternity, without showing the
smallest sign of repentance, and after hanging till they were taken down,
and their bodies decapitated—his Honor the Lieutenant Governor [sic],
having been pleased to remit the remainder of the sentence . . .”80 In the
list of those executed on that day, Mardel’s name appears after Augustine,
the chevalier de Suze. Although he was identified as “Pere” in the court
records, Mardel was not identified as a priest in the Mercury.

75. EAP295_2_6_1-EAP_295-SCR, 26.
76. EAP295_2_6_1-EAP_295-SCR.
77. There is an important legal difference between attainted with high treason—judgment by legislation—and being charged with high treason. See John G. Bellamy, The Law of
Treason in England in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, UK, 1970), pp. 177–205.
78. Alexander Houston to William Bentinck, Duke of Portland, July 4, 1796, C.O.
101/34, fols. 230–31. See also Portland to Houston, August 1796, C.O. 101/34, fols. 238–39.
79. For a discussion of this phenomenon, see Craton, Testing the Chains, pp. 198–99.
80. The Philadelphia Mercury, September 6, 1796, 2. The Mercury used the title lieutenant governor when the position actually was governor at the time.

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REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST: PASCAL MARDEL OF GRENADA

Since high treason is the most serious crime under British common
law, it attracts the gravest punishment. In the late-eighteenth century, the
punishment for high treason was death. Such a sentence could involve
death by hanging; the body drawn, quartered, and disembowelled; and the
corruption of blood (with the possessions of heirs forfeited to the state).
The newspaper report shows that the governor dispensed with the other
parts of the sentence.
Mardel’s refusal to repent suggests the steadfastness of his convictions,
even when faced with certain death. This is illustrated by a comparison
between his behavior and that of another condemned man. Ollivier, one of
the principal white secular leaders, revealed information on the scaffold
that the British considered important and earned a reprieve.81 This incident illustrates Mardel’s constancy. He refused the first offer of amnesty on
March 4, 1795, and the amnesty in the Act of Attainder of August 10,
1795. As a leader, he was likely to have known the same information as
Ollivier, but the record does not show Mardel divulging such information.
Thus, this may indicate Mardel’s refusal to compromise his principles,
even at the cost of his life.
The Philadelphia Mercury of September 6, 1796, is perhaps an early
attempt to obscure Mardel’s contribution to the revolutionary cause. The
lack of mention of his status as a clergyman may reflect official efforts to
obscure the religious dimension of the revolutionary leadership and thus
avoid attracting sympathy to the rebel cause.
After his execution, Mardel remained largely unmentioned in the literature related to Fédon’s Rebellion. There is no reference to him in the
records of the contemporary Roman Catholic Church in Grenada. A tablet
in memory of McMahon is on a wall of the St. George’s Anglican Church
on Church Street in St. George’s, where he served as parish priest after 1796.
The period following Mardel’s execution saw the overthrow of chattel
slavery and colonial rule. As Grenada achieved political independence during
the second half of the twentieth century, the heroic role of Mardel and his
companions in Grenada’s most spectacular struggle against slavery and

81. Apparently, Ollivier informed the authorities that Dr. Rappier, father of a revolutionary, was deeply involved in the information-gathering organization of the revolutionaries
that operated in St. George’s during the rebellion. This resulted in the arrest and execution
of the elder Rappier for high treason. See Hay, Narrative, p. 73. Le Riche, one of the white
French leaders, apparently knew of Rappier’s work for the revolutionaries.

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339

colonalism remained on the margins of popular history and the national discourse. The published histories followed the cue of Grenada’s colonial rulers.
In Raymund Devas’s Conception Island, Mardel’s name appears on one
page.82 In The History of the Island of Grenada 1650–1950, Devas reproduces verbatim McMahon’s anecdote from his 1823 Narrative and supplies
nothing that supplements the Conception Island treatment.83 Devas was the
last of the British historians who dominated the historiography of Grenada
until the 1970s, before the nationalist historians began to rewrite the history of their nation-state.
The first published general history of Grenada after 1964 was An Illustrated Story of Grenada in 1974, published by the History and Literature Division of the Grenada Independence Secretariat to coincide with Grenada’s
attainment of sovereign realm status. In twenty-three pages, it traced the history of Grenada from the earliest times to the achievement of independence
in a type of comic-book format.84 Mardel is not mentioned therein.
The second history was written by George Brizan, a former prime
minister of Grenada and a Roman Catholic. In the wake of the Grenada
Revolution (1979–83), Brizan published Grenada, Island of Conflict.85 In
1998 a revised edition showed a similar absence of Mardel.86 In the latter
edition, Brizan cites a letter from Home that discusses a “Father La Point”
who was “fermenting” dissension.87 However, there are no further mentions of La Point.
In 2003 Beverley Steele, a naturalized Grenadian born in Jamaica and
a Roman Catholic, published Grenada: A History of Its People.88 In this
work, the references to Mardel occupy a single sentence:
Among those executed were Baptiste, who had shot Lieutenant-[sic]
Governor Home, Chevalier De Suze who was an old man of over seventy-five, and Pascal Mardel, the Roman Catholic priest at Gouyave.89

82. Devas, Conception Island, p. 95.
83. Devas, The History of the Island of Grenada, p. 119.
84. Felix McIntosh, Anthony George, and Charles Munro, An Illustrated Story of
Grenada (St. George’s, Grenada, 1974).
85. George Brizan, Grenada, Island of Conflict (London, 1984).
86. George Brizan, Grenada, Island of Conflict (Basingstoke, UK, 1998).
87. Brizan, Grenada, Island of Conflict [1984], p. 61.
88. Beverley A. Steele, Grenada: A History of Its People (Basingstoke, UK, 2003).
89. Ibid., p. 142.

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REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST: PASCAL MARDEL OF GRENADA

Between these publications, a native-born professional historian wrote
numerous publications covering various aspects of the history of Grenada.
Beginning in 1982, Edward L. Cox published “Fedon’s Rebellion 1795–
96: Causes and Consequences.”90 Mardel was never mentioned. In 1984
Cox published Free Coloreds in the Slave Societies of St. Kitts and Grenada,
1763–1833 (possibly based on his PhD dissertation).91 Although Cox’s
treatment of the rebellion is more detailed than his 1982 article, Mardel’s
role remained unmentioned.
Except for the previously mentioned passage, the life and contribution
of Mardel to the rebellion in defense of the Roman Catholic way of life in
Grenada has not been discussed since Devas last wrote about him in 1964.92
In 2010 Nicole Laurine Phillip, a professional historian and Roman
Catholic, published her Women in Grenadian History 1783–1983, but,
given the subject matter, Mardel’s name is never mentioned.
Grenada’s present-day population is approximately 100,000, with
some 45 percent identified as Roman Catholic. This is part of the legacy
of French colonial rule. Every prime minister has been Roman Catholic,
including Maurice Bishop, the prime minister during the revolution of
1979–83 and the first head of government to recognize publicly Fédon as
Grenada’s first anticolonial, antislavery, proto-nationalist figure. However,
Mardel remains to this day a forgotten, unknown figure. His death in
defense of this community no longer exists in the collective consciousness
of Grenada’s Roman Catholics.
The reasons that Mardel’s life and contribution receives scant mention
in the history of Roman Catholicism in Grenada and its general history are
not entirely clear. The life and work of Devas may provide a clue. As a
Roman Catholic clergyman working in Grenada during the closing
decades of the British Empire and presumably familiar with the historical
tensions between religious factions and the government, he may have been
reluctant to address the implications of a Roman Catholic parish priest
90. Cox, “Fedon’s Rebellion 1795–96: Causes and Consequences,” pp. 7–19.
91. Edward Locksley Cox, “The Shadow of Freedom: Freedmen in the Slave Societies
of Grenada and St. Kitts, 1763–1833” (PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1977); Cox,
Free Coloreds in the Slave Societies of St. Kitts and Grenada, 1763–1833 (Knoxville, 1984).
92. In 1974, the year of independence for Grenada, Devas published A History of the Island
of Grenada, 1498–1796, with Some Notes and Comments on Carriacou and Events of Later Years (St.
George’s, Grenada, 1974). This scope of this work does not differ greatly from the work of a
decade before but was presented as a new edition. The references to Mardel did not change.

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341

employing force against the British government to redress the injustices
perpetrated against Grenada’s Roman Catholics. Devas discusses in great
detail the factors leading to the outbreak of the rebellion, but he never
openly justifies rebellion as a legitimate method for redressing grievances.
He might not have known how to reconcile Mardel’s revolutionary role
with his duties and beliefs as a Capuchin friar, especially the example of
peace as modeled by St. Francis.
As a British Roman Catholic clergyman striving ultimately to uphold
the integrity of the British Empire, Devas could hardly be expected to give
prominence to someone, even a Roman Catholic priest, who had an
“avowed purpose not only of subverting His Majesty’s Government but of
totally extirpating His Loyal Subjects of this Island [that is, Grenada].”93
His work never lacked intellectual rigor, and this helps to understand why
his successor toilers in the vineyard have not challenged his work. Devas’s
work defined the context for discussing the history of Grenada, to which
subsequent writers adhered. In 1932, the reviewer W.B.N.C. observed that
Father Devas has told the history completely, from the beginning to the
present time, with copious notes and a wealth of detail . . . a wonderful
tale of vitality and effort, which could not be told of any other institution
in the world but the Catholic Church.”

The only critical note was the observation that a better map “should be
provided in any subsequent edition . . . [which] would be a great help to
the reader of a varied and wonderful story.”94
Mardel is the archetype of generations of radical clerics who have
become prominent in the Americas. These include Camilo Torres and
Ernesto Cardenal.95 As long as glaring social inequalities and oppression
exist, there will be those clerics who choose to be with their flock. Mardel
today receives the fate of all who dare to challenge the colonial order: they
are written out of history.96 The life of Mardel invites reconsideration of
the history of the Roman Catholic Church in Grenada as well as the history of Grenada, offering the potential for reassessment of previous points
of view that have long held sway.
93. Taken from the Act of Attainder.
94. W.B.N.C., review of Conception Island, p. 11.
95. For Cardenal, see Fidel and Religion: Conversations with Frei Betto (Sydney, 1985),
pp. 195–96.
96. In 2012 or 2013, the author wrote to the headquarters of the Capuchin order in
Rome, requesting information, if available, on the life and career of Mardel. To date, no reply
has been received.

Review Essay
The Cardinal Mindszenty Files
from American Archives
ÁRPÁD VON KLIMÓ*
Do Not Forget This Small Honest Nation. Cardinal Mindszenty to 4 US Presidents and State Secretaries 1956–1971 as Conserved in American
Archives and Commented by American Diplomats. A Documentary
Overview. Edited by Ádám Somorjai, O.S.B., and Tibor Zinner.
English translation (foreword, narrative part between the documents)
by Judit Zinner. (Bloomington, IN: Xlibris, 2013. Pp. xxx, 417.
$26.99 clothbound, ISBN 978-1-479-76860-8; $18.99 paperback,
ISBN 978-1-479-76859-2.)
“His Eminence Files.” American Embassy Budapest. From Embassy Archives 15
(1971) / Mindszenty bíboros az Amerikai Nagykövetségen. Követségi
Levéltár 15 (1971). Edited by Ádám Somorjai, O.S.B. Second,
updated ed. (Budapest: METEM [International Society for Encyclopedia of Church History in Hungary]. 2012. Pp. 368. ISBN 978-9639-66225-4.)
The Cardinal Mindszenty Documents in American Archives. A Repertory of the
Six Budapest Mindszenty Boxes / Mindszenty bíboros budapesti amerikai
követségi tartózkodásának dokumentumai. Repertórium. Edited by Ádám
Somorjai, O.S.B. [The Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty Papers, Subsidia
1.] (Pannonhalma: Pannonhalmi Főapátság. 2012. Pp. 288. ISBN
978-9-639-05389-2.)
Sancta Sedes Apostolica et Cardinalis Ioseph Mindszenty. I. Documenta 1971–
1975. Az Apostoli Szentszék és Mindszenty József kapcsolattartása 1971–
1975. Tanulmányok és szövegközlések. Edited by Ádám Somorjai,
O.S.B. (Budapest: METEM. 2007. Pp. 278. ISBN 978-9-63966234-6.)
Sancta Sedes Apostolica et Cardinalis Ioseph Mindszenty, II. Documenta 1956–
1963. Az Apostoli Szentszék és Mindszenty József kapcsolattartása, II.
*Dr. von Klimó is associate professor in the history department at The Catholic University of America, email: klimo@cua.edu. The author thanks Patricia Murphy, who is working
on a PhD project on the image of Cardinal Mindszenty among U.S. Catholics, for her assistance with this review essay.

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BOOK REVIEWS

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Tanulmányok és szövegközlések. Edited by Ádám Somorjai, O.S.B.
(Budapest: METEM. 2009. Pp. 264. ISBN 978-9-639-66234-6.)
Sancta Sedes Apostolica et Cardinalis Ioseph Mindszenty, III/1., Documenta
1963–1966. Az Apostoli Szentszék és Mindszenty József kapcsolattartása,
III/1. Tanulmányok és szövegközlések. Edited by Ádám Somorjai, O.S.B.
(Budapest: METEM. 2010. Pp. 547. ISBN 978-9-639-66245-2.)
Sancta Sedes Apostolica et Cardinalis Ioseph Mindszenty, III/2. Documenta
1967–1971.—Az Apostoli Szentszék és Mindszenty József kapcsolattartása,
III/2. Tanulmányok és szövegközlések. Edited by Ádám Somorjai, O.S.B.
(Budapest: METEM. 2012. Pp. 700. ISBN 978-9-639-66245-2.)
When Cardinal József Mindszenty (1893–1975), primate of Hungary,
was sentenced to life imprisonment in a communist show trial in 1949,
Pope Pius XII and the leaders of the Western world raised their voices in
his defense, and Time magazine made him its “Man of the Year.” The cardinal became a symbol of anticommunist resistance, particularly for Americans. In 1956, after troops who sympathized with the anti-Stalinist uprising liberated him from his prison, the cardinal again garnered international
media attention. Fifteen years later, at a time when Mindszenty was a
“guest” of the U.S. legation in Budapest (which became an embassy in
1966), the cardinal reappeared in the news. But this time, Western mainstream media considered him a “relic of the past,” a man who had lost
touch with reality. Delegates from East and West—U.S. officials, Vatican
representatives, and communist leaders—were now engaged in détente and
Ostpolitik, expressions of a political climate that viewed stubborn anticommunism as out of place. Since his death in 1975 as an exile in Vienna, the
Hungarian cardinal has been mostly forgotten. This is not the case in
Hungary, however. After the end of communism in 1989, he became a
symbol to some of a national leader who never surrendered, whereas others
regarded him as a narrow-minded reactionary. Hungarian Catholics initiated a process of beatification in 1994 that is pending today.
Most recently, Csaba Szabó, director of the Hungarian Institute of
History in Vienna, and Margit Balogh, fellow of the Institute of History
of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, have published new, extensive
studies of Mindszenty’s life, based on a vast amount of archival materials
that became accessible only after 1989.1
1. The best biography by far of the cardinal is by Margit Balogh: Kardinal Joseph Mindszenty: ein Leben zwischen kommunistischer Diktatur und Kaltem Krieg (Berlin, 2014). Another
important contribution is a collection of articles on Mindszenty’s last years in exile: József Kardinal Mindszenty in Wien (1971–75), ed. Csaba Szabó (Vienna, 2012).

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FIGURE 1. Cardinal József Mindszenty, c. 1974. Fotocollectie Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau (ANEFO), Dutch National Archives, The Hague.

Both Balogh and Szabó profited immensely from the editorial work of
the Hungarian Benedictine Ádám Somorjai. Somorjai is a long-time consultant at the Vatican for the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
Between 1999 and 2007 he was relator in the case of Mindszenty. He also
is very active in the Society for an Encyclopedia of Hungarian Church History (Magyar Egyháztörténeti Enciklopédia Munkaközösség, or METEM),
founded in 1988.
The seven books under review are mostly editions of documents
related to Mindszenty’s time in the U.S. embassy (1956–71) and his exile
in Vienna (1971–75; see figure 1).
These periods also are the most controversial periods of Mindszenty’s
life, because they were so closely related with the politics of U.S. détente,
Vatican Ostpolitik, and Hungarian communism under János Kádár. Somorjai has worked extensively in a number of archives, mostly in the United
States (such as the National Archives, State Department collections,
embassy archives, and presidential libraries) and in the Mindszenty Archive
in Budapest, in an effort to collect and publish documents that may convey
a better understanding of this period. Somorjai’s The Cardinal Mindszenty
Documents in American Archives gives an overview of this rich tradition.

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Do Not Forget This Small Honest Nation is coedited by Somorjai and
Tibor Zinner, a Hungarian historian and specialist on historical justice. In
the short introduction, Somorjai briefly describes Mindszenty’s difficult
situation as “guest” of the U.S. embassy. He characterizes the selection of
letters sent by the cardinal to U.S. presidents, secretaries of state, and
other U.S. officials as a “monologue” that reflects his struggles and anxieties. Mindszenty received answers only from Presidents John F. Kennedy
and Richard Nixon, but these were not very meaningful. On the other
hand, Somorjai notes, a number of high-ranking U.S. diplomats commented on his letters, suggesting a wider audience for his views than
might be expected. This book addresses a wider English-speaking audience than the other volumes, and all documents are amply annotated by
the editor.
In contrast to Do Not Forget This Small Honest Nation, “His Eminence
Files” is the first of a planned twelve-volume edition of all papers that
Mindszenty wrote and received. It is therefore more scholarly in character
and represents a very detailed documentation. The volume under review
covers only 1971, but this was a most difficult year for the cardinal. At that
time, the negotiations among representatives of the Vatican, the State
Department, and the Hungarian government ended, and Mindszenty was
persuaded to leave the embassy voluntarily, travel by car to Vienna, and fly
to Rome. Mindszenty very soon regretted his decision, feeling deceived by
Viennese Cardinal Franz König and even by Pope Paul VI.
Volumes I, II, III/1, and III/2 of Sancta Sedes Apostolica et Cardinalis
Ioseph Mindszenty encompass the period 1956–75 and include documents
in English, Hungarian, Italian, and Latin that are part of the records of the
U.S. legation/embassy in Budapest and are stored at the National
Archives. This collection focuses on the complicated relationship between
Mindszenty and Vatican representatives, including the first to visit him in
Budapest—König. König’s visits to Mindszenty were authorized first by
Pope Saint John XXIII and then by Paul VI. Still more difficulties were in
store when Mindszenty encountered Archbishop Agostino Casaroli, the
architect of the Vatican Ostpolitik that Mindszenty regarded as a useless
capitulation to the enemy.
Volume II (1956–63) also contains useful data on papers, documents,
and letters related to Mindszenty’s correspondence, indicating when he
wrote to Washington and the Vatican, how often he received answers, and
so forth. A table shows the dates and names associated with official visits
to Mindszenty during his stay in the embassy between 1964 and 1971. All

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volumes under review contain footnotes, biographical information, indices,
and extended bibliographies.
As a result of these remarkable scholarly efforts, we now know much
more about Mindszenty’s situation inside the legation/embassy, his isolation, and his inner struggles. Until 1963, his communication with the outside world, including messages to his mother and other relatives, was
reduced to a minimum, and his letters to the Vatican were not forwarded.
One reason for this treatment of Mindszenty involved the delicate situation of the U.S. legation in Budapest. After Hungary declared, in 1963, an
amnesty for political prisoners associated with the 1956 uprising and thus
officially ending the brutal retaliation against them, U.S.-Hungarian relations improved conspicuously, and the legation achieved the status of an
embassy in 1966. For Mindszenty, whose life had been at risk during the
turmoil of 1956, the lack of U.S. action against communism in his country
and Eastern Europe in general was frustrating.
In such a climate, he increasingly defined his role as his country’s
leader, as defined by the historical (if unwritten) constitution of the Hungarian Kingdom, which dated before the collapse of the Hungarian part of
the Habsburg Empire in 1918. According to this tradition, the primate
represented the nation during the absence of a crowned king. Thus the
steadfast loyalty of Mindszenty, who became a priest in 1915, to the House
of Habsburg can be understood. Furthermore, he connected his constitutional ideas with Hungarian revisionist demands. In a January 22, 1960,
letter to John XXIII regarding a prospective Austrian concordat, Mindszenty requested that “nothing new take place (nihil innovetur) from the
point of view of law concerning” the Burgenland (the easternmost Austrian
Bundesland that also included pre–World War I Hungarian territory); he
feared that this could become an “irremediable precedent … to the advantage of the Czechs, Rumanians, and Servians as regards the total of seventeen dioceses in the territory of the Crown of Saint Stephen” (Sancta Sedes
Apostolica, p. 176). Both the United States and the Vatican tried to ignore
his nationalist tendencies, confining their interactions with him to questions of church law. The Vatican wanted to avoid any apparent endorsement of Mindszenty’s intransigently anticommunist views, fearing that
antagonizing communists would endanger the millions of Catholics living
in the Eastern Bloc.
The Vatican, represented by Casaroli, negotiated with the communist
government, hoping to improve or at least normalize the difficult situation
of the Hungarian Catholic Church by filling the vacant episcopal sees; the

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parties subsequently signed an agreement in 1964. During this process,
Mindszenty felt increasingly marginalized. The mutual alienation finally
led to the tragic clash in 1974 when Paul VI felt compelled to declare the
position of the archbishop of Esztergom (and primate of Hungary) vacant.
Mindszenty was shocked and died a few months later.
One day, the Vatican archives will reveal more about the deliberations
inside the Curia related to Mindszenty. But at the moment, thanks to the
excellent work of Somorjai and other Hungarian scholars, we have the
opportunity to study the history of one of the most fascinating figures in
the history of Hungary, the cold war, and Catholicism in the twentieth
century.

Book Reviews
GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
Guida ai Fondi Manoscritti, Numismatici, a Stampa della Biblioteca Vaticana. Vol. I:
Dipartimento Manoscritti; Vol. II: Dipartimento Stampati—Dipartimento del
Gabinetto Numismatico—Ufficio della Prefettura; Archivio. Edited by Francesco
D’Aiuto and Paolo Vian. 2 vols. [Studi e Testi, Vols. 466 and 467.] (Vatican
City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. 2011. Pp. 736; 737–1557. €150,00
paperback. ISBN 978-88-210-0884-9.)
With 500 years of history, a Renaissance palazzo for its home, more than
100,000 manuscripts, nearly 2 million printed books—not to mention coins, medals,
papyri, inscribed palm leaves, parchments, photographs, and prints among various
other products of human ingenuity (including statues, carved ivory, and digital
resources)—the Vatican Library is one of the world’s great wonders. To this unique
institution these two stout volumes (more than 1500 pages), edited by Francesco
D’Aiuto and Paolo Vian for the library’s Studi e Testi series, are intended to provide
a friendly, versatile introductory guide, but in fact they present readers with a great
deal more. As reference books, they furnish a treasure-house of information about
every corner of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana and its holdings, organized, like
the library itself, into three broad categories (manuscripts, printed books, and coins).
Each of these contains a host of smaller “Fondi” (individual collections), some
extending back into the Middle Ages (like the Cappella Giulia fondo of sacred
music), some of them recent legacies (the papers of Pope Paul VI), with an impressive core composed of personal and institutional libraries created in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries (the aristocratic collections of the Barberini and Chigi families
and the Vatican’s own fondo, the basic collection created in the fifteenth century by
Pope Sixtus IV and still open for new acquisitions after all these centuries). There is
even a collection of miniatures, Libri minuscoli—books that possess only one
common characteristic: extreme tininess. This fondo started, apparently, about 1926.
In addition, the Guide also includes a description of the holdings connected with the
prefect’s office and the library’s own archive, thus affording a complete introduction
to this marvelous world in itself, a world of study that invites conversations among
people from every part of the globe and allows living studiosi to forge close relationships with those who have gone before them.
Despite its divine “apostolic” mandate (stated in its founding charter in 1476),
the Vatican Library has always been made up of people, from the first borrowers
who wrote their names into a pair of bound registers still preserved among the
Manuscripti Vaticani Latini to the team of researchers who have compiled this new
Guide’s exacting entries on the library’s current holdings (given the size of their task,
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the bibliography is accurate up to 2009). The contributors are all scholars employed
by the library, their expertise strengthened by years of familiarity with the collections, years of familiarity with one another, and unparalleled access to the vast corridors and the six stories of stacks where the books and other treasures are stored.
Although the Guide does not pretend to be a history of the library as a whole (for
that, the editors refer to an earlier volume in the Studi e Testi series, the excellent
La Bibliothèque Vaticane de Sixte IV à Pie XI by the late Jeanne Bignami Odier, from
1973), it provides individual histories of the individual Fondi and the people who
amassed and cared for these diverse assemblages of books and objects for the most
diverse of reasons. Often the Guide’s short essays present groundbreaking research
in themselves, as in the case of Adalbert Roth’s introduction to the Cappella Giulia
Fondo, where he uses musical manuscripts to substantiate the claim that initially
Pope Julius II (reigned 1503–13) intended only to restore St. Peter’s Basilica, not
to replace it—a controversial point among art historians, but a much less controversial point from the evidence provided by the Cappella Sistina manuscripts.
The editors’ primary goal is to make consultation easy; this is not a book to be
read cover to cover (although reading the individual histories of the Fondi is a real
delight); hence bibliographical references are printed right on the page without
recourse to footnotes, and cross-references are reduced to a minimum. Frequently
the historical essays also provide advice to researchers about how to use the holdings of an individual fondo to best advantage, noting, for example, where various
kinds of information are kept among its various types of documents. The one
exception to this right-on-the-page rule is a series of old-fashioned fingerposts in
the margins, which signal last-minute additions to the huge text; these added items
appear at the end of the second volume. In addition to a wealth of bibliographies
to meet the needs of every kind of researcher, the Guide provides an extensive “analytical index” and an index of manuscripts, books, and objects listed by call number.
Thanks to this remarkable tool, the intricate mysteries of the Vatican Library have
been made far more accessible to the library’s users, but more important, it succeeds
in conveying the library’s remarkable legacy of love for the life of the mind, forever
coupled with the life of the soul.
University of Notre Dame, Rome

INGRID ROWLAND

Clerical Celibacy in the West: c. 1100–1700. By Helen Parish. [Catholic Christendom, 1300–1700.] (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing. 2010. Pp. xii, 282.
$99.95. ISBN 978-0-7546-3949-7.)
The topic of Helen Parish’s authoritative and immensely readable Clerical
Celibacy is rooted in millennia of Christian doctrine, discipline, and practice, and
remains as timely and contentious as ever. Pope Francis called it “a rule of life that
I appreciate very much, and . . . a gift for the church” but added that “since it is not
a dogma, the door is always open.”
In her introduction, Parish underscores the vastness and complexity of her
subject. Celibacy and marriage are intensely personal and private matters, but in the

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context of the Christian priesthood, very public, and at times polemical statements.
The commitment to a life of celibacy demanded of the Catholic clergy reaches to
the heart of the individual, but also to the heart of the history of the Church that
he serves, and clerical celibacy continues to be defined in relation to scripture, apostolic tradition, ecclesiastical history, and papal authority (p. 13).
Despite her subtitle (c. 1100–1700), Parish begins by examining the attitudes
and experiments of the early Church, which set the tone for centuries of discussion
and debate. St. Paul was a towering influence in the debate, and Parish describes
how his “infamous statement in defence of chastity” (p. 24) in his First Epistle to
the Corinthians, and his moderate though ambivalent observations about marriage
fueled the debate about clerical celibacy. So did St. Jerome’s diatribes against any
suggestion that virginity and chastity were not the highest form of Christian
expression. In his denunciation of the monk Jovinian, who defended the worth of
married clergy, Jerome insisted that clerics either remain unmarried or, if married,
then abstain from sex—the only way, he believed, they could achieve the holiness
that was an essential priestly quality.
The sexually experienced St. Augustine, on the other hand, who believed that
“all sexual activity [w]as accompanied by ritual pollution” (p. 39), tempered his recommendations about clerical celibacy for the very practical reason that it was difficult to find enough priests. His solution was to accept married men, secure in the
knowledge that ordination would bestow on them the grace to live chaste lives.
Even as the theological foundation for clerical celibacy developed and matured, the
reality of the early Church was that many of its clergymen were married. In this
context, the chapter on the history of clerical marriage in the Eastern churches adds
a fascinating dimension to the issue, and Parish concludes:
The married ministry of the Eastern church might appear be stand in stark
contrast to perpetual continence of Latin priests, but the law which committed them to temporary continence was constructed on the same foundations as the celibacy obligation which bound the clergy of the Roman
church. (p. 86)

The locus of chapter 3, “’A concubine or an unlawful woman’: Celibacy, Marriage, and the Gregorian Reform,” is “a central place in the history and historical
narrative of clerical celibacy,” when many priests were married “and leading a life
almost indistinguishable at first glance from that of their parishioners” (p. 89). But
when church holdings fell into private hands, these priests were blamed for the
common practice of assigning church properties to their children and even founding dynasties. The ensuing churchly campaign against clerical wives and children
did not, Parish notes, “manifest the rhetoric of purity and sacerdotalism that was to
characterise later attempts to regulate clerical conduct” (p. 96) and relied instead on
harsh punishments: removing clergy from office; instructing (often reluctant)
parishioners to decline sacraments from noncompliant priests; threatening excommunication; even forcibly separating ordained husband from wife and children.

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Interwoven into Parish’s descriptions of centuries of such real-life complexities and dynamics are stories of how Gregorian reformers effected drastic changes
in canon law and how the Church’s devotional focus on the Eucharist and Christ’s
presence led to the new vision of priests who were chaste and unstained as they
handled Christ’s body, so that “the language of liturgy and sacral function, and the
lexicon of polemical debate, established the boundaries of controversy of clerical
celibacy and marriage in the centuries that followed” (p. 122).
Nonetheless, by the time of the Reformation, the debate over clerical celibacy
was conducted against a backdrop of married priests whose daily reality included
“pigtails on the pillow” (p. 141). When Martin Luther married, provoking an
onslaught of criticism as well as approval, the debate about clerical celibacy intensified. He and other clerics who married, Parish concludes, “if not actively embracing the Reformation . . . were surely expressing a willingness to jettison the laws
and traditions of Catholicism” (p. 182). Clerical marriage challenged not only the
apostolicity of obligatory celibacy “but also issues of discipline, dogma, and direction in the institutional church” (p. 183).
Parish’s excellent and nuanced study makes it clear that even as it is debated
today, the issue of the value, sacred nature, and historical validation of clerical
celibacy still evokes the same multidimensional framework as it has for nearly two
millennia.
Trinity College, University of Toronto

ELIZABETH ABBOTT

ANCIENT
Libanios: Zeuge einer schwindenden Welt. By Heinz-Günther Nesselrath. [Standorte
in Antike und Christentum, Band 4.] (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann Verlag.
2013. Pp. viii, 166. €39,00 paperback. ISBN 978-3-7772-1208-1.)
Better late than never. This is what one may think when considering the
increasing attention to and academic production on the vast work of the sophist
Libanius of Antioch (314–93?), an author who has become the “front-man” of the
religious and cultural landscape of late antiquity. However, unlike the scholarly
tone of the recent publications on Libanius by Pierre-Louis Malosse, Raffaella
Cribiore, and Lieve van Hoof, the nature of Heinz-Günther Nesselrath’s book differs from these contributions as the author’s aim is to provide us with a basic introduction to Libanius’s works and to his cultural and religious tenets.
The five chapters between the prologue and the epilogue do not offer new
research avenues but are useful in that they form a solid status quaestionis on Libanius studies. After a short prologue in the first chapter that briefly outlines the
reception of the sophist’s works in modern times, in the second chapter Nesselrath
provides a sketch of the main events in Libanius’s life using the sophist’s Autobiography as his guidebook but without taking Libanius’s narrative at face value (pp.
35–36). In the third chapter, the author lists the different types of works preserved

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in the sophist’s corpus by dividing it into three main parts: orations, educational
and theoretical works, and letters. Particular emphasis is placed on the close bonds
between the classical paideia and the pagan religion (pp. 50–53), although here a
more nuanced view would have been desirable for a better understanding of Libanius’s views on the relationship between religion and culture.
Chapter 4 is devoted to Libanius’s religious beliefs, probably the topic that has
gained him a prominent place in the field of late-antique studies due to his frequent
allusions to pagan gods and religious practices. Again, the introductory nature of
this book prevents it from entering into a more thorough analysis of the sophist’s
beliefs, although its systematic treatment of Libanius’s criticism of Christianity is
practical and supported by a plethora of primary sources. In the fifth chapter, Nesselrath analyzes Libanius’s relationship with fellow pagans (most notably, with the
emperor Julian) and his interaction with practitioners of other religions—especially
Christians but also Manicheans, which constitutes a valuable addition to an almost
uncharted topic. Chapter 6 investigates the reception of Libanius’s works from
early Byzantine to modern times, a somewhat unexplored topic whose relevance lies
in the importance of the sophist’s works throughout Byzantine and Renaissance
times and in how the approaches to his figure over time have reflected the changing
attitudes to the values that his work represented.
Nesselrath closely follows Libanius’s works as the main source for this book.
In an epoch overpopulated by secondary bibliography, this kind of methodological
approach is to be welcomed (although the bibliographical appendix is excessively
basic and some important references are missing). However, this methodology has
its own risks. In addition to neglecting those issues that did not fit in Libanius’s literary program but which did influence it, this book does not deal comprehensively
with this towering figure whose presence in the arena of education, politics, religion, and culture cannot be addressed separately. Thus, a sense of an excessive
compartmentalization in the treatment of Libanius’s life and of an overly simplified
reading of his works is inevitable after reading the book. Overall, Nesselrath’s book
constitutes a useful contribution and a propaedeutic introduction to those who wish
to delve into the complex Zeitgeist of late antiquity and into the writings of one of
its most representative figures.
ALBERTO QUIROGA PUERTAS

Universidad de Granada

MEDIEVAL
Past Convictions. The Penance of Louis the Pious and the Decline of the Carolingians.
By Courtney M. Booker. [The Middle Ages Series.] (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press. 2009. Pp. x, 420. $75.00. ISBN 978-0-812-24168-6.)
These are heady days for studies of Carolingian kings. After multiple recent
biographies of Charlemagne and Louis the German, two books on Louis the Pious
appeared: Courtney Booker’s Past Convictions and Mayke de Jong’s The Penitential
State (New York, 2009). It is revealing that whereas most studies of other Carolin-

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gian kings adopt a biographical approach, both of these books center on one
event—that of Louis’s famous enforced penance of 833. Given this common focus,
they are surprisingly unlike each other. Whereas de Jong’s follows the political
events leading up to 833 in a broadly chronological structure, Booker’s focuses
more on competing currents of interpretation of these events and their literary
legacy. It is comparatively lighter on context and weighted in favor of their later
memory.
Part I, amounting to more than half of the book, deals with the triumph of
the “loyalist” reading of the events of 833 in the major narrative sources (treated in
chapter 1) and the distorting effect of this success on modern scholarship. Chapter
2 deals with the legacy of these accounts in later medieval writings, along with the
sidelining of the version presented in “rebel” texts; it also examines the views of the
early-modern editors of these texts. Chapter 3 takes the story through the Enlightenment. Part II then moves away from this master narrative to consider the rebels’
texts on their own terms: Chapter 4 offers a close textual analysis of the arguments
of contemporary rebel accounts. Chapter 5 considers later ninth-century texts connected with the deposition of Archbishop Ebbo, the unfortunate scapegoat in the
whole affair. Part III fits the rebels’ argument into the context of the new moral
standards and priorities established by Louis, and retraces the ideal of (Benedictine)
equity as the implicit counterpart to claims regarding Louis’s “iniquity.”
The subtitle is more likely to raise hackles than the actual content of the book
would warrant; perhaps “The Penance of Louis the Pious and Medieval and Modern
Claims of the Decline of the Carolingians” would have been more accurate. In fact,
Booker characterizes 833 not as a pivotal moment in a traditional narrative of Carolingian decline but, less controversially, as part of a “continuum of process and
transformation” (p. 10). He also takes issue, however, with more upbeat recent
readings: “the current trend to correct this view [of decline] by underscoring Carolingian agency has itself produced a skewed narrative of early-medieval ‘strategists,’ tacticians who proactively maneuvered through their difficult times in
accordance with suspiciously modern notions of pragmatism and utility” (pp. 7–8).
The pessimism of early-medieval sources, he argues, did not always amount to
skillful political positioning: Sometimes they just meant it. One main obstacle to
understanding 833 properly has been the presumption of a clever hidden agenda in
the rebel bishops’ presentation of their case: This is ascribed both to the success of
the loyalist reading (one moral of this book is that we all love Nithard and his
Realpolitik too much, leading to an anachronistically cynical view—although some
may find this to be a slight caricature both of Nithard and modern research) and to
the dramatic “emplotment” lent to these events by both medieval and modern
authors, peopling the narrative with heroes and villains, manipulation, revelations,
and coups de théâtre.
Perhaps an inevitable downside of focusing on strands of interpretation is that
it comes at the cost of some clarity over the sequence of events. As a result, the book
does not quite convey the atmosphere of growing moral panic, eventually reaching

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fever pitch, which is treated so well in de Jong. It does show contemporary anxiety
but does not make it entirely clear what it was precisely that rebels were so anxious
about: No explicit reference is made to the Spanish March disaster of 827 or to the
condemnation of Counts Matfrid and Hugh; Louis’s earlier penance of 822 is
given comparatively little attention, and there is little on existing acceptable forms
of admonishment to rulers (again, one great strength of de Jong’s book and an
important background for the view of criticism as the ultimate form of loyalty—an
important point, surely, in an argument for the bishops’ “sincerity”). What the book
lacks on political precedents, however, it makes up for in the sensitivity of its treatment of later memory, its intelligence, and its impressive erudition in intellectual
history. The discussion of early-modern and Enlightenment views of 833 contains
much that is both fascinating and little known. Altogether, this is enough to make
it a highly original and important contribution to scholarship.
King’s College London

ALICE RIO

Understanding Monastic Practices of Oral Communication (Western Europe, TenthThirteenth Centuries). Edited by Steven Vanderputten. [Utrecht Studies in
Medieval Literacy, 21.] (Turnhout: Brepols. 2011. Pp. xi, 390. €85,00. ISBN
978-2-503-53482-4.)
One byproduct of heightened scholarly interest in medieval literacy over the
last thirty-odd years has been a growing concern with literacy’s principal concomitant: oral communication. Since 1999, Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy, under
the general editorship of Marco Mostert, has been the chief venue for publications
devoted to research into literate modes of communication in the medieval West. As
both Mostert, who writes the concluding remarks to this volume, and its editor,
Steven Vanderputten, tell us, this collection of sixteen essays is attempting something new, which is “to provide inroads into a usable interpretation of the various
contexts in which medieval monks themselves considered the spoken word as a vital
complementary medium to other forms of communication and to silence as an
exercise in personal and collective discipline and as an instrument of personal communication” (p. 7).
Two paradoxes underlie studies of monastic oral culture. First, virtually all our
evidence comes to us by way of written sources; and second, in an institutional context which put a premium on silence, there was, it turns out, a rich and varied environment of spoken communication. Most of the essays here not only address these
paradoxes but creatively employ them as means to reconstruct significant aspects of
the mentalities and relationships (mostly within the cloister but also beyond it) of
monks and nuns in the central Middle Ages. In part 1 both Gerd Althoff and
Wojtek Jezierski explore the politics of silence: Althoff by uncovering how, in the
interests of beneficial social relations, the monks of St. Gall found ways around the
written prescriptions of silence in the Rule of St. Benedict and in their customaries,
and Jezierski by examining the ways monks suppressed the communication of
actions that might damage their community’s reputation, by restricting what could

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be said or written about them. Vanderputten, on the contrary, shows how the monks
of the priory of Hesdin employed public ritual and symbolic acts, whether to acquire
rights and property and build their social networks or to intimidate their enemies.
The essays in part 2, by Susan Boynton, Diane Reilly, and Tjamke Snijders,
sift through written remains (customaries, Bibles, patristic writings, and hagiographies) to recover the oral transmission and performance of the liturgy. Especially
gratifying in these essays is the contributors’ direct engagement with the codicology
of the manuscript sources. Detection of the spoken in the written is also foregrounded in the contributions to part 3. Here both Marie-Anne Polo de Beaulieu
and Edina Bozóky are especially interested in the way monks referenced oral testimony as a means of authentication, the first in Cistercian exempla and the second
in hagiographies. For his part, Geoffrey Koziol finds the living voice of Charles the
Simple in the midst of a manuscript written in the early eleventh century at SaintCorneille, Compiègne. Part 4’s essays, by Mirko Breitenstein, Albrecht Classen,
and Peter Dinzelbacher, further complicate the relationships between the spoken
word and writing by considering, respectively: how real pre-existing conversations
were deployed as literary devices in the dialogues of Ulrich of Cluny, Caesarius of
Heisterbach, and Ælred of Rievaulx; Hrotsvit of Gandersheim’s relationships
within and beyond the convent, as revealed in her writings; and the processes
whereby divine revelations to male and female religious were transmitted to writing
and then to the ears of audiences. Most refreshing are the first two contributions
to the final part, by Elisabeth Van Houts and Julie Barrau, who together make a
strong, common-sense case for the frequency and ubiquity of talk, far more often
than not in the vernacular, in monasteries. It is this very chattiness (and the all-toohuman frailty that it at once exposes and ameliorates) that is the target of the charitable (though to my mind uncomfortably totalitarian) ministrations of Bernard of
Clairvaux in the concluding essays of Wim Verbaal and Mette Bruun.
University of Vermont

CHARLES F. BRIGGS

Religion, Politics and Society in Britain, 1066–1272. By Henry Mayr-Harting.
(Harlow, UK: Longman, an imprint of Pearson Education. 2011. Pp. xx, 354.
Paperback. ISBN 978-0-582-41413-6.)
Henry Mayr-Harting is a scholar with mastery over an impressive range of
subjects. Some of his most important work has been on religious and intellectual
history in Anglo-Saxon England and Ottonian Germany, but his earliest work was
on the bishopric of Chichester in the twelfth century, and he has periodically
returned to British religious and political history ever since. With the work under
review, he does so more fully by providing an overview of religion, society, and politics in Britain from 1066 to 1272. Most of the book focuses on the period 1066–
1216, but there are chapters on the early history of the friars in Britain and on the
Church under King Henry III. It is probably also fair to say that there is much
more on England than on other parts of Britain, but Wales and Scotland are certainly not ignored. The series of which this book is a part studies the interaction of

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religion with other aspects of society, and so although there are chapters on primarily religious topics such as monasticism, there are also chapters on topics such as
the church and the economy, as well as relations among religion, intellectual life,
and politics. As is common in such overviews, the book has no one overarching
argument. What it does have is many novel insights and a great deal of wise commentary, based on years of experience in the field, by one of the leading scholars in
medieval religious history. At times, this includes important reinterpretations. For
instance, in Mayr-Harting’s discussion of the Becket controversy, he strongly
downplays the importance of the issue of criminous clerks and emphasizes St.
Thomas Becket’s concern for the rights of the church of Canterbury. This argument will be controversial, but scholars of the dispute will need to pay attention to
it. Not surprisingly, the book covers many standard subjects in church history for
the period, including not only relations between Becket and King Henry II but also
the long dispute between York and Canterbury as well as the impact of the Norman
Conquest on the Church. However, Mayr-Harting also makes periodic use of
compelling microhistories to take the reader into less explored areas and to make
telling points about more established subjects. For instance, he devotes one section
to an unusually elaborate parish church on the royal manor of Melbourne in Derbyshire and to Athelwold, bishop of Carlisle, to whom King Henry I gave the
church. Neither the church nor the bishop was hugely important in the overall
scheme of things, but Mayr-Harting uses them to discuss architecture and royal
symbolism, the nature of royal power, and medieval friendship. Throughout the
work he also employs a wealth of vivid anecdotes to illustrate his arguments. As
Mayr-Harting points out at the end, one of his aims is to discuss matters such as
talk, confession, or prayer that were clearly important, but whose precise impact is
impossible to gauge. In this, he succeeds surprisingly well. This book is pitched to
be suitable for a variety of readers. Undergraduate students will have no trouble
navigating it, and graduate students could benefit from it greatly, but even scholars
who are very familiar with the period and subject will benefit from Mayr-Harting’s
extensive knowledge and valuable insights.
University of Miami

HUGH M. THOMAS

Canon Law, Religion, and Politics: Liber Amicorum Robert Somerville. Edited by
Uta-Renate Blumenthal, Anders Winroth, and Peter Landau. (Washington,
DC: The Catholic University of America Press. 2012. Pp. xix, 320. $69.95.
ISBN 978-0-8132-1975-2.)
Robert Somerville has spent his career tracing the gossamer threads connecting the surviving sources of medieval canon law, especially in the transmission of conciliar decrees. The work is delicate and often tentative, but Somerville
has tried to give us some confidence in our knowledge. Many of those who have
contributed essays to this volume honoring Somerville have used the occasion to
take up shards of the medieval legal tradition and try their hand at what might
be called the Somerville project. The book is a very fitting tribute to Somerville’s
style and practice.

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Somerville’s work has focused on the late-eleventh and early-twelfth centuries
when the Church asserted and ultimately established its independent role in the
politics of Europe. Conciliar legislation continued to regulate the life of the
Church, but from this point on it also played a major role in the growth of secular
institutions and in the political arena.
The book is divided into three sections—Canon Law, Religion, and Politics—corresponding to the book’s title. The first section, “Canon Law,” consists of
nine essays. With two exceptions, all of these pieces deal with the period that has
been the focus of Somerville’s research. Bruce Brasington summarizes and edits a
summula on excommunication and anathema from early in the second half of the
twelfth century, and Peter Landau argues the case that the famous Ulpianus de
edendo originated in Durham in the 1150s and was the first ordo iusticiarius in what
became a library of such works. However, what distinguish nearly all of these essays
are the knotty problems of transmission, dating, and geographical origin of the
works tackled by the authors and their cautious, tentative conclusions. These are
true essays, probing and testing the arguments for claims, and providing unfinished
building blocks for a history of law. They will be of great value to those studying
the history of particular works or traditions but not to those who seek sound foundations for works on general subjects.
The second section, “Religion,” consists of two essays on theological works,
Charles Shrader on the Eucharistic treatises of Heriger of Lobbes (c. 940–1007)
and Martin Brett on the De corpore et sanguine Domini of Ernulf of Canterbury
(1039/40–1124). Brett’s article includes an edition of the text. In the editors’ view,
theology and canon law were separate subjects, although, as James Brundage notes
in his essay in the third section of the book (p. 277), until the late-twelfth century
practitioners did not regard canon law and theology as distinct fields of study.
Nearly all of the essays in the third section, “Politics,” are by Somerville’s contemporaries—Detlev Jasper, Edward Peters, Giles Constable, Kenneth Pennington, Charles Donahue Jr., and James Brundage. Their essays tend to be more definitive than those in the earlier sections, in the sense that the authors draw
conclusions from their research. Yet, several emulate Somerville in taking on topics
about which conclusions are elusive. Jasper’s study of the transmission of historical
examples of deposition and excommunication of emperors collected by papal partisans during the Investiture Conflict draws the tentative conclusion that a manuscript of St. Gall (Stiftsbibliothek 676) contains a version derived from two earlier
lists, and Jasper edits the text from that manuscript. Pennington takes up a question
raised by Somerville about a decree of the Second Lateran Council that prohibited
monks and canons regular to study Roman law. He answers some, but not all, of
the questions posed by Somerville in that study. Constable also deals with a subject
close to Somerville: the evidence for Pope Urban II’s preaching of the first crusade.
Most of the essays in the third section are contributions related to their authors’
longtime research and are useful additions to the puzzle of medieval legal history.
University of California, San Diego

STANLEY CHODOROW

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Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages. By Stephen A. Mitchell. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2011. Pp. xiv, 368. $49.95. ISBN 9780-8122-4290-4.)
Bengt Ankarloo and Gustav Henningsen’s collection of essays Early Modern
European Witchcraft: Centres and Peripheries (Oxford, 1990) attempted to expand
the boundaries of our knowledge and explore the ways in which previously neglected regions were or were not distinctive in their conception of witchcraft. Not
long afterward, Stephen Mitchell was providing seminal work on magic and witchcraft across Scandinavia in the high and late-medieval periods. What Mitchell has
now given us is a magisterial overview that allows us to see how the history of
witchcraft and magic in northern Europe fits into broader European patterns.
The first crucial decision Mitchell makes is that of chronology. His period is
1100–1525: the post-Viking, postconversion, pre-Reformation era. In response to
those who see this as a time when little of interest was happening, he argues that it
was an era of considerable change, intermingling elite and popular, indigenous and
imported notions. He insists that the sagas be read as reflections not of the era in
which they are set but of the later period that produced them. In effect, his decision
about chronology serves well to integrate Scandinavian with other European developments: intensification of concern about witchcraft occurs in Nordic regions and
elsewhere very much in tandem.
The second key decision is to deal with the material neither chronologically
nor geographically but thematically. The book deals with magic in daily life (chapter 2), in various forms of literature (chapter 3), in late-medieval “mythologies”
(chapter 4), and in legal and judicial sources (chapter 5) before turning to questions
about gender (chapter 6). The four centuries under examination might easily have
been subdivided, and the differences between Greenland, Iceland, Norway,
Sweden, and Denmark might have seemed to invite separate treatment. Either of
these more obvious modes of inquiry would surely have resulted in a less interesting
book, less effective at integrating Scandinavia into broader European history.
This integration took various forms and proceeded by several channels.
Mitchell tells of a Norwegian bishop who, in his youth, had studied in Paris, where
he had dared to read a book of magic that his master had left out; the raging storm
that ensued alerted the master to his student’s mischief. Whatever historical value
we choose to find in this late-medieval tale of a sorcerer’s would-be apprentice, it
does testify to the transmission of magical knowledge among clerics who traveled
and experienced the world outside Scandinavia. If Scandinavians knew about pacts
with the devil, this was partly because they had access to the same classical sources
available to other Europeans: the notion occurs around 1300 in a Nordic telling of
the life of St. Basil. It is not surprising, then, to find evidence of anaphrodisiac
magic, and casting of circles to conjure demons, and saints who can counter witchcraft with their miraculous power (expelling, in one case, a worm and fourteen
toads from an afflicted woman), all echoing traditions of magic and countermagic
familiar from other regions.

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What, if anything, was distinctive to Scandinavia? We might expect shamanic
practices to occupy a more prominent role, but Mitchell adduces little evidence of
that. The magical use of runes seems to have been commonplace: the runic inscriptions on wooden sticks found at Bergen and Ribe were sometimes meant for magical effect, and an amber amulet could just as well bear runic inscriptions; a sermon
praises a woman who does not turn to a “rune-man” when her daughter is possessed
by an evil spirit. This is not to say, of course, that runes were inherently magical or
used specifically for magic; they could just as well be used for practical records and
even for inscriptions on church walls. Still, there is record of lingering adherence to
Óðinn, not in an organized and official mode, but among the marginalized malefactors who might have been punished for other conduct even if they were not
apostates. In a culture that clearly remembered its pagan past, lingered on it in its
literary production, and could condemn a man in court for serving the god Óðinn,
runic inscriptions would have carried resonance of a pre-Christian era, a time when
Scandinavia had not yet been integrated into Christendom, even if there was nothing specifically pagan in the words inscribed.
Indeed, the picture that emerges is paradoxical: the forms of magic that were
feared and no doubt often practiced in later medieval Scandinavia seem not to have
been substantially different from those known elsewhere, yet the region was deeply
conscious of its pagan past, often nearly obsessed with that past, and when a moralist such as St. Birgitta railed against magic she did not need to hold up the pagan
past as a mirror for contemporary witches (trollkonur!), because the mirror was
already ubiquitously present in the literature of the land and consciousness of the
people.
Mitchell’s book is fascinating and valuable, then, not only because it fills a gap
and gives us a rich store of material previously too little known but also because it
raises questions about the distinctive resonance magic and witchcraft could have
even in a time of deep and widespread integration into European culture.
Northwestern University

RICHARD KIECKHEFER

Christliche Weltgeschichte im 12. Jahrhundert: Themen, Variationen und Kontraste.
Untersuchungen zu Hugo von Fleury, Ordericus Vitalis, und Otto von Freising. By
Elisabeth Mégier. [Beihefte zur Mediaevistik, Band 13.] (Frankfurt am Main:
Peter Lang. 2010. Pp. 437. $101.95 paperback. ISBN 978-3-631-60072-6.)
This volume gathers together thirteen essays published by Elisabeth Mégier
between 1985 and 2006. The articles—written in German, French, English, and
Italian—deal with three historians all active in the first half of the twelfth century
but interested in rather different slices of contemporary history. Hugh of Fleury, a
member of a monastery south of Paris in the Diocese of Orléans, is especially
known for his histories of the French kings and their kingdom; he died sometime
after 1122. Orderic Vitalis was a monk of Saint-Evroul in Normandy—not far in
distance from Fleury—but oriented toward the Anglo-Norman kingdom where he

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was born rather than France; he died c. 1142. Mégier’s third subject, however,
could hardly differ more from Hugh and Orderic. Otto, bishop of Freising (d.
1158), not only came from the highest ranks of the aristocracy (as fifth son of the
margrave of Austria, he was a grandson of Emperor Henry IV and a cousin of
Frederick Barbarossa) but also had experience in the schools of Paris before becoming a monk in the new Cistercian house of Morimond. His historical works, written after he became bishop in Freising in 1138, all principally concern Germany.
In dealing with these writers, Mégier is not especially interested in how they
went about gathering information about contemporary history or even what significance they attributed to specific events. Rather, her interest lies in their broader
conceptions of human history and its relationship with Christian theology and the
twelfth-century church. The longest essay by far, nearly 140 pages, is devoted to a
study of Otto of Freising’s two historical works—the Chronica de duabus civitatibus
and the Gesta Friderici Imperatoris—or, more precisely, of the path that led Otto
from the explicitly Augustinian framework of the Chronica, in which the earthly
empire is contrasted to the heavenly city, to the attitudes seen in the Gesta Friderici
where the empire is seen as having a value in itself. Here, as elsewhere in the
volume, Mégier’s method is predicated on a close reading of Otto’s texts and especially for their philosophical and theological underpinnings.
The essays as a group apply these methods to a wide variety of questions raised
by the works of the three historians studied by Mégier. For example, the first (and
earliest) essay, inspired by Jacques LeGoff’s book on the origins of idea of purgatory,
takes up how Orderic and Otto thought about the afterlife. Another essay parses the
way Orderic and Otto conceived the role of fortuna in historical events, whereas a
third compares how they integrated the creation of the Cistercian order into their
histories. (It is interesting that Otto, the Cistercian, does not mention the Cistercian
order by name, even as he notes innovations in monasticism generally.) Two essays
discuss how Orderic conceived the operation of Christ and God in history. For
Hugh of Fleury, similarly, she writes about his historical treatment of the Jews in the
biblical and Roman period, the Old Testament, and Charlemagne.
Michigan State University

CHARLES RADDING

Imagination, Meditation, and Cognition in the Middle Ages. By Michelle Karnes.
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2011. Pp. xiv, 268. $45.00. ISBN 9780-226-42531-3.)
Mention the imagination in almost any context other than the most strictly
philosophical (or historical), and it is almost guaranteed to conjure images of a fantastic, ideally medieval Other, all the more paradoxical for the fact that the Middle
Ages often is assumed to have been peculiarly hostile to or suspicious of imagination’s workings. It is the burden of the book under review to suggest otherwise, not
only philosophically but also in the highly charged devotional realm of affective
meditation on the life and human sufferings of Christ.

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Karnes’s principal contention is that, philosophically speaking, “medieval
imagination is . . . a cognitive faculty and in that capacity deals with what is real
and true” (p. 10). Her primary concern is to show the way in which this philosophical position, grounded in new readings of Aristotle (chapter 1), was taken up in his
contemplative work by St. Bonaventure, the great thirteenth-century Franciscan
Scholastic, thereby enabling him to draw a powerful cognitive link between sensory, material images associated with perceiving Christ in his humanity and intelligible, spiritual images associated with understanding Christ in his divinity (chapters 2 and 3). As Karnes explains, Bonaventure believed, like his contemporary
Aristotelians, that imagination was the faculty of the soul responsible for transmitting sensory data to the intellect. As such (and contrary to prevailing neo-Platonic
convictions), it was not only trustworthy but moreover essential to the work of cognition insofar as it was the imagination acting as a bridge between sense and intellect that made understanding possible. According to Karnes, Bonaventure was nevertheless unique among his contemporaries in arguing for a further bridging
facilitated by the imagination, between earthly meditation on Christ’s humanity
and spiritual contemplation of his divinity.
Karnes’s argument here depends upon a sophisticated exposition of Bonaventure’s likewise sophisticated synthesis of Augustinian and Aristotelian theories of
knowledge, by way of which Christ is shown to be best understood through a
theory of species as “cognitive images that link sensory to intellectual cognition, but
. . . derive their power to do so from the divine light that shines upon them” (p. 93).
Christ, from this perspective, “is the ultimate species because he perfectly represents his exemplar, God the Father” (p. 92). Cognition, for Bonaventure, is therefore a process that takes place in and through Christ, “the ultimate species who
leads the knowing intellect back to God” (p. 103) by way of his multiple natures:
human (earthly, material) and divine (eternal). It is this sense of Christ as the object
of human knowing, Karnes argues, that Bonaventure sought to realize in contemplative works such as Itinerarium mentis in Deum and that thereby became central
to the meditative tradition on the life of Christ as manifested in works such as the
Meditationes vitae Christi (long attributed to Bonaventure) and James of Milan’s
Stimulus amoris (chapter 4).
Karnes’s reading of these devotional works as grounded ultimately in
Bonaventure’s philosophical speculation about cognition goes radically against the
tendency in much recent scholarship to associate them more with the perceived
devotional needs of the less-educated laity (particularly women) than with the clerical intellectuals in the schools; it likewise challenges prevailing emphases on these
works as intended to appeal primarily to the affect, rather than to the intellect as
well. The difficulty (as Karnes herself acknowledges) is that neither the author of
the Meditationes nor James of Milan discusses these cognitive underpinnings. More
persuasive is Karnes’s reading of Ymaginatif’s role in schooling Will of Piers Plowman to reconcile natural knowledge with spiritual understanding (chapter 5). Nevertheless, by the late-fourteenth century, it would seem that the Bonaventuran

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moment has passed. Nicholas Love’s instructions (heavy-handed, according to
Karnes) on how to use the “ymaginacion” in his Myrrour of the Blessed Life of Jesus
Christ shy away from suggesting anything like true spiritual ascent, whereas the
Prickynge of Love (a Middle English translation of the Stimulus amoris) makes its
source’s spirituality “more earthbound” while shifting its audience from the (presumably) more Bonaventuran Franciscans to a wider audience, arguably one that is
less spiritually focused (if no less intellectually sophisticated; see chapter 6).
The reader is, therefore, left somewhat puzzled. Was Bonaventure, for all his
influence on late-medieval contemplative theory, alone in his appreciation of the
great cognitive and spiritual potential of the imagination? Or is it rather that, without Bonaventure, Love’s conviction that “symple soules” might benefit from contemplation of Christ’s “monhede” would have been unthinkable, even if Love was
likewise convinced that it could not lead them to contemplation of Christ’s
“godhed”? (p. 216). Perhaps the real puzzle is rather why, despite its robust philosophical underpinnings in both medieval and modern traditions, imagination
seems doomed to become a faculty associated more with the “symple” and with
children. Thanks to Karnes’s exemplary reading of Bonaventure, however, we
should now at least be wary of associating it more with rainbows and unicorns than
with Christ.
University of Chicago

RACHEL FULTON BROWN

Emperor Sigismund and the Orthodox World. Edited by Ekaterini Mitsiou, Mihailo
Popović, Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, and Alexandru Simon. [Österreichische
Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch–historische Klasse, Denkschriften, Band 410; Veröffentlichungen zur Byzanzforschung, Band XXIV.]
(Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaftern. 2010.
Pp. 158. €50,50 paperback. ISBN 978-3-7001-6685-6.)
Sigismund of Luxemburg, one of the most colorful figures of the late Middle
Ages, was controversial both during his lifetime and after his death. Opinions about
his achievements have varied, depending on the point of view of the countries he
ruled or with which he forged alliances or was engaged in conflicts. His role as a
politician who shaped the history of entire Europe as a community of various nations
and religions should also not be overlooked. As a declared Catholic, he is usually
associated with wars against heretics, against the Czech Hussites, and against the
Muslim Turks. His efforts for creating better relations with Orthodox Christians are
less well known. This subject matter is the focus of a volume published by the Austrian Academy of Sciences that features seven papers, most of which were presented
at a conference organized by the University of Cluj-Napoca in Romania.
The two longest and most important of the papers discuss the political history
of Southeast Europe, where Sigismund’s policy as the western emperor and ruler of
Catholic Hungary concern matters affecting Orthodox peoples under threat by the
incursion of the Ottoman Turks. The longest and arguably most important paper

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in the volume is Dan Ioan Mureşan’s “A History of Three Emperors: Aspects of
Sigismund of Luxemburg’s Relations with Manuel II and John VIII Palaiologos.”
Sigismund is the central figure here, with the background featuring the Byzantine
emperors representing the Orthodox world, which Sigismund wanted to help. He
consistently lobbied for military support for Orthodox countries and tried to establish relations based on tolerance between followers of two varieties of Christianity,
both on the territories under his direct rule and in the neighboring countries, by
acting in aid of the union of the Churches. Mureşan is correct in saying that, in the
political history of Central and Southeast Europe in Sigismund’s time, too much
attention has been paid to the crusades he organized and too little to his efforts for
tolerance toward Eastern Christians. His position in this regard was radically different from the policy of his predecessor on the throne, Louis the Great. According
to the author, the king and emperor’s efforts had a positive influence on the situation of the Orthodox Church not only in the Kingdom of Hungary but also in
other countries in the region such as Poland and Lithuania. It seems, however, that
the author’s knowledge of the situation in those countries is not always up to date
with the current research.
The second extensive article devoted to the history of Central and Eastern
Europe in the times of Sigismund of Luxemburg was written by Alexandru Simon
(“Annus Mirabilis 1387: King Sigismund, the Ottomans and the Orthodox Christians”). Unlike Mureşan’s paper, it is dominated by an analysis of political relations
between states, ordered by area and direction of Sigismund’s policy. The titular year
1387 keeps returning as the starting point for the ruler’s great political game. This
approach is conducive to focusing on the emergence of successive political constellations, whereas motivations and religious aspirations take second place.
Several shorter articles concern less-known sources or aspects of Sigismund’s
history. Ekaterini Mitsiu discusses the opinions of Byzantine writers about four
outstanding western emperors. Apparently, Sigismund made the most favorable
impression among the Greeks. Meanwhile, although the research in the Register
of the Patriarchate of Constantinople carried out by Johannes Preiser-Kapeller
enabled him to find many places connected with Sigismund’s times, their significance for recognizing this ruler’s achievements is limited, which probably stems
from the nature of the source. Mihailo Popović’s expectations were also thwarted
with regard to the possibility of defining the role of the Order of the Dragon as an
institution that was to ensure the support of the elite of Hungary and neighboring
states, including Orthodox ones, for Sigismund’s policy. Writing about Sigismund’s policy toward the Grand Prince of Lithuania in 1429/30, Julia Dücker
importantly showed this problem in the context of the emperor’s relations with the
princes of the Reich.
Surprisingly, the volume opens with Franck Collard’s article on the cases of
poisoning in the history of the House of Luxemburg, among Sigismund’s close relatives. The seemingly fascinating topic contributes little to the book’s subject matter,
especially since many of the discussed facts are not confirmed beyond doubt.

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Overall, this volume expands our knowledge of Sigismund of Luxemburg as
an advocate of closer relations between Catholic and Orthodox Christians.
Jagellonian University, Kraków

MACIEJ SALAMON

Marriage on Trial: Late Medieval German Couples at the Papal Court. By Ludwig
Schmugge. Translated by Atria A. Larson. [Studies in Medieval and Early
Modern Canon Law, Vol. 10.] (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of
America Press. 2012. Pp. xxii, 389. $69.95. ISBN 978-0-8132-2018-5.)
In this comprehensive study, Ludwig Schmugge investigates surviving marriage cases originating within the German Empire that were heard by the papal
penitentiary from 1455 to 1502, encompassing the pontificates of Calixtus III, Pius
II, Paul II, Sixtus IV, Innocent VIII, and Alexander VI. In all, he examines 6387
cases from most of continental Europe: from the Danish border in the north to
Trent in the south and from the city of Liege in the west to Gneizno, Kraków, and
Ljubljana in the east.
The study is divided into four parts of very unequal size. Chapter 1 deals
mainly with numbers and procedures. In fifty-five pages the reader learns about the
number of cases heard during the six pontificates, the original locations of the cases
and their outcomes, and the way in which the decisions of the penitentiary were
communicated to the litigants and their home dioceses, the consequences of receiving a decision from the penitentiary, and the cost of the litigation. Chapter 2 comprises forty-five pages and concentrates on the legal framework of the litigation.
Schmugge quickly passes through the theological and legal discussions of marriage
in the eleventh and twelfth centuries to arrive at the marriage law found in the
post–Lateran IV legal collections—a decision that may be understandable given the
time span covered by the litigation he has chosen to investigate. However, it may
be argued that this decision prevents a deeper understanding of the principles upon
which this law was based. Chapter 2 also provides a brief overview of the “normal”
way in which marriage was contracted by litigants and the many impediments that
prohibited parties from contracting a legally binding marriage.
The real contribution of this book, however, lies in the 236 pages of chapters
3 and 4 that deal with litigation in the papal penitentiary and in a selection of
German dioceses. Chapter 3 deals with the kinds of cases—or “stories,” as
Schmugge calls them—that were heard in the papal penitentiary. By using the designation stories, Schmugge implicitly acknowledges that the legal procedure of the
papal courts and the demands of canon law influenced and shaped the narratives
that were recorded in the registers. Thus it is implied that the cases may be no more
than fictional narratives, albeit rooted to some degree in real events—“based on a
true story,” so to speak—and be intended to procure a decision from the papal penitentiary pleasing to the litigants. Litigation at the Papal Curia was the outcome of
a prolonged process of litigation in partibus, in the litigants’ home dioceses; litigants
therefore would have been able to compose narratives that were designed to solicit
a desired outcome. These narratives were informed by previous exposure to the

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advice of legally trained clerics who advised and guided the litigants long before
they appeared before the Curia. It therefore makes sense that the eighty-six pages
of chapter 4 analyze cases treated in partibus—that is in local diocesan jurisdictions—to see the level of effectiveness of these local courts in marital litigation and
determine if their legal practices deviated from the practice of the Roman Curia.
The book concludes with a sixteen-page conclusion that draws together many of
the strands discussed by Schmugge in the previous chapters.
The book presents an ambitiously large collection of material, and both its
strength and its weakness lie in the detailed narratives it presents. At times it may
feel overly long and speculative, but most of the analyses of individual cases are
informative and present an excellent level of detail and amply demonstrate the richness of these sources and their ability to illuminate married life (and married conflict) in the past. However, one could have wished for a stronger editorial hand in
the presentation of the material. The previously mentioned unequal length of the
chapters may deter the casually interested reader. But there is also a tendency to use
metaphor and hyperbole in the description of the cases, which are populated by a
surfeit of “brave Annas,” young “Romeos,” “shameless attempts” to exploit the legal
system, and wives who sent their husbands on their “way to glory.” Schmugge often
quotes snippets of text from the registers, but rarely provides the Latin text so that
the reader could understand the legal issues more fully, and in some instances
Schmugge even conveys an incorrect interpretation of canon law. This can be seen,
for example, on page 187, where it is claimed that a marriage contracted per verba
de praesenti was not legally binding and that consummation was necessary for the
marriage to be indissoluble. For these reasons, the narratives sometimes become
confusing, lacking in clarity and in consistency of vocabulary. But the reader who
perseveres is rewarded with a lively and engaging panorama of insights into the loves
and lives of real people as they can be extracted from the papal archives or, at the
very least, with a panorama of narratives about private lives that medieval litigants
thought were within the bounds of possibility and likely to be looked upon favorably
when the penitentiary rendered a decision about their contested marriages.
FREDERIK PEDERSEN

University of Aberdeen

EARLY MODERN EUROPEAN
Acting on Faith: The Confraternity of the Gonfalone in Renaissance Rome. By Barbara
Wisch and Nerida Newbigin. [Early Modern Catholicism and the Visual Arts
Series, Vol. 7.] (Philadelphia: Saint Joseph’s University Press. 2013. Pp. xxii,
512. $100.00. ISBN 978-0-916101-74-9.)
A new book of great visual impact, because of the many wonderful illustrations, and cultural significance—for the accurate reconstruction of the history of
the Gonfalone, one of the most important and ancient confraternities of Rome—
is the result of the fruitful partnership between Barbara Wisch, an art historian, and
Nerida Newbigin, a historian of Italian theater.

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As the fifteen chapters of the book show (as well as two appendices, an introduction, an epilogue, and a rich bibliography), the aspects taken into consideration
range from artistic and theatrical ones to the devotion, liturgy, and charity of the
brotherhood. It relies on extensive documentation, as well as the most recent historiography related to the Gonfalone, to examine the devotional life of Rome and
the history of the Italian confraternity in general.
The Gonfalone was founded around 1260, and its members were known as
“Raccomandati della Vergine” (that is, devoted to the Virgin). Later, various small
brotherhoods of “disciplinati” joined the Gonfalone, so that, by the end of the fifteenth century, it included five confraternities. In the early-sixteenth century, two
additional brotherhoods affiliated with it and brought particular religious and philantropic interests. The result was a complex and articulated organization, dedicated
to responding appropriately and efficiently to the needs of a growing membership
of men and women from all social strata. More than other Roman brotherhoods of
the sixteenth century, the Gonfalone carried out a wide range of devotions (first of
all to the Virgin Mary, then to the saints from which the original brotherhoods had
taken their name, particularly Santa Lucia). Various philanthrophic activities also
were carried out: assisting the infirm in hospitals, distributing food to poor families,
providing doweries to impoverished girls, and attending to the annual emancipation of two prisoners at the feast of Maria Assunta (the Assumption).
A novel initiative of this brotherhood was the staging of the Passion of Christ
at the Colosseum on Good Friday, employing scripture, music, and set design in an
evocative ceremony. The texts of these productions sometimes contained passages of
a strong antisemitic character, which led to violent conflicts with the local Jewish
community and to Pope Paul III abolishing this type of religious theater in 1539.
The authors draw on well-known documentation and comprehensive literature to discuss the staging of religious theater by the Gonfalone, presenting significant and original interpretations. For its detailed use of documentation and indepth analysis, the book stands not only as an instrument for understanding the
spirituality, the artistic interests, and the theatrical performances of Rome in the
Renaissance but also offers a model to anyone wishing to study the confraternal
institutions.
University of Rome, La Sapienza

ANNA ESPOSITO

Masculinity in the Reformation Era. Edited by Scott H. Hendrix and Susan C.
Karant-Nunn. [Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies, 83.] (Kirksville, MO:
Truman State University Press. 2008. Pp. xx, 228. $48.00. ISBN 978-1931112-76-5.)
As its title suggests, this useful volume focuses on the construction of masculinity in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Reformation Europe. In addition to
an introduction, the book includes three sections: the first composed of contribu-

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tions that “treat departures from that abstract standard that early modern models
proscribed,” the second of chapters that “relate masculinity to concrete civic settings” (p. xii), and the third of content that addresses Martin Luther. Two chapters
in the volume—those by Scott Hendrix and Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks—were first
published elsewhere.
The introduction by Hendrix and Susan Karant-Nunn provides a solid
overview of preceding scholarship. For those seeking further context for thinking
about early-modern masculinity, the opening pages of Helmut Puff’s chapter are
also worth considering.
Part 1 of the book is titled “Deviating from the Norms.” Its first chapter, by
Allison M. Poska, asks why large numbers of early-modern peasant men left Galicia. She argues that they were motivated by limited economic opportunity and local
custom affording married men little authority. Together, Poska asserts, these made
it impossible for Galician peasant men to meet the expectations of elite Spanish
masculinity without seeking their fortune elsewhere. Helmut Puff then elegantly
studies the life of Werner Steiner—wealthy married cleric, humanist reformer,
friend to great men, military aficionado, seeker of physical intimacy with lower
class men—as “a life lived at the intersection of different masculinities” (p. 23). Puff
argues that cases such as Steiner’s demonstrate what masculinity studies and sexuality studies can learn from each other about possible lives in early-modern Europe
and about the gendering of sex acts. Next, Ulrike Strasser ingeniously considers
how the success of the Jesuits depended on the order’s “emotional appeal as … a
homosocial fellowship of men who embodied a reimagined clerical masculinity” (p.
46, emphasis in original) that seems not to have been an anxious response to the
Protestant emphasis on the procreative family.
Part 2 of the book, “Civic and Religious Duties,” contains three chapters.
The first, by Karen E. Spierling, offers a sophisticated exploration of “negotiated
masculinity” in Reformation Geneva. Focusing on the expectations placed on
fathers, she demonstrates that religious expectations ranging from piety to time
spent in church could come into conflict with traditional forms of virility and the
imperative to care for the needs of the family. She also underscores that the
increasing emphasis on the father as the head of the patriarchal household was in
tension with secular and religious regulation of family matters such as sexual
impropriety and the disciplining of children. The next chapter, “Masculinity and
the Reformed Tradition in France” by Raymond A. Mentzer, looks at evolving
male roles in baptism, the Eucharist, and marriage as defined by the French
Reformed Church. The section concludes with an essay by B. Ann Tlusty that
examines the expulsion of firebrand preacher Georg Müller from Augsburg and
the ensuing civil unrest. Rather than emphasizing Protestant concerns about spiritual autonomy and economic exploitation as other scholars have done, Tlusty
argues that rumors about the possibility of massacres like those that had occurred
elsewhere in Europe led male Protestants to fulfill traditional roles by taking steps
to protect their possessions and families.

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The third and final section of the book opens with an essay by Karant-Nunn that
“discuss[es] Luther’s own ideals concerning proper masculine behavior and his private
attempts to embody those ideals” (p. 168). Most revealing here is Karant-Nunn’s sustained discussion of Luther’s use of humor in managing the domestic scene.
As the introduction notes, together these chapters demonstrate the need for
ongoing research into the ways in which the lived reality of early-modern men differed from the largely homogenous proscriptive expectations placed on them. As a
whole, this volume is an important contribution to that project.
Durham University

MARC SCHACHTER

The Reformation as Christianization. Essays on Scott Hendrix’s Christianization
Thesis. Edited by Anna Marie Johnson and John A. Maxfield. [Spätmittelalter, Humanismus, Reformation/Studies in the Late Middle Ages, Humanism
and the Reformation, Vol. 66.] (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. 2012. Pp. xii, 430.
€109,00. ISBN 978-3-161-51723-5.)
Rather than focusing on theological differences and the formation of distinctive
confessional groups, in his study Recultivating the Vineyard: The Reformation Agendas
of Christianization (Louisville, 2004) Scott Hendrix sought to focus on the common
desire of Evangelical (Protestant), Catholic, and Radical reformers to cultivate a more
authentic Christianity. However, for Hendrix, drawing on Constantin Fasolt’s image
of continuity (Fortpflanzung), “the Reformation was not a new drama, but rather the
second act in which the plot thickened and took an unexpected and unprecedented
twist” (Recultivating, p. xx). Nevertheless, “sixteenth-century Christianization was
not equivalent to medieval reform … it entailed a more sweeping renewal of Christendom than medieval preachers had deemed necessary” (ibid., p. 17). As well as a
sensitivity to the Reformation’s dialogue with the Middle Ages—something that
identifies the author as a pupil of Heiko Oberman (1930–2001), to whom Recultivating was dedicated—Hendrix was careful to avoid the error committed by Jean
Delumeau, who also found a similarity between the Protestant and Catholic Reformations, but who believed—mistakenly, in Hendrix’s view—that it was the goal of
these parallel movements “to spiritualise religion in the sense of internalizing piety at
the expense of ritual…. [whereas] neither thought that religion could survive without
it and they divided to a large degree over the issue of how much ritual to abolish”
(ibid., p. 21). Nor did Hendrix believe, unlike Delumeau, that by framing the Reformation in terms of Christianization, one had to portray late-medieval people as “so
full of superstition, anxiety and guilt that they appeared to be unchristian” (ibid., p.
22). In a similar spirit of refusing to schematize and desire for dialogue, the essays in
the volume under review have been conceived as presenting a variety of perspectives
on, rather than simple consensus about, Hendrix’s Christianization thesis, whose
refusal to sacrifice a sense of the shape of the wood for any microhistorical obsession
with the trees is shared by their authors. The collection is divided into five sections.
Section 1 consists of five broad-ranging essays that address the key concept of Christianization in the broader context of the Middle Ages and the early-modern period.

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In the first chapter, Robert Bireley rehearses in characteristically lucid fashion the
argument of his important survey, The Refashioning of Roman Catholicism 1450–1700
(Washington, DC, 1999). The central thrust of this book was to argue, in consonance with Hendrix, for the importance of regarding religious reform not only, or
even primarily, as arising out of disputes over religious doctrine, but rather responding to the broader changes in society. Bireley concludes with the idea, borrowing a
term used to described the Second Vatican Council’s spirit of renewal, that “[t]he various Protestant traditions and the Catholic Reform may be seen as competing efforts
at aggiornamento” (p. 32). Gerald Christiansen’s contribution focuses on Nicolas of
Cusa’s ideas for reform. For Cusa, it meant “to bring back to its original form” (Christiformitas), which anticipated Martin Luther in his insistence that this came about
through mediation of the Word, not through human effort. For Carter Lindberg,
author of the next essay, a nuanced treatment of Christianization and Luther on the
Early Profit economy, the Saxon reformer was determined to proclaim the Word.
Lindberg thus begs to differ from Hendrix and argues that Luther’s focus was not on
the Christianization of Christendom but on theology, which was memorably defined
by Luther in his Commentary on Psalm 51 in the following terms: “The proper subject of theology is man guilty of sin and condemned, and God the Justifier and Savior
of man the sinner … Whatever is asked or discussed, theology outside this subject is
error and poison.” Lindberg concludes that Luther’s teaching about the Two Kingdoms makes it difficult to describe it in terms of Christianization, since the Saxon
reformer did not expect to Christianize the world. “The best that can be done in the
apocalyptic end time between the times is prophetic preaching and exhortation to
reason and law” (Reformation, p. 77). Similarly, for Philipp Melanchthon, according
to a crisply argued contribution by Timothy Wengert, the heart of Christianity was
not located in rites or institutions but in the Gospel and faith. His preferred term was
Christianitas/Christenheit. James Stayer, in his essay, warns the reader that the irenic
and ecumenical tone of Hendrix’s understanding of the term Christianization is in
danger of “effacing the vast gap that separates the religious experience [of the Radicals] of the early modern era from that of our own time” (p. 102). In its stead, Stayer
argues, “Better than ‘Christianization’ [might be] ‘the intensification of religious
commitment’ [since it] fits the exclusivist visions of many Reformers” (p. 122). In the
next and most rewarding section of four essays on “Luther’s agenda,” which refers to
the main title of Hendrix’s chapter (2) on a Christian Germany, James Estes reminds
us that, although it is still appropriate to speak of a “princely reformation,” Luther
himself “was nevertheless determined that pastors were not to be turned into mere
employees of a church that had become a government department” (p. 139). John
Maxfield, in a compelling chapter on Luther and idolatry, seeks to develop Hendrix’s
important insight that, for the former monk, the Reformation was, above all, a “war
against the idols.” For Luther, idolatry constituted misuse of the Cross and
the replacing of God’s command for Christians to deny themselves and to
take up their cross and follow Jesus—a command subsumed in the repeated
refrain to give to the poor—with various means of endowing and adorning
physical crosses and even collecting the pieces of what was said to be the
wooden cross that Jesus bore. (pp. 153–54)

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In a finely crafted sentence, Maxfield summarizes his argument as follows:
For Luther idolatry is the self-enslaving false worship of a heart turned in on
itself, of religious piety shaped by self-will and thus works-righteousness in
any number of ways, of substituting human reason for the revelation of God
in the divine Word. (p. 168)

Risto Saarinen next provides a detailed and closely argued analysis of Luther’s use
of the term beneficia, which he believes cannot simply be translated as good works
or benefits but that a term such as favors was sometimes appropriate and that, in
any case, beneficia should be contrasted with sacrificium and officium. Russell
Kleckley, in a thoughtful chapter on Luther and natural philosophy, reminds us
that, for the reformer, the problem with reason was primarily a spiritual matter
rather than an epistemological problem. Grasping the significance of nature was
first and foremost an act of faith in God the creator of the universe. The next section consists of four essays on the theme of “Rechristianising Women, Men and the
Family.” The one by Elsie Anne McKee looks at Luther through the eyes of Katharina Schütz Zell, wife of the Strasbourg preacher Matthew Zell, and reminds us
that Luther was a living and changing being rather than a static symbol. Katharina
first met Luther in her early twenties and over the next couple of decades came
increasingly to contrast the great pioneer and “apostle” of pre-1530 with the frequently “uncharitable behavior” of Luther after that date. Merry Wiesner-Hanks,
in a broad-ranging and erudite study of “the Maternal Imagination” (and how it
could affect the fetus in the womb), takes Luther’s commentary on Genesis 30—
the story of Laban and his flocks—as her starting point to discuss how, in the final
analysis, the reformer uses the story to comment not on women’s behavior but on
men’s: “It is men’s actions that need to be reformed, that need to be Christianized
so that they are at least as praiseworthy as those of the noble pagans” (p. 244).
Susan Karant-Nunn offers a sensitive reading of Luther’s Table Talk that highlights the reformer’s role as father. She reminds us that “Luther had launched a revolution in the clerical world not just of theology but of the social placement of the
pastor” (p. 254) but concludes equivocally that the Reformation could therefore
have “laid the groundwork for a relationship of trust and intimacy between pastorfathers and their children. The religious movement occurred, however, at a time
when a spirit of discipline was in the ascendancy” (pp. 245–55). Austra Reinis
sheds further light on the Lutheran “Holy Household” by examining the sermons
of the court preacher Aegidius Hunnius, specifically his collection Christliche
Haußtafel [A Christlike Table of Household Duties, 1586], in which he sought to
“concretize” the “abstract ideal of love for one’s neighbour” (pp. 257–58), thereby
continuing the project initiated by the first generation of Reformers—the renewal
of Christendom. The next section of essays, “Reforming Religious Practice,” kicks
off with a big-picture essay by Berndt Hamm, which asks us to look again at the
late Middle Ages as a key to understanding the Reformation. Specifically, he
directs our attention to selection, reduction, and forced transformation. Robert
Kolb turns his attention specifically to Lucas Cranach the Younger’s painted epitaph for the Wittenberg professor Paul Eber, “The Vineyard of the Lord” (1556),

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that inspired the title for Hendrix’s book. Kolb examines homiletical and exegetical
treatments of the most prominent scriptural passages employing the image of the
vineyard and argues that they confirm Hendrix’s judgment
that those educated in Wittenberg by Luther and Melanchthon aimed at
more than merely social discipline and control…. [Their] convictions that the
eschatological struggle between God and Satan continues promoted a perception of the pastor’s task as that of continual recultivation of Christ’s vineyard,
the church and the branches which constituted it, the individual hearers of
God’s word in their congregations.” (pp. 318–19)

Ronald Rittgers turns to a work by a figure illuminated by Hendrix: Urbanus
Rhegius, whose Soul Medicine for the Healthy and Sick in These Dangerous Times
(1529) was one of the most important spiritual guides for the sick, the suffering,
and the dying. A work issued in 121 editions and translation into nine languages
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it attempted to reform the ars
moriendi tradition along evangelical lines: in other words: “to Christianize through
consolation” (p. 331).
The final section of this collection is grouped under the title of “Theological
Controversies and Christianization.” It opens with a particularly fine essay by
Volker Leppin, who looks at the late-medieval roots of the disputes between the
reformers and their opponents. Leppin focuses on two important polarities: centrality versus decentrality on the one hand, and immediacy versus mediation on the
other. The former is tied to the question of papal leadership of the Church, whereas
the latter is applied to currents within Scholastic theology, particularly the via moderna, which put the unmediated (unmittelbar) acceptance of the sinner by God at
the center of its thought. However, Leppin concludes sagely that one should not
try to explain the Reformation and formation of confessions from the conditions of
late-medieval polarities too narrowly, “as if these polarities of the Late Middle Ages
were completely divided up among the confessions” (p. 371). In other words, just
as the Counter-Reformation Church did not completely renounce interiority and
immediacy of belief, neither did the Protestant Churches completely disregard
external dimensions. The final two essays in this rich, reflective volume are
devoted, respectively, to the use of Church Fathers in early Eucharistic controversy
(by Amy Nelson Burnett) and to the sixteenth-century culture of disputation and
controversy (by Irene Dingel). The book closes with an eight-page bibliography of
Hendrix’s works (including his book reviews) and is effectively tied together by a
comprehensive index that will assist the reader of this remarkably coherent volume
because of its attention to themes and issues. Furthermore, it is one from which
scholars of the Catholic Reformation can learn much, since Hendrix’s work has by
no means entered the mainstream even of Reformation historiography (as evidenced by its absence from C. Scott Dixon’s otherwise comprehensive and judicious guide Contesting the Reformation (Malden, MA, 2012).
University of York

SIMON DITCHFIELD

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Das Täuferreich von Münster: Ursprünge und Merkmale eines religiösen Aufbruchs. By
Hubertus Lutterbach. (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag. 2008. Pp. 208. €14,80
paperback. ISBN 978-3-402-12743-8.)
With Ludwig Keller’s Geschichte der Wiedertäufer und ihres Reiches zu Münster
(Münster, 1880) a relatively positive interpretation of the notorious “revolution of
the saints” in Münster appeared for the first time. But Keller’s credibility as a historian was gradually destroyed after the publication of his Die Reformation und die
älteren Reformparteien (Leipzig, 1885), in which he sought, among other things, to
trace Anabaptism back to the primitive Church by way of the medieval heretical
groups. Modern scholarship on the Münster revolution can therefore be said to
have begun with Robert Stupperich’s Die Schriften Bernhard Rothmanns (Münster,
1970) and Karl-Heinz Kirchhoff’s Die Täufer in Münster 1534/35 (Münster, 1973).
The latter, a work of social history—as is the present work—began the process of
transformation over again. The present study by Hubertus Lutterbach is a work of
synthesis, bringing together what has been accomplished since Kirchhoff’s work
appeared while adding many insights.
After a short introductory chapter, Lutterbach takes us, in the second chapter,
into the “Catholic” Münster around the beginning of the sixteenth century,
emphasizing its sacral-religious character and the many ecclesiastical, monastic
foundations and semi-monastic organizations like the Brethren of the Common
Life and the Beguines. Lutterbach’s observation that whole convents later became
Anabaptist might have led him to explore more fully the relationship between
Anabaptism and monasticism. As Johannes Brenz and Sebastian Franck both
observed on occasion, the Catholic Church, in persecuting the Anabaptists, was in
fact persecuting its own ideal form of Christianity in monasticism. Reformers generally called Anabaptists “new monks.” At the same time, the very visible and early
presence of the Brethren of the Common Life in the city might also have something to do with the later spread of Anabaptism in the city. On the other hand,
many of the Catholic religious left with the Anabaptist takeover of the city.
The third chapter addresses the rise of Protestantism in the city under Rothmann and the gradual desacralization of the city. Rothmann’s 1531–32 study tour to
Wittenberg and Strasbourg, which led to the introduction of Protestantism, was
financed by city merchants. Indeed, the interplay among the Catholic powers, the city
council, and the guilds in Rothmann’s later appointment and reform activity at the
St. Lambert Church is a fascinating example of how a city could be, and was, transformed from Catholic to Protestant. Lutterbach refers to incidents that seem to indicate that the Nuremberg Edict of March 6, 1523, played a powerful role—although
the author does not realize it—in the Protestant Reformation in this city as well.
Lutterbach begins to address the transition from Lutheranism to Anabaptism
in this third chapter. It is interesting to note that in this transition period, the
Catholic bishop was beginning to initiate the siege of the city. This transition to
Anabaptism was assisted by the city’s policy of religious toleration that had been

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inaugurated when the Lutherans came to power. The role of Melchior Hoffmann
in the transition, although mentioned, does not deal adequately with the latter’s
eschatological views and their source in Martin Luther’s own intense end-time
expectation (which, as Martin Greschat has pointed out, culminated in the great
Peasant War) and their role in the Münster takeover by Jan of Leiden and Jan
Mathijs. Virtually all radicals who addressed the matter, as well as Luther’s closest
followers later on, pointed to the reformer as the prophet of the end times who had
publicly identified the pope as antichrist as early as his 1520 Address to the Christian
Nobility of the German Nation. It is in the context of this pervasive expectation that
St. Augustine’s misinterpretation of the Parable of the Tares takes on revolutionary
significance. He argued that the Church, rather than the world—in opposition to
what Christ had told his disciples—was the “field” spoken of in the parable. If the
end of the age was the “time of harvest,” as Christ himself had stated, in which the
wheat had to be separated from the tares, then Augustine’s misinterpretation suddenly took on revolutionary overtones. It was the “peaceful” Anabaptists—the
Swiss Brethren and Menno Simons—who, in the sixteenth century, rejected
Augustine’s misinterpretation and restored Christ’s interpretation. The concept of
“the time of harvest” and the consequent necessity to separate the “wheat” from the
“tares” are powerful images in Rothmann’s work as well as Hoffmann’s writings, as
they are in the writings of Thomas Müntzer. In this connection, not enough is
done to bring out the differences between the Münster Anabaptists and those
uninvolved in revolutionary activity.
The development of Anabaptism in the city in chapter 4 is very well done,
demonstrating on the one hand the easy transition from Lutheranism to Anabaptism and then the gradual transition of the movement itself within the city from
peaceful to militant under the duress of the siege. In the fifth chapter, “The Decision-Making Christianity of the Anabaptists and its Consequences,” Lutterbach
deals with such fascinating aspects of Münster Anabaptism as the struggle for holiness, the adult baptism ritual, the interpretation of the scriptures, the high regard
for the Psalms and prophetic literature, and the question of those who were entitled
to interpret the scriptures. The author presents a mass of interesting and enlightening facts about the city’s radicals in the process, allowing the reader to understand
much more fully what happened in this very short span of time.
As a social history, this is an excellent piece of work based on a wide reading
of the literature; there is also a rich bibliography. But it leaves the historian of ideas
asking myriad questions and desiring fuller answers.
University of California, Santa Barbara

ABRAHAM FRIESEN

The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits in Ethiopia (1555–1632). By Leonardo
Cohen. [Aethiopistische Forschungen, Band 70.] (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz
Verlag. 2009. Pp. xviii, 230. €58,00. ISBN 978-3-447-05892-6.)
This book draws on Leonardo Cohen’s 2005 doctoral thesis for the University
of Haifa. It shows that from the Jesuits’ point of view, undertaking their missionary

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endeavor in Africa meant nothing less than giving their lives to Jesus. The missionaries had to travel a most perilous route to reach their destination and were not
rewarded with converts for their dedication. Traversing territories hostile to their
religion, they went from Lisbon to Goa (India), then Goa to Gonder and Frimona
(Ethiopia). As Cohen notes, “Fearing he might be caught by Muslims, [when the
mission failed, Patriarch Andrés] de Oviedo decided not to risk leaving Ethiopia,
and finally died in Fremona in 1577” (p. 21). Ethiopians, by contrast, viewed the
destruction caused by the Jesuit enterprise on nearly the same level as that caused
by the sixteenth-century revolt and invasion of Muslims led by Imam Ahmad Ibn
Ibrahim al-Ghazi.
The book has eight well-structured chapters, an ample bibliography of pertinent primary and secondary sources, and an adequate index. The historical outline
gives sufficient background on the age-old controversy between the Monophysites
and Duophysites. The second chapter, “Evangelization from Top to Bottom,”
invites an interesting question. As head of both church and state, the king of
Ethiopia could decree any rule for the state and any dogma for the Church. Therefore, the strategy of the Jesuits, who were well aware of the powers of the throne,
was to win the hearts and minds of the emperors (from Gelawdewos to Susenyos)
who would then decree the new beliefs to the populace. This is not evangelization
from top by persuasion but conversion from top by decree.
The author reminds us that the Jesuits first “aimed to serve the pope, and its
members vowed to work among infidels and Protestants, dissidents and believers”
(p. 1). The Jesuits do not seem to have worked among “the infidel” in Ethiopia.
Instead, they wasted their energies and sacrificed untold lives in a futile exercise of
“evangelizing the evangelized.” Nevertheless, had not other issues become involved,
such as changing the calendar, the theological disputes alone might have not
divided the Jesuits and the Ethiopian monks so deeply. Even today, there is still a
chance for the two churches to be in communion.
The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits in Ethiopia is a well-written book. The
reader only wishes the author had been able to access Amharic sources, including
works by the historian Tekle Tsadik Mekuria.
Hill Monastic Manuscript Library
Saint John’s University
Collegeville, MN

GETATCHEW HAILE

Embracing the Divine: Passion and Politics in the Christian Middle East. By Akram
Fouad Khater. [Gender, Culture, and Politics in the Middle East.] (Syracuse:
Syracuse University Press. 2011. Pp. xxiv, 311. $39.95. ISBN 978-0-81563261-0.)
The eighteenth century was a period of decisive changes for the Maronites of
Mount Lebanon, mainly as a result of the intensified contacts with the Roman
Catholic Church. In 1736 a council was held in Mount Lebanon with the aim of

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reorganizing the Maronite Church according to the instructions of the Holy See.
The proposed reforms included a major reorganization of the clerical offices, affecting the authority of the bishops and the patriarch, and a limitation of the influence
of lay notables on church affairs.
The Lebanese council did not immediately bring about the desired results,
but rather inaugurated a period of severe power struggles in the Maronite community. In the midst of these turbulences, a young girl named Hindiyya emerged
in the Maronite community in Aleppo, claiming to have visions of Jesus that
evolved into conversations and eventually physical “union.” According to
Hindiyya, Jesus assigned her the task to found her own confraternity, and to this
end she moved to Mount Lebanon in 1750. From the onset, Hindiyya, who had
received a thorough religious education from the Latin missionaries, was put
under the tutelage of the Jesuits, but she dissociated herself from them after her
arrival in Mount Lebanon. The Jesuits started a fierce campaign against her,
denouncing her as a fraud and a threat to Church orthodoxy, but Maronite clerics—especially Patriarch Yusuf Istifan—took her under their wing. With the help
of the leading Maronite notables, they enabled her to found her own monastic
community in Bkerki.
Rome rather grudgingly accepted the foundation of Hindiyya’s Order of the
Sacred Heart of Jesus, but the death of two girls in the 1770s attributed to irregularities in the convent led to an investigation. The case caused great controversies in
the Maronite community, ultimately resulting in the punishment of Hindiyya and
the dissolution of her order. This intervention showed the power of the Holy See to
impose its will on the Maronites, but it also revealed the fragmentation of the
Maronite community that was experiencing a painful process of transformation.
The Hindiyya affair has been studied by Bernard Heyberger in his meticulous
Hindiyya; mystique et criminelle 1720–1798 (Paris, 2001). Now this new study has
appeared in English by Akram Fouad Khater. This book, too, closely unravels the
events of the Hindiyya affair, the many intrigues surrounding Hindiyya, and the
texts written by her. Khater situates the events in two broader perspectives that
should provide a framework for interpretation: the process of reform instigated by
the Holy See and the Maronite clergy, and the impact of gender relations within
the Maronite community.
Although these two aspects certainly played an important role in the unfolding of the affair, it seems that they are rather broad to give an adequate insight into
the course of events. For instance, the process of reform and the interaction among
the Maronites, the Holy See, and the Latin missionaries brought forth a new form
of religiosity, which gave Hindiyya the opportunity to develop her own visionary
spirituality and shape it into a religious order. Still, her emergence can be seen both
as a result of this process of reform and as an expression of resistance against the
efforts of Rome and the missionaries to impose their rationalized, institutionalized
form of religiosity and to support a local, Maronite form of religiosity.

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To explain Hindiyya’s rise as an expression of female emancipation is at first
sight plausible, especially since her typical feminine way of presenting her visionary
experiences aroused typical masculine fears in church institutions. However,
Hindiyya’s escape from social constraints in Aleppo can hardly be seen as a form of
social liberation, since from the start she was put under male surveillance. In Mount
Lebanon she was not only supervised but also protected and supported by the representatives of masculine authority, both clerical and secular.
It seems that efforts to develop a broader framework to explain the events
related to Hindiyya do not do sufficient justice to the complexity of the affair.
Maybe the rise of Hindiyya and the subsequent formation of her movement should
be seen as an accumulation of religious “capital” around her person that quite soon
became the object of the various power struggles occurring within the Maronite
community, within the Maronite church, and between the Maronites and the Holy
See. Hindiyya became an instrument used by various persons and factions in their
efforts to reshape the community and the church according to specific interests. By
supporting her, clerics exploited her popularity and authority, thereby challenging
and manipulating the papal legates. For Patriarch Yusuf Istifan, Hindiyya became
an instrument to impose reforms aimed at indigenous forms of religiosity and to
establish his own authority.
Khater’s book offers a fascinating account of the whole affair, drawing on the
enormous reservoir of documents that has been preserved in Rome and Lebanon.
Still, the book should be seen rather as a supplement than as a replacement of Heyberger’s thorough account.
University of Amsterdam

RICHARD VAN LEEUWEN

Imagining Women’s Conventual Spaces in France, 1600–1800: The Cloister Disclosed.
By Barbara R. Woshinsky. [Women and Gender in the Early Modern
World.] (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing. 2010. Pp. xviii, 344. $119.95.
ISBN 978-0-7546-6754-4.)
Imagining Women’s Conventual Spaces examines the place of the convent in the
early modern imagination from the Council of Trent, which imposed strict enclosure on women’s religious orders, to the French Revolution, when religious houses
were shut down and the nuns and monks that lived in them dispersed. Arguing that
the convent evoked both patriarchal restriction and feminine autonomy, Woshinsky traces the shifting symbolic function of the convent against the backdrop of two
centuries of social, political and religious change, from an ideal space of refuge in
the early-seventeenth century, to a mysterious, clandestine, and sexualized space, as
depicted in eighteenth-century works such as Denis Diderot’s La Religieuse.
The opening chapters examine parallels between architectural spaces and the
female body in seventeenth-century French poetry and religious writing. Woshinsky argues that this literature, drawing on a tradition of religious imagery that could

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be traced to the Song of Songs, constructed the female body as an enclosed space—
a vessel, a walled garden—similar to the convent. The remainder of the book is
organized around architectural aspects of the convent that defined this space—
threshold, parlor, cell—and guides the reader from the convent walls into its deepest recesses. This architectural motif is perhaps the most innovative aspect of the
book and mirrors the author’s emphasis on the permeability of the convent walls
and on the ways that conventual space was defined and redefined by the constant
crossing and recrossing of physical and symbolic boundaries.
Woshinsky uses the term conventual space to refer to the convent as “both a
real and symbolic enclosure” (p. 1). However, this broad definition, which includes
allegorical representations of a variety of enclosed spaces and spaces of retreat similar to the convent (the hermitage, the salon), sometimes obscures the author’s
argument, especially in the early chapters. Woshinsky wants to argue that all forms
of female retreat in seventeenth-century literary texts, religious or not, were conventual spaces. Was there no way of imagining alternative forms of female community in this period without referencing the convent? Perhaps not, but the answer is
not self-evident. Also, Woshinsky states that she has chosen not to focus on the
realities of early modern convent life or the writings of nuns themselves. This omission seems curious, especially in an age when nuns’ writings were extremely influential both inside and outside the convent. If “conventual space is a locus for
reflecting on and questioning the social order from a position marginal to that
order” (p. 300), it was also a spiritual space, and the omission of voices of those who
experienced it as such provides us with a somewhat lopsided understanding of the
diverse meanings of conventual space.
Overall, Woshinsky’s close analysis of literary texts provides us with a rich picture of the symbolic place of the convent in the cultural imagination of earlymodern France. Although previous studies have shown that the convent came to
represent the despotism of the Old Regime in the century prior to the French Revolution, Woshinsky’s more expansive treatment provides us with a more nuanced
and complex picture of what she calls a “convent culture” (p. 302) and the ways that
ideas about women’s enclosure expressed and were shaped by the changing social
and political landscape of the era.
Hawai’i Pacific University, Honolulu

LINDA LIERHEIMER

Le fatiche di Benedetto XIV: Origine ed evoluzione dei trattati di Prospero Lambertini
(1675–1758). Edited by Maria Teresa Fattori. [Temi e testi, 97.] (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. 2011. Pp. lxvi, 382. €58,00 paperback. ISBN
978-88-6372-357-1.)
In this compilation edited by Maria Teresa Fattori, a lengthy introduction
(pp. xiii–liv) and a chronology (pp. lv–lxvi) of the life and works of Prospero Lambertini (1675–1758), the archbishop of Bologna who became Benedict XIV, precede a discussion of three treatises authored by him: De Servorum Dei beatificatione

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et Beatorum canonizatione (by Riccardo Saccenti); De Synodo Dioecesana (by Fattori),
and De Sacrificio Missae (by Tiziano Anzuini). The origins and evolution of these
treatises are analyzed, including their function and target audience (pp. 1–118), the
scientific research performed (pp. 119–213), and the tools and sources utilized (pp.
215–328). The volume concludes with an overview of the archival sources
employed (pp. 329–33); an extensive bibliography (pp. 335–65); and indices of personal names, publishers, printers, and typographers (pp. 367–82).
The starting point of the contributions in this volume is the personal archive
of Lambertini, with archivist Giuseppe Garampi playing a significant role in the
recovery of material from the Vatican. This resource, consisting of manuscripts,
research material for his written works, and correspondence, is partially preserved
in the Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna, the Biblioteca antica del Seminario in
the Diocese of Padua, the Vatican Archives, and the Vatican Library.
The reader should note that this is not a new edition of the treatises in question. The studies here show that these treatises were an instrument of Lambertini’s
cultural policy, in direct line with the reforms that were implemented through the
Roman Curia. They explained the organization of the Catholic Church and were
written to support and clarify administrative decisions. Each treatise stands on its
own as a kind of translation of logical reasoning and the authority that constitutes
the foundation of the Catholic tradition and laws. The translation of the works into
Latin (which had formerly appeared in Italian), the linguistic revision, the type of
additions, as well as a simplification of the synopsis, show the pedagogical intention
of Lambertini’s cultural fervor, which was increasingly adapted to the times and the
particular target audience.
The first audience of the treatise Sacrosanto Sacrificio della Messa, issued during
the first months of 1740 while the author attended the papal conclave, was the
clergy and the faithful of the Archdiocese of Bologna. After Lambertini was elected
as pope, the treatise was issued in new editions (1740, 1742, Latin ed. 1745) and
distributed with the aim of reaching a broader audience. The typical Bolognese
cases were adjusted.
The first versions of De Servorum Dei (issued between 1734 and 1738) were
concerned purely with canonical judicial matters. The treatise was changed in the
Padua edition (1743), and the Jesuit Emmanuel de Azevedo presented the Roman
edition (1747–51) as a fruitful, multidisciplinary approach toward the santità canonizzata that was intended for the bishops of the Catholic Church, the professors
of the Roman universities, and the “ultra montes.” However, De Servorum Dei was
studied by members of the Curia, as it provided guidance on fulfilling their liturgical and other roles as well as regulating their own practices. Eventually, it aspired
to work toward the solidarity and the integrity of the doctrine and authority of the
Roman pontiffs.
The roots of De Synodo can be traced to Lambertini’s work as a canon lawyer:
the changing of the “corpus” of the Tridentine decrees in which the goal of the con-

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ciliar magisterium was to correspond with previous canon law and the Extravagantes of the new papal law.
The SS.D.N. Benedicti XIV Opera in duodecim tomos distribuita and the latest
edition of De Synodo, released in 1755, are reference points for the activities of the
congregations and the education of future papal officials as well as the reading
public. There was also a direct link between the creation of academic institutions
for the study of liturgy and the studies of Benedict XIV on liturgical renewal. Lambertini saw the liturgy not only as a set of rites but also as the very heart of the life
of the Church.
Overall, this is a superlative collection that shows that treatises and their different versions are an emanation of constant changes in the life of a pope as head
of an adaptive institution.
Catholic University of Leuven

DRIES VANYSACKER

LATE MODERN EUROPEAN
Il Sillabo di Pio IX. Edited by Luca Sandoni with an Introduction by Daniele
Menozzi. (Bologna: CLUEB [Cooperativa Libraria Universitaria Editrice
Bologna]; Rome: Casa Editrice Università La Sapienza. 2012. Pp. 192.
€16,00 paperback. ISBN 978-88-491-3648-7.)
In contemplating the volume The Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX, a reader may
wonder what more might be said about the famous—some said infamous—document inspired by the Spanish philosopher Juan Donoso Cortes and issued in 1864
by Pope Pius IX (r. 1846–78) during the course of the Counter-Risorgimento. As
all this is well known, why, then, another study of the Syllabus? Historian Daniele
Menozzi’s informative and interesting introduction (pp. 7–22) provides the answer.
Within these pages Menozzi notes that although most political issues involved in
the Roman Question have been resolved, the ideological struggle not only between
church and state but also within the Church continues to the present, with frequent
recourse to the Syllabus by both the champions and critics of modernization.
The introduction traces the use of the Syllabus by traditionalists to combat
liberal tendencies within the Church and a means of resisting its aggiornamento.
The title of the volume fails to reveal that this is also a study of the conservative
reliance on the Syllabus to combat the transformation of Catholicism over the
decades. The subtitle of the introduction—“The Return of the Syllabus”—is also
somewhat misleading, as it suggests that recourse to the Syllabus was sporadic
rather than more or less continuous. In fact, Menozzi traces the influence and
impact of the Syllabus from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, focusing on
its influence on the decree Lamentabili of 1907, the encyclical Pascendi likewise
issued in 1907 by Pius X (r. 1903–14), and the encyclical Humani generis of 1950
released by Pius XII (r. 1939–58). Also discussed is its use in the Second Vatican

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Council (1962–65) to limit the reformism of Pope John XXIII (r. 1958–63) and
Paul VI (r. 1963–78). Apparently it also played a part in John Paul II’s balancing
the beatification of the liberal John XXIII with the conservative Pius IX (p. 18).
Many more examples might have been provided, but the case is sufficiently made.
The Syllabus of Errors, appended to Pio Nono’s encyclical Quanta cura issued
on December 8, 1864, is not presented in these pages simply as a last-ditch effort
to preserve the papacy’s temporal power and as a document that faded into obscurity when it failed to do so—as presented in some liberal studies and publications.
On the contrary, its eighty condemnations, divided into ten sections, are here presented as a continuing and powerful tool to counter the philosophy and practices of
the modern world that had permitted the “unification” that the encyclical and Syllabus deemed a “usurpation.” Its condemnations of toleration, the separation of
church and state, along with the refusal of the pontiff to reconcile himself with
modern civilization did not produce the third restoration following that of 1812
and 1849. Nonetheless, the Syllabus emerged as a potent tool for traditionalists
who viewed Catholicism and contemporary society as incompatible and helped the
former combat the latter. The Syllabus is here presented not as a historical oddity
but as an ongoing factor influencing the faith and the broader society.
The introductory chapter is followed by the longer one by the editor Luca
Sandoni, a specialist on the eighteenth-century Enlightenment in Tuscany, who
elaborates on the genesis and formation of this emblematic document (pp. 23–89).
The first part of the book provides a narrative and analysis of the drafting and
issuance of the Syllabus, the second explores the European reaction to it, and the
third provides some of the editor’s reflections and conclusions on its nature and
usage. The encyclical Quanta cura (in Latin and Italian, pp. 94–107) follows, along
with the appended Syllabus of Errors (likewise in Latin and Italian, pp. 110–35).
The work concludes with the editor’s annotations on the sources and arguments of
the eighty condemned Propositions and the central argument against each. The
editor might have said something more about their impact and influence on the
relationship between Catholicism and the modern world.
St. John’s University (Emeritus)

FRANK J. COPPA

Irish Catholicism and Science: From “Godless Colleges” to the “Celtic Tiger.” By Don
O’Leary. (Cork: Cork University Press. 2012. Pp. xvi, 343. $52.00. ISBN
978-1-85918-497-4.)
Dan O’Leary’s book is a thoroughgoing exposition of the debate among
Catholics in Ireland about science. The scope is ambitious, beginning with Charles
Darwin in the second half of the nineteenth century and carrying the narrative up
to 2006, Richard Dawkins’s visit to Ireland, and the ensuing controversy. There are
a number of sources that O’Leary has uncovered, including the Edward Coyne and
Thomas Larcom papers from the Irish Jesuit Papers in Dublin and the National
Library of Ireland respectively.

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The history of Irish Catholic reactions to Darwin is interwoven with the history of Catholicism itself. This includes the impact of the Syllabus of Errors in the
1860s, the revival of interest in St. Augustine that gave a handle for some Catholics
keen to reconcile Darwin with Catholic dogma, the tightening of clerical control
from Rome in the 1890s, and the growth of modernism and the Catholic reaction
to it in the early 1900s.
In the late-nineteenth century there were—surprising from the point of view
of somewhat polemical accounts of the Catholic Church’s reaction to modern science—significant attempts to reconcile Darwin with Catholic theology. Ireland,
however, stands out in producing a much more robust and unforgiving Catholic
response to evolution. O’Leary points out that Irish Catholics in the late-nineteenth
century went even further than papal commentary at the time required. He points
to their hostility to St. George Jackson Mivart even before Mivart’s excommunication in the 1890s. This was in contrast to English Catholics such as Mivart and John
S. Vaughan, who believed that their Irish co-religionists were rejecting unreasonably
the possibilities of a reconciliation between evolution and Catholic doctrine.
O’Leary attributes this greater defensiveness to the poor level of clerical education. He also puts forward the view that many prominent English Catholics such as
Mivart and Blessed John Henry Newman were converts. They still retained, therefore, a greater closeness to intellectual elites in England. They shared many of the
same cultural assumptions and attitudes. In contrast to Ireland, English Catholics
failed to set up third-level colleges exclusively for their co-religionists, and English
Catholics went on being educated with their peers. Irish Catholics continued to be
educated in mixed institutions in the nineteenth century but decreasingly so as the
century progressed. One reason that the bishops argued for a Catholic university was
to stem the noxious influence of Darwinian evolution on their flocks.
Occasionally O’Leary’s book slips into straightforward exegeses of articles in
the Ecclesiastical Record and elsewhere, or in Catholic anti-Darwinian books of the
twentieth century. One would have liked more summaries of the arguments that
are often repetitive, sometimes to an astonishing degree. In the 1940s O’Leary
clearly shows that Irish Catholic polemics against Darwin were still repeating the
inadequacy of the fossil record or predicting its imminent demise because of growing scientific skepticism about natural selection. On the other hand, scholars will
find the book a very useful source in tracking the history of anti-Darwinism in
Catholic Ireland. There is, for example, a very good exposition of anti-modernism
in the first decade of the twentieth century.
This is, from one perspective, a rather sad and disturbing history, not because
of the perturbations caused by Darwinism in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. For Irish Catholics keen to establish a denominational third-level
institution at a time when English universities were being progressively secularized,
there were particular difficulties. What is depressing is the low intellectual level of
the Irish Catholic controversialist in the period after 1920, although some Irish
Catholics were engaged in debates with notable English agnostics like H. G.

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Wells. But Wells and others were frequently polemicists who were stuck intellectually in the debates of the 1890s and early 1900s. The science of natural selection
had moved on by leaps and bounds, and none of the Irish Catholic antagonists
seem to have realized this or could engage with it.
In O’Leary’s account equal consideration is given to Bertram Windle and
Alfred O’Rahilly. But here, greater contextualization would have helped. Windle
was someone who, like Mivart and Newman, was educated among non-Catholics
and even skeptics. His contribution was sharper, and he was engaged at a much
higher level. Windle was very keen to re-establish Catholic credibility in science,
and to this aim he devoted much of his time as president of Queen’s College Cork.
O’Rahilly, who belonged to the more extreme political faction in Cork that eventually dispatched a shocked and aggrieved Windle from his presidency, possessed
none of these attributes. He is symbolic of and in fact helped create the intellectually narrow and self-referential world that overtook Catholic Ireland in 1922. It is
within that world that serious intellectual engagement with the issue of science and
evolution begins to dwindle.
O’Leary’s book is a welcome contribution to scholarship in this area. It puts
him firmly in the community of scholars who are now engaging with this hitherto
neglected and underappreciated aspect of Irish history.
University of Ulster at Jordanstown

GRETA JONES

The Pious Sex: Catholic Constructions of Masculinity and Femininity in Belgium, c.
1800–1940. By Tine Van Osselaer. [KADOC Studies on Religion, Culture
and Society.] (Leuven: Leuven University Press. 2013. Pp. 272. €49,50 paperback. ISBN 978-90-586-79505.)
The Pious Sex sets itself the ambitious task of examining “how [gender] differentiation was created among Belgian Catholics, to what extent religiosity was
inscribed in these gender constructions and how religious teachings contributed to
this differentiation” (p. 12). Spanning more than a century, Tine Van Osselaer’s
study of Belgian Catholicism traces changes in the Catholic discourse on gendered
identity and the ways in which these changes were communicated to the laity.
Rather than an analysis of the Church’s perspective, it offers an insight in the constant interaction between the clergy and their flock as they negotiated the definitions and meanings of femininity and masculinity for devout Catholics. Van Osselaer focuses squarely on primary sources stressing lay involvement in the practices
of nineteenth-century Catholicism. In consecutive chapters she lays bare the shifting definitions of devout femininity and masculinity in the home and public life
that emerged from sermons and were shaped in the context of the League of the
Sacred Heart and the Catholic Action movement, two associations with a large
number of members that had a significant social impact in Belgium. The study
therefore focuses largely on normative images (that is, produced mainly by clergy)
and attempts to gauge the impact of these images and the practices associated with
them on the laity (such as the significance of seating arrangements in church).

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The Belgian case, as Van Osselaer points out, is a particular one. Belgian
Catholics (who had barely any competition from other denominations) supported
the nation’s liberal constitution and its separation of church and state. They
responded to this new political status quo in 1830 by focusing increasingly on an
intensified relationship with the laity. The sermons, pastoral manuals, and the documents related to the Leagues of the Sacred Heart and Catholic Action movement
at issue in this study are very much intertwined with this ambition constantly to
engage with the laity. Yet, although The Pious Sex tells an explicitly Belgian story,
the particularity of that context also allows Van Osselaer to revisit a number of
iconic images of modern Christian practices of gendering identity. For example,
the chapter on the League of the Sacred Heart, a devotional society known for its
highly emotive style and therefore easily linked to the “feminization” of Catholicism, zooms in on depictions of Catholic heroism. Studying narratives on both
male and female heroes, the chapter shows a binary picture in which women conquered their frailty, and men became soldiers and missionaries. Yet heroism was
attributed to both, Van Osselaer argues, as men and women shared ideals of discipline, courage, and sacrifice, even if those were embodied in different—and often
highly gendered—ways.
Throughout the book, Van Osselaer insists on this dual view, showing that
the Pious Sex of the title could be defined as both male and female throughout
the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries in Catholic Belgium. Her analysis
of several Catholic initiatives impressing the laity with carefully designed images
of “devout” masculine and feminine identities shows that, although the relation
between men and women within Belgian Catholic circles was highly dichotomous and hierarchical, and although women’s roles within these organizations
changed substantially throughout the modern period, these changes cannot be
qualified as a process of feminization, but rather as one of increasing differentiation. Whereas the introduction offers a sharply drawn theoretical critique of the
feminization narrative based mainly on current debates in gender studies, the
empirical chapters show a wide array of roles and models held up to laymen, laywomen, and children.
Catholic University of Leuven

JOSEPHINE HOEGAERTS

Prelude to the Modernist Crisis: The “Firmin” Articles of Alfred Loisy. Translated by
Christine E. Thirlway. Edited, with an introduction, by C. J. T. Talar.
[American Academy of Religion Series on Religion in Translation.] (New
York: Oxford University Press. 2010. Pp. xxiii, 109. $55.00. ISBN 978-0-19975457-1.)
The reaction to the publication of Alfred Loisy’s L’Évangile et l’Église (The
Gospel and the Church, London, 1902) helped precipitate Loisy’s excommunication
in 1908 and Pope Pius X’s condemnation of “modernism” in 1910. Between 1898
and 1900, writing under the pseudonym of A. Firmin, Loisy published five articles
in the Revue du clergé français. They were like stepping stones on the way to The

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Gospel and the Church, examining themes that reappeared, sometimes in more
developed form, in that book. Prelude to the Modernist Crisis contains translations
of the first four of those articles. An expanded version of the fifth, “La religion
d’Israël,” has been available in English for a long time (The Religion of Israel,
London, 1910). After almost a century, Loisy’s essays are still of theological interest.
His writing aroused opposition from those who thought he was ceding too
much to contemporary thought. One such opponent was Charles Maignen, who
published Nouveau catholicisme et nouveau clergé (Paris, 1902), a portion of which is
translated and included here. In his introduction, C. J. T. Talar points out that
Maignen’s response is important not only for its content but also for its tone: “The
condemnation of modernism in Pascendi dominici gregis [1910] cannot be really
appreciated apart from the climate of fear for orthodoxy that permeated Catholicism over those years” (p. xxii). Maignen is “representative of a school that equated
its theology with Catholic orthodoxy and reacted accordingly to revisionist alternatives” (p. xxiii).
Prior to 1898, Talar observes, Loisy had been content to work on fairly technical questions of exegesis, because he had not yet figured out a way to integrate
the results of his historical studies with Catholic teachings regarding inspiration,
inerrancy, and the like. The overarching idea of historical development opened a
way for him to achieve this integration. In article one, Loisy examines Blessed John
Henry Newman’s use of this concept. Newman’s approach, Talar notes, “accelerated Loisy’s thought along the lines it was already following” (p. xiv). The idea of
development enabled Loisy to affirm the role of dogma and the Church while disagreeing with Liberal Protestants and with neo-Scholastic Catholics. He argued
against the emphasis on the individual that he saw in the former and against their
lack of appreciation for the corporate and the institutional. He also objected to
what he perceived to be the overly rational apologetics of the Catholics. Religion,
Loisy says in these essays, is reasonable but more a matter of intuition, experience,
and reflection than of unchanging propositional truths.
In his Firmin articles Loisy develops several important ideas, including the
social nature of religion, the development of church teachings over time, the continuity and corporate coherence provided by the institutional Church, and religion’s
need for symbols and rituals. “Christianity is a living reality and not a concept of the
mind” (p. 24). Doctrine is one element in religion, not the whole of it (p. 62).
Maignen’s chief objection is to the idea of development, which he calls “Evolutionism”: “The incursion of this theory into the domain of theology is the greatest
danger threatening the faith today” (p. 87). Maignen goes on to insist that “the revelation of dogmas was perfect and transparent from the beginning” (p. 91). Even
the dogmas not yet defined were believed by “the Saints and Doctors of the
Church.” “It is not the dogma which develops and is transformed, it is the human
mind, assisted by grace, which penetrates more deeply into the knowledge of the
faith” (p. 91).

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Talar’s introduction, the four articles, and Maignen’s response provide helpful
background for the development of Loisy’s thought and the emerging conflict. We
see him here wrestling with proposals from Auguste Sabatier and Cardinal
Newman in ways that will inform his response to Harnack in The Gospel and the
Church, and we see the alarm with which some of his ideas were greeted. Students
of Roman Catholic modernism and antimodernism will find little that is new in
this volume, but for others it can provide a concise introduction. Talar is a reliable
guide, and these writings trace the early stages of a conflict with long-lasting and
wide-ranging consequences.
St. Olaf College
Northfield, MN

DARRELL JODOCK

“Papists” and Prejudice: Popular Anti-Catholicism and Anglo-Irish Conflict in the
North East of England, 1845–70. By Jonathan Bush. (Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2013. Pp. viii, 274. £44.99; $75.99.
ISBN 978-1-4438-4672-1.)
Although many aspects of Victorian anti-Catholicism are already well
researched, this book offers an important additional dimension through a detailed
regional study. It is all the more valuable because it is concerned with a region,
County Durham and Tyneside, that has not been seen as a particular hotbed of
such attitudes (in contrast to Lancashire or the west of Scotland). On the basis of
extensive and meticulous research in local newspapers, archives, and pamphlets,
Bush reconstructs a fascinating, hitherto largely unknown, history of local antagonisms. His pioneering work suggests that there still is much to be uncovered
through comparable local studies of other parts of the country in the development
of a realistic, if disturbing, understanding of cultural, political, and religious divisions in mid-nineteenth-century British society.
Bush adopts a thematic approach, with successive chapters focused on the ideology of anti-Catholicism, on responses to the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy
in 1850, and on the defense of the “Protestant Constitution.” A particularly innovative chapter explores the links between anti-Catholicism and the assertion of liberty, both at home and abroad, notably in relation to the Italian Risorgimento. The
final chapters explore the impact of Irish immigration and the Catholic revival and
analyze sectarian violence.
Although the thematic structure has considerable merit in enabling Bush
clearly to delineate different strands of anti-Catholicism, it does have drawbacks.
The interplay between the various elements—for example, between political and
religious factors—might have been more purposefully explored, and the overall
chronology and ebb and flow of anti-Catholicism across the period as a whole
could have been made clearer.
The book is, on occasion, slightly marred by distorted representations of the
arguments of other scholars. For example, on page 99, Bush suggests that resistance

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to Irish disestablishment in the 1860s invalidates this reviewer’s conclusion (in The
Protestant Crusade in Great Britain [Oxford, 1991], p. 288) that the rearguard action
in defense of an exclusive Protestant constitution effectively ended around 1860.
However, as pointed out in Protestant Crusade (pp. 295–96), the political ground had
shifted significantly by 1868, and even staunch Protestants recognized that they
could not realistically hope to deny any state support for Catholicism in Ireland and
maintain the establishment of the Church of Ireland at the same time. From their
point of view the cloud of Irish disestablishment had a silver lining insofar as it was
accompanied by the ending of the contentious government grant to Maynooth College. However, the conclusion in Protestant Crusade (p. 192)—that Protestant
preaching directed to the Catholic poor did not generally provoke large-scale riots—
should indeed be modified, as Bush suggests (p. 200), given his material from the
northeast. Such specific points serve to point up the importance of constructive
interplay between an understanding of the national framework and the rich, detailed
analysis of local and regional tensions that Bush develops so effectively.
The Open University
Milton Keynes, UK

JOHN WOLFFE

The Last Years of Saint Thérèse: Doubt and Darkness: 1895–1897. By Thomas R.
Nevin. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2013. Pp. xxii, 289. $35.00.
ISBN 978-0-19-998766-5.)
Thomas R. Nevin begins his authoritative work by discussing the influence of
the Spanish masters on St. Thérèse of Lisieux: Ss. Teresa of Jesus and John of the
Cross. This is certainly important information, but this reviewer wonders if the
author has not underestimated Teresa’s influence on her spiritual daughter. The
author certainly does recognize the important place of John of the Cross in her
spirituality.
The author then turns to Sacred Scripture. We know that Thérèse had a great
appreciation for Sacred Scripture and quotes from it more than 1000 times. His
remarks about the psalms are somewhat surprising. This reviewer doubts that
Thérèse would have found their keynote to be hostility (p. 48). The section on the
New Testament indicates that for Thérèse,
Jesus’ mission is the search for a requital of God’s love. Almost all of her writing
expresses in one dimension or another the bounteousness of this love and the
urgency she felt in meeting it, embracing it, celebrating it, despite and yet through
her own feeble self. (p. 60)

This is a good assessment.
Nevin refers to Thérèse’s “science of love” (p. 69). Although this is not an
unusual translation, this reviewer, who has some limited experience in translation
work, questions whether she had any such thing. Could this not mean her understanding, her experience of love?

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The author provides a fine chapter on the cross that community life represented for Thérèse. His argument is that, long before she came to the table of
sorrow, her experience of community life in Carmel prepared her for her arrival at
the table of unbelief and its bitter bread. His point is well illustrated.
The chapter on Thérèse’s spiritual brothers, Hyacinthe Loyson and Leo Taxil,
is most informative. The author relates that Thérèse maintained that it was more
painful for her to be humbled by the righteous, her sisters in Carmel, than by the
unjust, by sinners. Nonetheless, these men “furnished the bitter bread” (p. 146) she
ate at the table of sinners.
In his chapter on final charity the author explains that Thérèse saw herself as
God’s lowly tool through which others were being served. This gives meaning to
the table at which she sat: serving others in suffering (p. 188). The author’s remarks
on Thérèse and the Beatitudes are most insightful. Her Little Way is indeed bound
up with true poverty of spirit. Her confidence meant that she could rely only on
God. Furthermore, she was merciful both to those seated at the table of sorrow and
her neglected Carmelite sisters. She also attained purity of heart by praying on
behalf of others in darkness, identifying with them and acknowledging with them
her own helplessness.
In his conclusion the author states that Thérèse arrived at that station of darkness by the experience of prolonged doubt. By regarding doubt in a compliant
rather than defiant way, she overcame herself. She believed that Jesus allowed the
darkness of doubt to descend upon her and that was her way of finding strength in
his testing of her (p. 198).
In appendix 2 the author makes a significant point in commenting on one of
Teresa’s “Outcryings of a Soul to God.” Teresa’s exclamation may have inspired
Thérèse’s prayer for divine light on behalf of the lost ones at the table of sorrow.
The difference between Teresa’s prayer and her daughter’s, he claims, is that
Thérèse in hers received the supreme grace of praying not merely for but among
the lost (p. 208).
Discalced Carmelite Monastery
Washington, DC

SALVATORE SCIURBA, O.C.D.

The Ecumenical Legacy of Johannes Cardinal Willebrands (1909–2006). Edited by
Adelbert Denaux and Peter De Mey in collaboration with Maria Ter Steeg
and Lorelei Fuchs. [Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, 253.] (Walpole, MA: Peeters. 2012. Pp. xiv, 376. $107.00. ISBN 97890-429-2735-3.)
The papers composing this volume come from two symposia held in fall 2009
in Utrecht and Rome honoring the life and work of Cardinal Johannes Willebrands, a defining figure of the ecumenical movement in our time. Willebrands
believed his career was a “vocation from above” (p. 28), with a close link in his life

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between ecumenism and spirituality. His life’s work spanned the emergence of
Catholic ecumenism, the Second Vatican Council, and the first decades of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity (SPCU).
The papers are scholarly and readable. They cover all the major aspects of
Willebrands’s administrative, diplomatic, ecumenical, and interreligious work,
offering exposition and analysis. The volume includes a comprehensive bibliography of the cardinal’s writings and is a treasure for those who have entered the ecumenical movement in recent decades. Its varied essays provide an education about
the movement’s history and the important issues.
Willebrands in his “Dutch Period” wrote his doctoral dissertation on Blessed
Cardinal John Henry Newman, served as secretary to the Catholic Conference for
Ecumenical Questions, and built bridges to the newly formed World Council of
Churches. He was the first Catholic ecumenical officer in the world—named by
the Dutch bishops in 1958.
Willebrands began his “Roman Period” in 1960 as the first secretary of the
new SPCU. He worked at the Second Vatican Council with the Protestant, Anglican, and Orthodox observers. His other work in collaboration with colleagues
included the Decree on Ecumenism, the Declaration on Relations of the Church
to Non-Christian Religions, the Declaration on Religious Liberty, and significant
contributions to other Council documents. Willebrands’s extensive travels encompassed trips to the Middle East to ensure consensus on the section of Nostra Aetate
pertaining to relations with the Jewish community.
In 1969 Pope Paul VI appointed Willebrands as president of the SPCU.
During his two decades in that office he set directions in relationships with the
World Council, the Protestant world communions, the Orthodox churches, and
Judaism. His successor, Cardinal Walter Kasper, marvels at what was achieved (p.
305). That so many fruitful relationships would develop and that so much agreement would be achieved was not to be presumed. Willebrands was noted for his
friendliness, patience, and preparedness. He realized that the work of Christian
unity was a long-term project.
Willebrands’s views should be studied for their relevance to the ongoing work
of ecumenism. His hermeneutic of the Second Vatican Council, his views on the
famous “subsistit in” of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium),
his awareness of the importance of religious liberty for successful ecumenical work,
and his commitment to building a new relationship with the Jewish community are
a few of the areas where his thought is still quite relevant. As Jared Wicks notes: “The
cardinal’s address … in January 1970 on different ‘types’ of church life within a larger
unity is rightly considered the articulation of a significant ecumenical theological
theme” (p. 135). This theme, rooted in Newman, calls for further exploration. Willebrands saw dialogue as a norm that comes from the Gospel. He “understood dialogue
as a spiritual way of life.” As Paul-Werner Scheele points out, repentance, conversion,
reconciliation, and hope were all part of this spirituality (p. 329).

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The outstanding essays in this volume not only present the contribution of a
leading Catholic ecumenist but also contribute to the ongoing work for unity. Ecumenism was a key to renewal in Willebrands’s time and remains so in our own.
Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

JOHN W. CROSSIN, O.S.F.S.

Pope Francis: His Life and Thought. By Mario I. Aguilar. (Cambridge, UK: Lutterworth Press. 2014. Pp. 189. $19.99 paperback. ISBN 978-0-7188-9342-2.)
The author poses clearly the meaning and goals of his book since its first page:
to know and understand Pope Francis beyond his own myth. Aguilar shows us not
an extraordinary and audacious pope, but a singular priest who encountered many
obstacles in his long career until he achieved the rank of cardinal during the last
years of John Paul II’s pontificate. Aguilar knows that the most original aspect of
Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s life is the long road he must have traveled to the papacy.
His election in a conclave as pontiff had never been in his plans. Nevertheless,
when the opportunity arrived, he showed himself fully prepared. Thus, Aguilar
does not focus on Francis’s pontificate; rather, he has chosen to tell us the complete
story of Bergoglio’s life before his elevation.
Each chapter focuses on different stages of his ecclesiastical career (from Jesuit
to Provincial of the Society of Jesus during Argentina’s “dirty war,” then bishop,
archbishop of Buenos Aires, and cardinal), accompanied by an appropriate contextualization of the Argentine Church, society, and politics. Aguilar also takes into
account Bergoglio’s intervention at the Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano
(CELAM) Conference of Aparecida in 2007 and his performance as a cardinal
close to the Holy See.
Bergoglio showed himself to be a multifaceted bishop in Argentina. He
preached humility and austerity and continued to take public buses and subway
trains, but he remained at the core of political power during his time as archbishop
of Buenos Aires. He walked every street of the Bajo Flores slums, but he returned
to Plaza de Mayo to sleep at night, just a few meters away from the government
palace. Aguilar pictures perfectly those kinds of ambiguities. Bergoglio faced up to
severe political crises in Argentina´s recent history, and he never dodged uncomfortable situations. Thus, he testified in court in cases where human rights were
involved, and he made an effort to intercede when Argentina sank into a political
and economic abyss in 2001. As a priest, he never stayed preaching inside the cloisters. On the contrary, he always had a powerful political instinct that made him
audacious in many aspects, even when he remained frankly conservative in the doctrinal realm. Aguilar accurately details this ambiguous picture.
Nevertheless, it may not be worthless to ask if we can really understand Pope
Francis through his past. Is there a manifest continuity between Bergoglio and
Francis? Is our knowledge of Bergoglio’s skills in dealing with society and politics

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in Argentina really enough to elucidate how he confronts the global scene and politics? Unfortunately, it is too soon to answer these questions and to measure the
depth and the true significance of the changes that Francis has introduced into the
Catholic Church.
Universidad Católica Argentina, Buenos Aires

MIRANDA LIDA

AMERICAN AND CANADIAN
The Catholic Studies Reader. Edited by James T. Fisher and Margaret M. McGuinness. (New York: Fordham University Press. 2011. Pp. 468. $110.00 clothbound, ISBN 978-0-8232-3410-3; $35.00 paperback, ISBN 978-0-82323411-0.)
By the 1980s, the prior emergence of interdisciplinary fields such as American
studies and cultural studies had combined with demographic shifts among American Catholics and in Catholic higher education in the United States, to set the stage
for the new fields of Catholic studies and American Catholic studies. Primarily lay
scholars rather than clergy and religious, practitioners of these emerging disciplines
are located in a variety of programs and departments at both Catholic and nonCatholic universities. The study of Catholicism as actual Catholics live and practice
it is no longer the sole province of historians, theologians, or even of Catholics.
In this hefty anthology, originating from Fordham’s Curran Center and contributing to the Fordham University Press series Catholic Practice in North America, editors James Fisher and Margaret McGuinness have gathered seventeen essays
that explore the terrain of Catholic studies from a variety of perspectives. The
volume’s contributors, fourteen women and five men, mix significant pioneers in the
field with a number of assistant professors. Fisher and McGuinness divide the collection into five categories: (1) “Sources and Contents” include essays on “life writing,” the Catholic intellectual tradition, passing on the faith, and the politics of
Catholic studies; (2) “Traditions and Methods” explore issues of methodology in
Catholic studies; (3) “Pedagogy and Practice” raises questions about the institutional
location of Catholic studies and particular pedagogies involved in Catholic social
thought, gender studies, and visual culture; (4) “Ethnicity, Race, and Catholic Studies” includes essays about Black Catholic studies, Asian American Catholic experience, and Hispanic Catholic studies, the last including methodological reflections
from a non-Catholic scholar doing ethnography among Hispanic Catholics; and (5)
“The Catholic Imagination” deals with the claim that Catholics imagine differently
via three essays on poets, novelists, and Philadelphia wall murals.
The editors claim no “clear consensus” (p. 3) on what Catholic studies is or
what a program in Catholic studies should include. In addition to historians, the
contributors include scholars in literature, theology, American studies, and art history. This volume’s chief significance lies in the questions it raises and the reflections it offers about how to study Catholicism as a religion that people live: Who

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studies Catholics, with what methodologies, from which locations, for what reasons? What is the relation between Catholic studies and American Catholic studies? What does “Catholic” mean?
These essays will be of particular value for those doing programmatic or course
planning in Catholic studies. Some stand out more than others. David O’Brien’s
essay on “The (Catholic) Politics of Catholic Studies” is a “must” introduction to
the challenges involved in successfully implementing a program in Catholic studies.
Ann Taves on “Catholic Studies and Religious Studies: Reflections on the Concept
of Tradition” fruitfully addresses explicitly the tension that runs through the book
and, through the souls of scholars, between normative and descriptive approaches
to studying Catholics. Thomas Ferraro’s rereading of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The
Scarlet Letter in “Cultural Studies between Heaven and Earth” demonstrates just
how dazzling Catholic studies might be in the hands of a true virtuoso practitioner.
As an initial cartography of emerging disciplinary terrain in Catholic studies, this
collection belongs in the library of any university where scholars and students might
study Catholics. It has a helpful index. Although there is no bibliography, the full
notes for each essay offer ample bibliographic entry to the variety of literature that
makes up Catholic studies.
University of Dayton

WILLIAM L. PORTIER

Missionary Bishop: Jean-Marie Odin in Galveston and New Orleans. By Patrick
Foley. [Centennial Series of the Association of Former Students, No. 118.]
(College Station: Texas A&M University Press. 2014. Pp. xviii, 206. $40.00.
ISBN 978-1-60344-824-6.)
Missionary Bishop by Patrick Foley is a sixteen-chapter, 168-page, footnoted
biography of Jean-Marie Odin, first bishop of Galveston and second archbishop of
New Orleans. Each chapter chronicles a different period in Odin’s life (1800–70),
including his early formation in France, his time at the Barrens, and his life as a
Vincentian ministering in Missouri and Arkansas. A major portion of the book is
devoted to Odin’s years on the Texas frontier as missionary, vicar apostolic, and
bishop. The reader is taken on a journey through Texas and parts of Mexico as
Odin’s ministers to Catholics, catechizing and bringing sacraments to Victoria, San
Antonio de Bexar, and other mission sites. Throughout this section of the narrative, Foley guides the reader through Texas history as he sets the stage for Odin’s
two-decade-long missionary work in Texas. Amid the backdrop of the struggles in
Mexican Texas, the War for Texas independence and the border conflict between
the United States and Mexico, Odin works tirelessly. The author states, “JeanMarie Odin would lay the foundation for Catholicism’s nineteenth-century renaissance in Texas and establish the base for the Catholic Church’s future development
in the land for decades to come” (p. 84). The book concludes with Odin’s last years
as archbishop of New Orleans and highlights his administrative efforts during the
Civil War and Reconstruction periods. Foley describes Odin’s conflict and
thoughts regarding slavery and, in its aftermath, his attempts for African American

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education. It is somewhat comforting to know that after all his laboring in Texas
and Louisiana, Odin died in his childhood home in France.
Foley’s research into the life of Odin includes primary material from archives
and collections; sources encompass manuscripts from many dioceses, universities,
and the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. Noteworthy among these manuscripts are Odin’s diary and extensive correspondence. Using these key sources, the
author weaves a rich historical account, allowing the reader to follow the relationships between Odin and his family (in Hauteville, Ambierle, France), the Vincentians, his coworkers in Missouri and Arkansas, his lifelong associate Antoine Blanc
(first archbishop of New Orleans), his friend John Timon (first bishop of Buffalo),
and many other religious men and women whom Odin recruited from Europe for
the mission fields of Texas.
This work is the first in-depth study of Odin, and it is a welcome and important addition to understanding the history of Catholicism in Texas and Louisiana.
It leaves a major and lasting impression of the life and struggles of a missionary
bishop on the Texas frontier.
Archives of the Archdiocese of New Orleans

EMILIE GAGNET LEUMAS

Women of Faith: The Chicago Sisters of Mercy and the Evolution of a Religious Community. By Mary Beth Fraser Connolly. (New York: Fordham University
Press. 2014. Pp. xvi. 356. $65.00. ISBN 978-0-8232-5473-6.)
Mary Beth Fraser Connolly covers the history of the Chicago Regional Community of the Sisters of Mercy from 1846, when the first group arrived in Chicago,
to 2008, when the Chicago Regional Community merged with other Mercy
regional communities to form the West-Midwest Regional Community. The first
section of this history (chapters 1 and 2) cover the time period from the arrival of
the Mercy Sisters in the United States to the formation of the Sisters of Mercy of
the Union in 1929. The second section of the book (chapters 3 to 6) looks at the
development of the order from the amalgamation to the era after the Second Vatican Council. The final section (chapter 7 and epilogue) examines the renewal of
the Sisters of Mercy after the Council and the efforts to carry the spirit of Catherine McAuley into the twenty-first century. In each of the sections of her history,
Connolly does a very good job of setting the context of the history of the Chicago
community within the larger ecclesial life of the Church and the cultural changes
in American society that affected the Mercy Sisters.
This history examines a number of interesting themes, such as the role of
women in the nineteenth century, the nature of nineteenth-century religious life,
the canonical challenges facing a non-cloistered religious community like the
Mercy Sisters, and the impact of the renewal of religious life following the Council.
One challenge facing any historian writing about a religious community is how to
tell the story of the corporate body without losing a sense of the individuals who

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are part of that community. Connolly does a very good job in both giving a clear
history of what was happening to the community and what was happening to the
people in the community. Through the use of archives, interviews, and secondary
sources, Connolly achieves a good balance between the corporate history and the
personal history.
Although this reviewer expected to read also about the history of such wellknown Mercy institutions as Mercy Hospital, Xavier University, and Mother
McAuley High School, the history of those institutions can be found in other
sources cited in Connolly’s bibliography. Where it is relevant to the overall history
of the Chicago Regional Community, especially in the areas of staffing, education,
finances, and mission, those institutions are included in her history.
One of the most interesting chapters of this history is the one on “Reinventing
Community and Service to the World” (chapter 6). Connolly provides a thorough
analysis of the internal discussions and debates that took place within the community in the light of the mandate of Vatican Council II for the renewal of religious
life. As Connolly notes:
The renewal of religious government underway following the close of the
Second Vatican Council inspired experimentation in local living, and ministry rooted in an evolving spirituality. How sisters constructed and related to
authority affected the very look and location of Mercys’ residences, as well as
how sisters chose and redefined their ministries. (p. 163)

Connolly’s treatment of the complex and challenging issues related to the reinventing of the community while balancing their decades-long commitment in the areas
of education and health care provide good insights into how complicated this
renewal would be.
Women of Faith provides an interesting history on the evolving nature of
female religious identity in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries by
examining the Chicago Sisters of Mercy. Her book is a contribution to this interesting theme as well as to the history of the American Catholic Church.
University of St. Mary of the Lake
Mundelein, IL

MARTIN ZIELINSKI

Prayers, Petitions, and Protests: The Catholic Church and the Ontario Schools Crisis in
the Windsor Border Region, 1910–1928. By Jack D. Cecillon. (Montreal:
McGill-Queen’s University Press. 2013. Pp. xxvi, 367. $100.00. ISBN 978-0773-54161-0.)
In Prayers, Petitions, and Protests Jack D. Cecillon aims to examine the failure of
French Catholics in the Windsor border region to resist Regulation 17, the Ontario
government’s attempt in the early-twentieth century to limit French-language
instruction in the province’s public schools. More than that, however, this book offers

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a deep understanding of the larger debates surrounding French-English relations and
the rise of French Canadian nationalism in the early-twentieth century.
Cecillon’s book has three major historiographical strengths. First, his study
reminds us of the extent to which the “old French Empire” extended beyond the
borders of Quebec and select parts of New Brunswick and Manitoba (p. 12). In the
writing of Canadian history, the more familiar disputes in those provinces, which
led to an 1871 law prohibiting local school boards from raising tax revenues in support of Catholic schools in New Brunswick and 1890 legislation eliminating public
funding for French Catholic schools in Manitoba, have received considerable
attention. As Cecillon demonstrates, however, protests in the Windsor border
region of Ontario from 1910 to 1928 were no less dramatic.
Second, this book broadens our understanding of francophone history in
Ontario significantly. Typical studies on francophone resistance to Regulation 17
tend to focus on eastern Ontario, where recent French-Catholic arrivals from
Quebec were still struggling to make sense of their new provincial home. Cecillon,
however, takes us to the other end of the province, where francophone families had
a long history of settlement and socioeconomic activity. There, Cecillon finds a
French Canadian population that was itself divided: urban versus rural, industrial
versus agricultural, and old-stock Fort Detroit descendants versus recent arrivals.
Such divisions created a complicated dynamic that produced varieties of resistance
to Regulation 17 not seen in other parts of the province.
Third, a major strength of this book is the author’s insistence that a microhistory of Catholic Windsor’s response to, and internal struggle with, Regulation
17 be situated within larger North American and international contexts of church
efforts to integrate cultural and linguistic minorities. Parallels to what was happening in late-nineteenth-century New England, for example, are clear to Cecillon.
The Church’s response to growing hostility from Americans in that region toward
an influx of French-speaking settlers from Quebec helps us better understand what
was happening in Ontario. Moreover, Cecillon beautifully explores the extent to
which appeals to Rome, and the responses from the Vatican itself, were central to
the debate surrounding Regulation 17 in Ontario. In other words, understanding
the context of French-Catholic resistance to Regulation 17 requires the reader to
understand the broader Catholic world of which the people were a part. Whereas
typical histories tend to focus on the linguistic identity of French Canadians, this
study rightly considers their Catholic identity as well.
In the end, the author succeeds in his effort to unveil the existence of a multidimensional French-speaking population—one with often conflicting priorities.
Such divisions were too profound to overcome in the Windsor border region, and
francophone resistance to Regulation 17 ultimately failed there. Cecillon’s book
will be essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the history of French
Canadians in Ontario. Moreover, it will be of great interest to anyone wishing to
more closely examine and make sense of the ways in which the French-English

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divide in Canada has shaped the many cultures and subcultures of Canadian and
Catholic identities.
Bishop’s University
Sherbrooke, Canada

ANTHONY DI MASCIO

The Rhetorical Leadership of Fulton J. Sheen, Norman Vincent Peale, and Billy Graham
in the Age of Extremes. By Timothy H. Sherwood. (Lanham, MD: Lexington
Books. 2013. Pp, vi, 159. $80.00. ISBN 978-0-7391-7430-2.)
Timothy H. Sherwood, a priest of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Florida,
views the post–World War II era as one of extremes, stretching the “emotional
limits of the human psyche” (p. 3). The postwar era, following the Great Depression and more than five years of conflict in Europe, the Pacific, and North Africa,
had taken its toll. Americans, enjoying the flight to the suburbs, increasing affluence, and the good life in general, into which the baby boomers were born, just as
quickly, were confronted with the nuclear arms race, the cold war, and rising religious indifference. Citing Life magazine as a source, the author notes the publication’s choice of three religious leaders who rose in defense: Archbishop Fulton J.
Sheen, Dr. Billy Graham, and Dr. Norman Vincent Peale.
Peale made people feel good about themselves; Graham preached an evangelical conversion bringing people to Christ; and Sheen served as an intellectual apologist, whose powers of reason confronted movements and individuals who threatened religious faith, democracy, and the American way of life. Each had his own
particular audience, but all, according to Sherwood, answered the fundamental
fears weighing on American hearts.
Such is not to say that the pastor of New York City’s Marble Collegiate
Church, America’s itinerant minister, and the then-auxiliary bishop of New York
and national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith had volumes
in common; take, for example, Peale’s famous 1960 petition highly questioning the
suitability of one professing the Roman Catholic faith to occupy the presidential
office or the statement of Graham in his autobiography, Just As I Am (San Francisco, 1997), that his admiration for much of Catholicism did not preclude his disagreements with many of its doctrines. Nonetheless, each used his rhetorical ability
to a similar end as far as modern culture was concerned, and it is the author’s contention that in this vein, all three made great strides in calming fears and strengthening character.
Sherwood’s argument is an interesting one, and he well substantiates his
premises. Whether it be a voice of reason, an evangelical fervor, or a fiery populism,
America was surely covered in the face of adversity.
Mount Saint Mary’s Seminary
Emmitsburg, MD

CHARLES P. CONNOR

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The Rise and Fall of Triumph: The History of a Radical Roman Catholic Magazine,
1966–1976. By Mark D. Popowski. (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. 2012.
Pp. xxvi, 254. $90.00. ISBN 978-0-7391-6981-0.)
In recent years, historians have been usefully employing the concept of “print
culture.” That makes sense. Printed and other literate sources have long been the
foundation for studying the past, and it is only a short step from mining these for
specific information to wondering what their very form, existence, and extent
might tell us. By the middle of the twentieth century, print was everywhere, and
the systems for producing it and making it accessible were highly developed. The
need to appeal to a range of tastes—high-brow, low-brow, middle-brow—meant
that publications proliferated, and the trend was especially noticeable among religions, which had both specific motives for spreading their message and welldefined audiences for consuming it.
Mark Popowski contributes to this interest in the culture of print among
American Catholics by looking at Triumph magazine, a very curious publication
indeed. It had a short but intense life. Established in 1966, it lasted barely a decade,
transformed first into a simple newsletter before going out of business altogether;
its peak circulation was only 28,000. It was, however, as Popowski insists, a “radical” publication, although not in the sense that that word was usually applied in the
1960s. It emerged from postwar political conservatism—one of its principals was
Brent Bozell, brother-in-law of William F. Buckley Jr. and cofounder with him of
the National Review—but it quickly broke with those forebears by staking out a
rigorously sectarian position. The problems of the United States would not be
solved by secular libertarianism or unrestrained capitalism. Nothing less than transforming the nation into a Catholic confessional state would do. All citizens had to
convert; the Church’s moral law had to become the civil law; and Christ (rather
than the people) had to be recognized as politically sovereign, acting through his
vicar on earth, the pope. In practical terms, Triumph’s editors and writers may as
well have been demanding that the sun come up in the west, but that neither
deterred them nor moderated their forceful, punch-in-the-nose style. The list of
wrongs to be righted in church and state was familiar, including civil rights legislation, the Second Vatican Council (which had “Protestantized” the Church), and
the emerging counter-culture.
Popowski catalogs all this from the pages of the magazine itself, and other
researchers will thus find a useful guide in pursuing their own particular interests.
(The editors even advised President Richard Nixon not to turn over the Watergate
tapes, for instance, although how that related to the establishment of Christ’s
kingdom on earth is a little hard to follow.) It would be difficult to argue that Triumph had any lasting impact, though it did help confirm the opinions of some
conservative Catholics in the era. Popowski avowedly sympathizes with much of
the magazine’s outlook, and this can lead to trouble. He anachronistically applies
the term pro-life to a time well before it entered the public vocabulary, and he
refers to efforts to liberalize abortion law as coming from the “anti-life movement”

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(p. 210). This kind of editorializing, entirely expected from the magazine itself, is
inappropriate for a historian. Still, those looking for 1960s radicalism different
from the usual kind will find here an example to be incorporated into the larger
story of the times.
JAMES M. O’TOOLE

Boston College

LATIN AMERICAN
Sin and Confession in Colonial Peru: Spanish-Quechua Penitential Texts, 1560–1650.
By Regina Harrison. [Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Series in Latin American and Latino Art and Culture.] (Austin: University of Texas Press. 2014.
Pp. xvi, 310. $60.00. ISBN 978-0-292-75309-9.)
In this book, Regina Harrison sets out to study the implementation of the
sacrament of confession during the first 100 years of Spanish presence in Peru.
Given the linguistic and cultural barriers separating Europeans from Andeans, how
the main tenets of Catholicism were transmitted to the indigenous people of the
Andes is a crucial question that this study intends to address. The author also asks
if the teaching of the Christian doctrine involved the erasure of Andean religion
and worldview, or if indigenous Andean religious concepts persisted, and emerged
either voluntarily or involuntarily during confession.
Harrison has used a range of works such as confessionals, catechisms, books
of sermons, and Quechua dictionaries to analyze how missionaries transformed the
meaning of Quechua words to facilitate the transmission of the Christian doctrine
and moral principles to both their Andean pupils and fellow missionaries. In the
introduction, the author asserts that she will examine “the lived experience of the
Quechua language in its colonial context and contemporary usage” (p. 18) and that
in her study “the particularities of the Andean context are drawn from the ecclesiastic literature, mainly from the confession manuals, and compared to the practices
and models developed within European circumstances” (p. 3).
The book consists of an introduction, six chapters, and a conclusion. The first
chapter discusses the concepts of confession and restitution, focusing on the ideas
that fray Bartolomé de las Casas voiced about how Spaniards, if they aspired to be
saved, were compelled to compensate the indigenous people of the Americas for
the abuses, losses, and thefts committed against them. In chapter 2, the author
explores the itinerary of the concept of confession from its Christian beginnings, to
the practice some Spanish observers identified in the Andes and interpreted as
analogous to the Christian ritual, to its actual implementation as a sacrament in the
colonial Andes. The problem of translation, the writing of Quechua dictionaries by
Spanish missionaries, and the exploration of the wide semantic field of the concept
of sin are examined in chapter 3. Out of the Ten Commandments, Harrison has
chosen the first (idolatry), sixth (sexuality), and seventh (theft), which she studies
in chapters 4, 5, and 6 respectively.

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Harrison’s work raises important questions about the spread of Christian ideas
in the Andes and about how such ideas interacted with Andean behaviors and
values. Readers are presented with careful examinations of a few terms but are often
left wondering how representative are the examples used. Within the historical literature on the subject of this book, establishing a dialogue with the work of Jean
Delumeau, L’Aveu et le Pardon (Paris, 1992), and that of Osvaldo Pardo, The Origins of Mexican Catholicism (Ann Arbor, 2004), would have helped putting the
issues studied by this book within a wider perspective. The book seems guided by
the assumption that the experience of all indigenous men and women tended to be
uniform and that to an extent, their lives had little to do with those of others. Comparisons with other works on sexuality in the colonial Andes dealing with people of
other ethnic and social backgrounds, like the already classical study by María
Emma Mannarelli, Private Passions and Public Sins (Albuquerque, 2007), could
have yielded productive conclusions. Sin and Confession deals with a subject both
intriguing and difficult to investigate, and should stimulate future studies on the
crucial process of conversion to Christianity in the Andes.
University of Cambridge

GABRIELA RAMOS

Aztecs on Stage: Religious Theater in Colonial Mexico. Edited by Louise M. Burkhart.
Translated from the Nahuatl by Louise M. Burkhart, Barry D. Sell, and
Stafford Poole. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 2011. Pp. ix, 233.
$24.95 paperback. ISBN 978-0-8061-4209-8.)
This work was planned as an introduction—and an invitation—to approach an
extensive compilation and translation of material on the presentation of Nahuatl
(Aztec) theater during the colonial era. The assembly was edited by a group of prominent North American specialists, including senior editor Louise Burkhart (professor
of anthropology at University at Albany, SUNY). The collection comprises four volumes, published between 2004 and 2009. In Aztecs on Stage six selections were made
from the four volumes; these are conveniently presented only in translation from
Nahuatl to English. This shows the reader the richness of the indigenous theatrical
phenomenon, which perhaps began to develop from the third decade of the sixteenth
century, although the oldest known dated piece is from 1590.
The six texts are accompanied by a very helpful general introduction and reading and pronunciation guides. Also included is an appendix that lists the twenty-two
or twenty-three surviving theatrical works, providing the title (original or arbitrary),
the thematic type, the place of origin, the author or copyist when known, the location where the manuscript is presently housed, and information on its publication.
Aztecs on Stage fulfills the basic purpose of its editors and translators; it creates
a starting point from which members of the nonspecialist public can gain access to
one of the least-known aspects of colonial Nahuatl culture. The book shows the
surprising richness of the potential topics that can be investigated. It also opens a
kind of “menu” that makes it possible for a reader with more specialized interests

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to access the multivolume magnum opus, where each theatrical piece is presented
with its corresponding text in Nahuatl and copious explanatory notes. Aztecs on
Stage is a worthwhile preliminary guide to the more extensive work. Its introduction very successfully synthesizes the substantive subjects of Nahuatl theater that
are analyzed in the four earlier volumes.
The main thrust of the authors’ effort in this publication, which is intensified
in the previous compilations, is to publicize the principal colonial Nahuatl theatrical works in English. Now we have a reasonable corpus that allows us to analyze this
artistic phenomenon in depth and with certainty. Moreover, within the expressive
richness of the texts per se, we find other issues that are well worth considering.
These writings can help us better to understand, for example, the reception of
Christianity within the Nahua settlements in central Mexico and the assimilation
of elements of the old cosmovision, which is one of the most complex aspects of
the Indochristian culture in New Spain. For obvious reasons, such elements do not
create their own discourses within theatrical works. On account of their contexts,
we are more likely to encounter these views as brief, intriguing references. We find,
for example, links between the figure of Jesus Christ and the ancient solar cults.
Another aspect that we can now study in more detail is the topics that were
chosen as representative of the scenarios. Thanks to the useful appendix, we can see
that the types of themes are varied, with the histories of the Passion of Jesus Christ
predominating for highly justifiable reasons. The authors explain the success of
portrayals of the Epiphany—the adoration of the Child Jesus by the wise men—
because of their association with images of the ancestral nobles and indigenous
rulers (the pipiltin and the tlatocáyotl) who were owed respect from their subjects
(pp. 82–83).
A final significant contribution is that the authors of this great compilation
have dedicated each of the volumes to the Mexican expert Fernando Horcasitas
Pimentel (1924–80), who in 1974 provided a seminal work on the theater of New
Spain that is tremendously useful. Later, in 2004, María Stern and associates edited
a second volume that contains his unpublished material, accompanied by translations and critical studies. The work of maestro Horcasitas has been an inspiration
and a guide for those who are interested in the first theater of the Americas.
Centro de Estudios Históricos
El Colegio Mexiquense, A.C.
Zinacantepec, Mexico

XAVIER NOGUEZ
(ENGLISH TRANS. MERIDETH PAXTON)

The Art of Professing in Bourbon Mexico: Crowned-Nun Portraits and Reform in the
Convent. By James M. Córdova. (Austin: University of Texas Press. 2014. Pp.
xx, 252. $55.00. ISBN 978-0-292-75315-0.)
James M. Córdova’s clear and concise monograph examines an art form
unique to late-colonial Mexico: portraits of nuns crowned with flowers at the time
of their profession. The crowned-nun portraits of New Spain had Old-World pre-

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cursors, particularly paintings of venerable deceased nuns with floral arrangements
in Golden Age Spain. But the New-World portraits differed from their European
antecedents in two important ways. First, they depicted nuns upon their profession
rather than their death. Second, they represented a range of nuns, not just abbesses
and nuns renowned for their sanctity.
The first half of the book investigates the iconography of the crowned-nun
portraits. Córdova argues that paintings portrayed nuns as brides of Christ and
exemplars of the monastic discipline prescribed by their religious orders. Intricate
flower arrangements recalled the virtues of purity, virginity, and saintliness. Somber,
nondescript backgrounds emphasized withdrawal from the world. The crownednun portraits, like most portraits of the age, highlighted social position rather than
individual character. The author concedes that imagery contained in the portraits
mostly derives from a traditional European-Christian artistic repertoire. He does
argue, however, that inclusion of birds, butterflies, and some floral elements
stemmed from pre-Hispanic traditions. Córdova concludes that this indigenous
iconography carried no subversive content and that nuns, patrons, and artists must
have viewed these elements as local expressions of orthodox Catholic symbols.
Córdova’s most significant contribution comes when he places the crownednun portraits into the context of the Bourbon Reforms of the late-eighteenth century. Beginning in the 1760s, reforming bishops in New Spain attempted to transform the viceroyalty’s convents. For much of the colonial period, women religious
had lived in what was termed the private life. They controlled their own funds,
lived in large individual cells with female family members and maids, and interacted frequently with the laity (although separated by a grille) in convert parlors.
The bishops imposed the common life on convents—requiring the expulsion of
family members, the end to individual funds and cells, and in general a more austere life within the cloister. Córdova notes a marked increase in the production of
crowned-nun portraits during the reform period and afterward and argues that
families commissioned these paintings to depict their daughters as ideal nuns and
to proclaim the validity of local female monastic practices.
Last, Córdova inserts crowned-nun portraits into a larger colonial debate
about the inferior nature of the Americas. Beginning in the sixteenth century Spanish authors claimed that the natural environment of the Americas debilitated its
inhabitants, rendering them torpid and inferior to Europeans. Creoles (Spaniards
born in the New World) countered this discourse on multiple fronts, for example,
exalting the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe as a singular blessing for New
Spain. Córdova insists that crowned-nun portraits, by proclaiming the remarkable
virtues of New Spain’s nuns, also contested derogatory views of the New World
and expressed Creole patriotism.
This is a clearly written and argued book. It would have been ideal, however,
if the author had expanded on the implications of the portraits’ placement, which
Córdova suggests was within the home of the depicted nun’s family, for their social

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function. Given their placement within the home, did the portraits speak more
forcefully to family pride than to colonial identity? Despite this quibble, this fine
monograph will appeal to art and religious historians of colonial Latin America.
College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University

BRIAN LARKIN

Jesuit Student Groups, the Universidad Iberoamericana, and Political Resistance in
Mexico, 1913–1979. By David Espinosa. (Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press. 2014. Pp. xii, 196. $55.00. ISBN 978-0-8263-5460-0.)
When Pope Leo XIII issued his encyclical Rerum Novarum, he invited Roman
Catholics to engage their faith in the sociopolitical sphere. In Mexico, this invitation was accepted by many middle-class Catholics disillusioned with the anticlericalism that had marked their nation’s political evolution in the nineteenth century.
It first coalesced in an organization called the Mexican Catholic Youth Association
(ACJM), under the tutelage of French-born Jesuit Bernardo Bergöend. On the
other side of the bloody Cristero Rebellion (1927–29), it expressed itself in the
National Catholic Student Union (UNEC), which flourished in the mid-1930s in
the face of resurgent governmental anticlericalism and controversial socialist and
sexual education initiatives. It led ultimately, according to David Espinosa, to the
creation of Mexico’s Jesuit Universidad Iberoamerica.
Above all, Espinosa’s insightful book is a methodical history of Mexico’s premiere Catholic institution of higher learning, which drew upon the energy of the
UNEC early in the 1940s. Iberoamericana had tenuous beginnings at a time when
the national government exercised a near-monopoly on higher education through
its domineering National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Aided by
a sympathetic UNAM rector, Rodolfo Brito Foucher, Iberoamerica began merely
as UNAM’s University Cultural Center, but over time evolved into a full-fledged
and dynamic university that has educated much of the nation’s contemporary political elite. Espinosa walks the reader through this evolution, tracing its financial difficulties in the forties and fifties, and the remedy of aligning with Mexico’s private
sector powerbrokers. He overviews Iberoamericana’s innovative curriculum and the
way in which that pro-business curriculum was challenged and modified in the
wake of the Second Vatican Council and the advent of liberation theology in the
1960s. Progressive Jesuits altered the social science programs and opened a dialogue
with Mexico’s Marxists in that decade, which closed with the repression of a
national student movement that affected organizational life at Iberoamericana into
the early 1970s.
This is an excellent book, although not without shortcomings. The author
tends to lose focus as he backs into his topic in the first couple of chapters. The
second chapter in particular, which supposedly addresses the evolution of the
ACJM preparatory to the creation of the Universidad Iberoamericana, instead
slides into a predictable rehash of the Cristero Rebellion with nothing fresh—
indeed, it confirms the masterful treatment of the topic by David Bailey, who

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mined the National League for the Defense of Religious Liberty archive more than
forty years ago (Bailey’s classic Viva Cristo Rey [Austin, TX, 1974] is also missing
from the bibliography). One wishes that, instead of such a distant backtracking into
historical preliminaries, Espinosa had branched out in his mid-twentieth-century
narrative to explore the formulation and struggles of Mexico’s other great Catholicinspired institution of higher education, the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara. He alludes to the UAG on occasion, but does not tap into this enticing possibility for comparative analysis. Although he allows the momentous changes of the
Second Vatican Council and the 1968 meeting of the Episcopal Conference of
Latin America at Medellín, Colombia, to reverberate within his story, he neglects
to address some of the countercurrents in the Church. Admittedly the documentary trail of Opus Dei, for example, is hard to come by—but it and other traditionalist movements at least deserved mention, their influence on the Church in
Mexico being by all accounts acute. Still, these and lesser problems notwithstanding, Espinosa’s work is enlightening. It will be of interest to students of higher education, contemporary Mexican politics, university administrative history, student
activism, and Roman Catholicism in Mexico.
Wright State University

.
.

JOHN W. SHERMAN

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BRIEF NOTICE
Shamir, Avner. Christian Conceptions of Jewish Books: The Pfefferkorn Affair.
(Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. 2011. Pp. 130. $22.00 paperback.
ISBN 978-87-635-0772-1.)
This slender, well-constructed volume engages the relatively well-discussed
theme of the Reuchlin-Pfefferkorn Affair. Rather than focus on the details of the
literary and political debate that pitted the German humanist Johannes Reuchlin
and Jew-turned-Christian Johannes Pfefferkorn or the traditional themes of reform
within the Church and anti-Judaism, Avner Shamir evaluates the confiscation of
Jewish books for what it can tell us about how individuals and institutions “conceptualized, understood, related to and evaluated forms of knowledge and aspects of
knowledge (truth, revelation, and authority)” (p. 10). Shamir asserts that the various Christian authorities consulted understood Jewish books within the context of
broader views on scholarship, orthodoxy, and heresy. Accordingly, the development of Christian Hebraica and the process of censorship are given a good deal of
attention. The discussions around the confiscations also reveal a range of internal
Christian religious and political agendas, and in the conclusion, Shamir outlines
various “readings” of Jewish books by the various protagonists in his account. The
volume offers a useful historiographical overview of the Pfefferkorn Affair, the
imperial mandates (scope and implementation) issued in relation to the confiscation campaign, and the specific Jewish books that were targeted and for what purposes. In all, this is an engaging and rich study in which the author asks provocative
questions and draws some useful conclusions. It does not add a great deal to the
body of literature on the subject, but it does suggest a new approach and reinforces
the notion that this event, like all historical events, needs to be placed into a broad
and comparative context. It reveals that relations between Jews and Christians form
a complex problem that have to do both with Jewish and Christian interactions as
well as internal Jewish and Christian concerns. DEAN PHILIP BELL (Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies, Chicago)

Notes and Comments
ASSOCIATION NEWS
The next annual meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association is
scheduled for January 7–10, 2016, in Atlanta, Georgia. The program committee,
chaired by Martin Menke (Rivier University), is accepting proposals for panels,
roundtable discussions, and individual papers. Each proposal should include the
full names of the presenter(s), institutional affiliation, email address, title of the
presentation, a 250-word prospectus for each panel or individual paper, and a curriculum vitae of each presenter. The deadline is April 15, 2015. For complete
details, visit http://www.achahistory.org.
At ACHA’s annual meeting in New York on January 3, 2015, the following
awards and prizes were announced with their citations:
The 2014 John Gilmary Shea Book Prize
John W. O’Malley, Trent: What Happened at the Council
The John Gilmary Shea Book Prize is given annually to the author of a book,
published during a preceding twelve-month period, which is judged by a committee of experts to have made the most original and distinguished contribution to
knowledge of the history of the Catholic Church. In making its selection for 2014,
the committee noted: “Some books interest only specialists, some cater only to a
general audience; rare is the book that can satisfy the stringent demands of specialists and at the same time prove enlightening and engrossing to a wider reading
public. John W. O’Malley’s Trent: What Happened at the Council is such a book.
With a clarity and grace that make it a joy to read and a scholarly precision and
richness that make it useful to experts, Father O’Malley’s Trent provides the first
one-volume overview in English and, in fact, the best in any language, of one of the
most complicated and crucial events in Catholic religious history, laying out not
only what happened at the Council, as the book’s title promises, which would be
challenging enough because of the Council’s eighteen-year history, but also the
long, intricate prehistory of the Council and, in masterful epilogue, the Council’s
impact, successes, and failures. This is a book that will endure, be cited by historians, quoted by many because of its apt phrasing, and enjoyed by students, scholars,
and educated readers for a long time to come.”
John Monfasani, chair, University at Albany, SUNY
Liam Matthew Brockey, Michigan State University
Thomas Rzeznik, Seton Hall University
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The 2014 Harry C. Koenig Book Prize for Catholic Biography
Robert Ventresca, Soldier for Christ: The Life of Pius XII
The Harry C. Koenig Book Prize for Catholic Biography is awarded every
two years, recognizing an outstanding biography of a member of the Catholic
Church who lived in any age or country. The prize committee has selected Robert
Ventresca’s Soldier for Christ: The Life of Pius XII as the inaugural recipient of the
Koenig award for Catholic biography. Commenting on Dr. Ventresca’s work, the
selection committee stated that “here is a scholar who has produced a well written,
fair account that gives the best insight into one of the longest pontificates in the
20th century. The writing is scholarly yet effortless and engaging, presenting different views on Pacelli with as much objectivity as possible. Readers will appreciate
the emotional intelligence that Ventresca brings to reading Pius’s personality.”
Ulrich Lehner, Marquette University
Ulrike Wiethaus, Wake Forest University
Charles Gallagher, Boston College
The 2014 Howard R. Marraro Book Prize
Daniel Stolzenberg, Egyptian Oedipus: Athanasius Kirchner and the Secrets of
Antiquity
The 2014 recipient of the Marraro prize, given for a distinguished work in
Italian history, is Dr. Daniel Stolzenberg for Egyptian Oedipus: Athanasius Kirchner
and the Secrets of Antiquity. In announcing its decision, the Marraro Prize Committee noted, “In this carefully researched and skillfully argued book, Stolzenberg provides both an in-depth analysis of Athanasius Kirchner’s work on Egyptian hieroglyphics, and an explanation for the book’s popularity for over a century after its
publication. By meticulously re-creating the intellectual milieu of 17th-century
Europe, the author demonstrates how, even in its fundamental unreliability, Egyptian Oedipus reflected important intellectual trends, combining both the past and the
future of European scholarship.”
Valerie Ramseyer, Wellesley College
ACHA representative to the national Marraro Prize Committee
The 2014 Peter Guilday Prize
Anette Lippold, “Sisterly Advice and Eugenic Education: The Katholische Deutsche
Frauenbund and German Catholic Marriage Counseling in the 1920s and 1930s”
The Peter Guilday Prize for 2014 is given to Anette Lippold for her article
titled “Sisterly Advice and Eugenic Education: The Katholische Deutsche Frauenbund and German Catholic Marriage Counseling in the 1920s and 1930s.” Based
on extensive work in the Freiburg archive of the German Catholic Caritas Association and in the Cologne archive of the German Catholic Women’s Confederation, this article by Ms. Lippold demonstrates that the claims of scholars such as
Ingrid Richter and Annette Timm that the Catholic Church in Weimar and Nazi
Germany was no bulwark against eugenics need to be qualified.

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Whereas some Catholic theologians such as Hermann Muckermann held that
eugenics was based on science and compatible with Christian ethics, and they supported the National Socialists’ concern for physical and genetic health, not all
Catholic organizations fell in line with their views. The Frauenbund, founded in
1903 and led by laywomen, initially resisted the secular municipal counseling services that dispensed birth control, sex education, and eugenic propaganda, but
instead put its emphasis on offering sisterly advice that provided spiritual and emotional guidance to Catholic women. A similar organization that was dominated by
clergy, the Caritas Association, tried to put marriage counseling in the hands of
trained medical professionals. The Frauenbund’s leadership deftly resisted the
German bishops’ efforts to take administrative control of marriage counseling services. The bishops felt that medical professionals would be more effective at discouraging contraception, abortion, and eugenic sterilization. But the Frauenbund’s
leaders insisted that they had important services to offer, and they opposed the
emphasis on eugenics promoted by some clergy and theologians who tried to get
around the teachings of Pius XI’s encyclical Casti Connubii (1930). The Frauenbund held that an experienced woman and mother who offered holistic guidance
had an important role in marriage counseling and that the emphasis was misplaced
on trying to prevent certain practices.
In a time of changing moral standards and of clerical leadership that put
emphasis on condemning practices it considered at variance with Christian marriage, a group of independent-minded laywomen insisted that sisterly-dispensed
advice that addressed deeper concerns was at least an equally important element in
effective marriage counseling. Historians are indebted to Ms. Lippold for her
recovery of the story of the Frauenbund’s struggle during the turbulent decades of
Weimar and Nazi Germany, and it is therefore a pleasure to confer on her the Peter
Guilday Prize for her first scholarly publication.
Nelson H. Minnich, editor
The Catholic Historical Review
The 2014 John Tracy Ellis Dissertation Award
Emily Floyd, Tulane University
The John Tracy Ellis Dissertation Award memorializes the scholarship and
teaching of Monsignor John Tracy Ellis, ACHA officer for many years. Its purpose
is to assist a graduate student working on some aspect of the history of the Catholic
Church. The recipient for 2014 is Emily Floyd of Tulane University. The committee agreed that Ms. Floyd’s research on the devotional use of religiously themed
prints from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the Viceroyalty of Peru is
highly original and will likely produce important new understandings about “the
Catholic devotional practices of ordinary individuals” in the Spanish lands of the
New World. This proposal was outstanding for its clarity and organization in terms
of her scholarly agenda and also for the clarity and practicality of her plan of
research and her intended uses of the award. When complete, Ms. Floyd’s dissertation promises to be an example of the best kind of interdisciplinary effort, com-

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407

bining church history and the history of art in order to understand the lived experience of her subject population and the interconnections between their religious
and artistic experiences.
Mary E. Sommar, chair, University of Pennsylvania
Amy Koehlinger, Oregon State University
Magda Teter, Wesleyan University
2015 Award for Distinguished Scholarship
William Portier, University of Dayton
Professor William Portier earned his doctorate in theology from St. Michael’s
College, University of Toronto, in 1980, but his publishing career began in the previous decade and has not stopped. And while he has been an active member of the
American Catholic Historical Association, held office in the College
Theology Society, and is the current president of the Société d’Études sur
Alfred Loisy, it is for his scholarly contribution to Catholic scholarship that we
honor him today. William Portier has been a key player in the American Academy
of Religion’s working group on Roman Catholic modernism, which contributed
substantially to the development of the historical and theological threads surrounding “Americanism” and “modernism” in the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His Divided Friends: Portraits of the Roman Catholic Modernist Crisis in the
United States, published in 2014 by The Catholic University of America
Press, is the fruit of several key threads of his personal and scholarly interests for
decades. Divided Friends analyzes and links the historical and theological issues of
the four men in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries and unfolds
the deep personal toll on the people involved. Professor Portier earlier coedited
(with R. Scott Appleby and Patricia Byrne, C.S.J.) Creative Fidelity, American
Catholic Intellectual Traditions. The book, part of a trend-setting series, provides a
contextual framework and primary sources for the development of intellectual and
theological patterns in U.S. Catholicism through several centuries.
In addition to many chapters in books, the College Theology Society awarded
him with “Best Article, 1989” for his “The Future of Americanism: Two Generations of American Catholic Expansionism in Europe” in Rising from History: American Catholic Theology Looks to the Future, edited by Robert Daly, S.J. His articles
have appeared in many professional journals, including The Thomist, American
Catholic Studies, U.S. Catholic Historian, and Ecumenist, as well as in popular magazines such as U.S. Catholic and Commonweal.
Because of his record of publication in American Catholic history, his efforts
to demonstrate the importance of American Catholic history for contemporary
theology, and his role in the formation of a new generation of American Catholic
historical theologians, we believe William L. Portier is deserving of the ACHA’s
2015 Distinguished Scholar Award.

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2015 Award for Distinguished Teaching
Dennis R. Ryan, The College of New Rochelle
Professor Dennis R. Ryan has been a teacher at the College of New Rochelle
for over forty years now, beginning as an assistant professor of religious studies in
1971. Over the past four decades, his course offerings have varied from classes that
focus on the religious experiences of the East to morality and sexuality, death and
grieving, as well as Western cultural heritage—even freshmen writing. His classes
always fill up early and to capacity. Over the years he has challenged, enlightened,
and delighted his students with his teaching style as well as his knowledge. He is a
teacher’s teacher, prepared, dedicated, and engaging. His students admire and, yes,
they love him.
A sample of student comments from course evaluations reflect the love and
admiration his students have for this gifted teacher:
Dr. Ryan is an amazing instructor. He takes religion to another level; I have
never been more interested in my life.
Dr. Ryan is one of my favorite professors. I’ve learned more about religion in
this class than I have in all my years of studying my own religion. He is
knowledgeable, articulate, [and] enthusiastic. . . .
Professor Ryan is an amazing teacher always willing to answer questions. I
always leave his class with something new.
Dr. Ryan is extremely enjoyable and makes class fun. I like how he incorporates a variety of learning styles and offers different types of learning experiences. If I had the chance I’d like to take this class over; he brings excitement
to a classroom.
This is a very good professor. Not only did I learn more about my own religion,
I also learned about other religions. Now I better appreciate other religions.
The professor’s teaching made me a better man. This is my favorite class.
Dr. Ryan is an excellent teacher who not only teaches religion but allows you
to connect to the subject. He is also well informed in the subject he is teaching. He made the course very interesting.

It is for the dedication and commitment this professor has manifested over the
past forty years in the teaching profession that Dr. Dennis R. Ryan is the ACHA’s
Distinguished Teaching Award recipient for 2015.
2015 Award for Distinguished Service to Catholic Studies
The Institute of Jesuit Sources
Founded in 1961 as an apostolic work of the Missouri Province of the Society
of Jesus, The Institute of Jesuit Sources (IJS) began in response to the Second Vatican Council’s directive for religious orders and congregations to return to their
original charism. Over the past fifty years the Jesuits of the United States have been

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409

doing so, entrusting this work to its members of the Missouri Province. Through
the leadership of its first director, George Ganss, S.J. (1961–85), and his successor,
John Padberg, S.J. (1985–2014), the IJS has made available to an English-reading
audience documents and scholarly works concerning the Jesuits and their spirituality, especially those concerning the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola.
To date, the IJS has produced more than 117 publications, including several
in electronic media formats, and has become a resource on Jesuit and Ignatian history and spirituality for the whole English-speaking world. It has published works
translated into English from Chinese, French, Italian, Latin, Spanish, and Tamil.
Its publications, in turn, have so far been translated into Arabic, Chinese, French,
Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, and Ukrainian.
For the contribution the institute has made to the Church and the scholarly community in promoting Catholic spirituality, the American Catholic Historical Association is pleased to present its 2015 Award for Distinguished Service to Catholic Studies to the Institute of Jesuit Sources of the Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus
(accepted by John Padberg, S.J., director of the IJS from 1985 to 2014).

CAUSES OF SAINTS
On January 22, 2015, Pope Francis signed a decree recognizing the heroic
virtue of Father Aloysius Schwartz (1930–92), an American missionary priest in
South Korea and the Philippines who worked with orphan children. On February
3, 2015, the pope authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to promulgate decrees giving the title of Servant of God due to their martyrdoms to Oscar
Arnulfo Romero Galdamez (1917–80), archbishop of San Salvador, who was killed
in El Salvador for the faith on March 24, 1980; and to the two Polish Conventual
Franciscan friars Michal Tomaszek (1960–91) and Zbigniew Strazalkowski (1958–
91) and to the Italian diocesan priest Alessandro Dordi (1931–91), who were killed
by the Shining Path in Peru in hatred of the faith. The pope also declared a Servant
of God the Italian priest Giovanni Bacile (1880–1941). On March 18, 2015, Pope
Francis recognized a miracle attributed to the intercession of the parents of St.
Thérèse of Lisieux, Louis Martin (1832–94) and Marie-Azelie Guérin Martin
(1831–77). He also granted Servant of God status due to heroic virtues to
Francesco Gattola (1822–99), an Italian diocesan priest and founder of the Daughters of the Most Holy Immaculate Virgin of Lourdes; Petar Barbaric (1874–97), a
Jesuit novice from Bosnia-Herzegovina; Mary Aikenhead (1787–1858), foundress
of the Religious Sisters of Charity of Ireland; Elisa Baldo Foresti (1862-1926),
Italian widow and co-foundress of the Humble Servants of the Lord; Vicenta of the
Passion of the Lord (née Jadwiga Jaroszewska, 1900–37), Polish foundress of the
Benedictine Samaritan Sisters of the Cross of Christ; Juana of the Cross (née Juana
Vazquez Gutierrez, 1481–1534), Franciscan abbess of the convent of Santa Maria
de la Cruz in Cubas de la Sagra, Spain; and Maria Orsola Bussone (1954–70), Italian lay member of the Focolare Movement.

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CONFERENCES
On April 9, 2015, the Istituto Sangalli at Piazza San Firenze 3 in Florence
sponsored the interdisciplinary seminar “Miracoli di carta e miracoli dipinti: testi e
immagini del prodogioso in Italia tra XIV e XVII secolo.” Among the papers were
the following: “Miracoli quotidiani: libri di orazioni, fogli volanti e stampe” by
Marco Faini; “Icone sacre e Chiesa militante: miracoli nella Roma della Controriforma” by Alessia Lirosi; “Ha fatto molti diversi et evidenti miracoli: la lunga vita
del bambino di Babilonia (1319–1793)” by Lucio Biasiori; “Oggetti di pietà
domestica nella Napoli del Cinquecento” by Irene Galandra Cooper; “I miracoli
cinquecenteschi della Beata Vergine Maria della Chiesa del Soccorso di Rovigo” by
Alessia Meneghin; and “Ricostruire la topografia devozionale di un’immagine
miracolosa nell’Europa post-tridentina: il caso di san Domenico di Soriano” by
Laura Fenelli. For more information, visit http://www.istitutosangalli.it or contact
segreteria@istitutosangalli.it.
On April 9–11, 2015, the Calvin Studies Society Colloquium “Semper Reformanda: Calvin, Worship, and Reformed Traditions” was held at Calvin College in
Grand Rapids, Michigan. Among the papers was “Permeable Borders: Cross-Confessional Encounters and Traditions in Reformation Geneva” by Karin Maag. For
more information on the conference, visit http://www.CalvinStudiesSociety.org, or
contact Barbara Pitkin at pitkin@stanford.edu or David Foxgrover at dlfoxgrover@abcglobal.net.
On May 21–23, 2015, and on June 22–27, 2015, the Istituto per le scienze
religiose will host seminars at which Emidio Campi (Universität Zürich) will present a paper on “Percezioni dell’Islam nel cristianesimo europeo tra tardo medioevo
e prima età moderna” (May) and Jürgen Miethke (Universität Heidelberg) will talk
on “Chiesa conciliare: Texte zum Konziliarismus und zur Kirchenreform im 15.
Jahrhundert” (June).
On May 21, 2015, the Stephan Kuttner Institute of Medieval Canon Law at
Yale University will hold the conference “Rem non novam nec insolitam aggredimur.”
For more information, visit https://sites.google.com/site/remnonnovam/.
On June 8–10, 2015, the German Historical Institute in Rome and the
Facoltà Valdese di Teologia will cosponsor the conference “Martin Luther and the
Indulgence Controversy in 1517.” Robert N. Swanson’s keynote address will focus
on “The Challenge of Indulgences in the Pre-Reformation Medieval Church.”
Papers will include the following: Anna Esposito, “Il ruolo delle confraternite: l’esempio italiano”; Thomas M. Izbicki, “Canon Law and the Discussion of Indulgences at the Council of Basel”; Daniel Le Blevec, “Indulgences et quêtes, à propos
des oeuvres de pont de la vallée du Rhône”; Andreas Meyer, “Der Ablass vor der
päpstlichen Kanzlei: Beobachtungen zu den Beichtbriefen”; Diego Quaglioni,
“L’indulgenza nella prassi del diritto ca 1500”; Ludwig Schmugge, “Die Beichtbriefe der Pönitentiarie”; Robert W. Shaffern, “Tetzel and the Mendicant Orders”;

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411

and Elizabeth C. Tingle, “French Reactions to the 1517 Debate in Theory and
Practice.” Further information may be obtained at the German Historical Institute
Web site, http://dhi-roma.it
On June 18–20, 2015, in commemoration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of
the first “Attending to Early Modern Women” conference, the ninth gathering
under the title “It’s About Time” will meet at the School of Continuing Education
of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. The papers will focus on the themes of
taxonomies of time, commemorations, temporalities, and pedagogies. For more
information, visit http://www.atw2015.uwm.edu or contact the organizing chair
Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks at merrywh@uwm.edu.
On October 2–3, 2015, the Société canadienne d’histoire de l’Ėglise
catholique will hold its eighty-second congress in Québec on the theme of religious
culture and popular religion. Papers will focus on the Catholic dimension of québécoise culture, the cultural utilization of its Catholic patrimony, and popular manifestations of Catholicism. Paper proposals should be sent to Catherine Foisy at
foisy.catherine@uqam.ca.
On October 9–10, 2015, the University of Maryland–College Park will host
the medieval and early Renaissance conference “(Re)Building Networks.” Proposals for papers (a 250-word abstract) should be sent to rebuilding.networks@
umd.edu by April 3, 2015.
On January 7–10, 2016, the Society for Italian Historical Studies, in conjunction with the American Historical Association, will meet in Atlanta. Proposals for
papers should be sent to Steven Soper at ssoper@uga.edu before May 1, 2015.
On July 17–23, 2016, the XV International Congress of Medieval Canon Law
will be held at the Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris II). The deadline for proposals
is September 30, 2015; for further information, visit http://www.icmcl2016.org.

PUBLICATIONS
The first national seminar on “A Música na Província Portuguesa da Ordem
Franciscana” was held in Lisbon in May 2014. The papers presented there are now
published in Itinerarium: Revista Quadrimestral de Cultura (vol. LX [May–August
2014]),a periodical of the Franciscans of Portugal.
“Viaggiare a Roma tra la fine del medio evo e l’inizio dell’età moderna” is studied in four articles published in the first number for 2013 (vol. 125) of Mélanges de
l’École française de Rome, Moyen Âge. Following an introduction by Benjamin Weber
(pp. 5–11) are “Propter multos nostros contrarios: le dissavventure dei legati bulgari e
pontifici nei primi anni del tredicesimo secolo” by Francesco Dall’Aglio (pp. 13–
21); “Pellegrini ed atleti del Signore ai confini della cristianità: Skanderbeg, Stefano
III di Moldavia e le loro relazioni con Roma e Venezia” by Alexandru Simon (pp.

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NOTES AND COMMENTS

23–36); “Gli Etiopi a Roma nel Quattrocento: ambasciatori politici, negoziatori
religiosi o pellegrini?” by Benjamin Weber (pp. 37–44); and “Un intreccio complesso: il ricorso alla Sede Apostolica da parte dei fedeli del Nuovo Mondo: Prime
note su uno studio in corso” by Benedetta Albani (pp. 45–60).
“Érasmeet son heritage européen” is the theme of the following three articles
in the first number of the Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa for 2014 (vol. L):
Carlo Ossola, “Érasme et l’Europe: de Johan Huizinga à Marcel Bataillon” (pp. 49–
93); Maria-Cristina Pitassi, “Figures de l’Érasmisme dans le protestantisme du
XVIIe siècle: le cas de Pierre Bayle” (pp. 95–119); and Simona Munari, “L’Érasmisme dans la relecture du Siècle d’Or espagnol” (pp. 121–50).
Commemorating the restoration of the Society of Jesus in 1814, the contents
of Studies, An Irish Quarterly Review, for winter 2014/2015 (vol. 103, no. 412) consist entirely of articles on “The Jesuits in Ireland Before and After the Suppression.”
They are divided into the following four sections: I. Before the Suppression: “David
Rothe, the Jesuits and the Counter-Reformation in Ireland, 1600–40” by Stephen
Hand (pp. 393–401); “‘Uniting the Disparate Members’: the Annual Letters of the
Irish Jesuits, 1604–75” by Vera Orschel (pp. 402–13); “The Jesuits and Issues of
Political and Ecclesiastical Authority in Ireland, 1620–48” by Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin (pp. 414–27); “Michael Cantwell and the Pension of Cádiz: A Troubled
Irish Jesuit Career in 17th century Spain” by Cristina Bravo Lozano (pp. 428–46);
II. The Crisis: “From Expulsion to Restoration: The Jesuits in Crisis, 1759–1814”
by Maurice Whitehead (pp. 447–61); III. The Restored Society: “‘If You Knew the
World I Live In!’ Hopkins and University College” by Lesley Higgins and Noel
Barber, S.J. (pp. 462–72); “Pioneering Jesuit Irish Language Editors: Dinnean,
MacErlean and McGrath” by Deirdre Nic Mhathúna (pp. 473–84); “Patrick Dinneen: Lexicography and Legacy” by Alan Titley (pp. 485–98); “‘A Reverence Peculiarly Its Own: The Boys’ Chapel at Clongowes Wood College” by Caroline
Martha McGee (pp. 499–515); “Thomas Finlay and 20th Century Jesuit Journalism” by Declan O’Keefe (pp. 516–29); “Francis Shaw and the Historiography of
Easter 1916” by Patrick Maume (pp. 530–51); “Discerning the Spirits: The Irish
Jesuits and Political Violence, 1919–21” by Brian Heffernan (pp. 552–61);
“Richard Devane: Social Commentator in the Free State, 1920–51” by Martin
Walsh (pp. 562–73); “Social and Labour Issues in Jesuit Ministry” by Thomas J.
Morrissey, S.J. (pp. 574–85); and IV. Inner Life: “Jesuit Spirituality Before and
After the Suppression” by Brian O’Leary, S.J. (pp. 586–97).
Heft 4 for 2014 (vol. 65) of the Münchener Theologische Zeitschrift is devoted
“Zur Geschichte der Katholisch-Theologischen Fakultät der Universität München
und des Herzoglichen Georgianums im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert.” Among the articles published here are “Bildungs- und wissenschaftsgeschichte Entwicklungslinien
des Herzoglichen Georgianums in 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert” by Claudius
Stein (pp. 294–313); “Kardinal Faulhaber und das Herzogliche Georgianum.
Auszugsweise Edition der unveröffentlichen Georgianums-Geschichte von Direktor Eduard Weigl (1920–1939, 1945/46),” also by Claudius Stein (pp. 314–56);

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and “Die Schliessung und Wiedereröffnung der Theologischen Fakultät der Universität München und des Herzoglichen Georgianums in den Jahren 1939 und
1945/46” by Manfred Weitlauff (pp. 358–403).
The U.S. Catholic Historian in its issue for fall 2014 (vol. 32, no. 4) presents
seven articles under the heading “After Vatican II: Implementation and
Responses”: “The Dismissal of Father Charles Curran and the Catholic University
Strike, April 1967” by Peter M. Mitchell (pp. 1–26); “Priestly Celibacy and Identity: The Rocky Reception of Vatican II’s Presbyterorum Ordinis” by Robert L.
Anello, M.S.A. (pp. 27–53); “Instruments of Change: The Christian Brothers’
Catechetical Texts, 1943–1969” by Susan W. Baumert (pp. 55–76); “The Sounds
of Vatican II: Musical Change and Experimentation in Two U.S. Trappist Monasteries, 1965–1984” by Bradford Lee Eden (pp. 77-97); “Black Power, Vatican II,
and the Emergence of Black Catholic Liturgies” by Matthew J. Cressler (pp. 99–
119); “Obedience, Responsibility, and Freedom: Anita M. Caspary, IHM, and the
Post-Conciliar Renewal of Catholic Women Religious” by Susan M. Maloney,
S.N.J.M. (pp. 121–49); and “‘Woman—Go Forth!’ Catholic Women’s Organizations and Their Clergy Advisors in the Era of the ‘Emerging Laywoman’” by Mary
J. Henold (pp. 151–73).
The life of Polykarp Zakar (1930–2012), the Hungarian Abbot General of the
Cistercian order (1985–95) and abbot of Zirc (1997–2011), is treated in six brief
articles in volume LXIII (2013) of Analecta Cisterciensia (pp. 3–26). After these
articles is an article, “Our Common Beginnings: 900 Years Ago” (pp. 27–36),
which Zakar wrote for the privately published commemorative volume Cistercians
in Texas: The 1998 Jubilee.
In its issue for fall 2014, the Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly commemorates the sesquicentennial of the founding of Concordia University Chicago (in
River Grove, Illinois), which the Missouri Synod launched as a seminary for teachers in Addison, Illinois. Six articles treat the history of the institution (pp. 4–61).

Periodical Literature
GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
Le Dictionnaire d’Histoire et de Géographie Ecclésiastiques: Bilan 2006–2013 et perspectives. Jacques Pycke. Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique, 109 (July–Dec.,
2014), 874–95.
Catálogo de los pergaminos del Archivo de la Catedral de Murcia. Isabel García
Díaz and Juan Antonio Montalbán. Carthaginensia, XXX (Jan.–June, 2014),
89–176.
Il martirologio tra memoria e profezia di santità. Maurizio Barba. Ephemerides
Liturgicae, CXXVIII (July–Sept., 2014), 278–91.
Les martyrologes manuscrits des anciens Bollandistes et leur dispersion: à propos
d’un exemplaire retrouvé à Cambridge. François Dolbeau. Analecta Bollandiana, 132 (Dec., 2014), 290–305.
Come fiori tra le fronde. La posizione dei Protomartiri francescani nell’Albero serafico. Giuseppe Cassio. Franciscan Studies, 72 (2014), 73–106.
Algunas notas sobre la iglesia de San Juan Bautista de Elche, sus fábricas y ajuares.
Alejandro Cañestro Donoso. Carthaginensia, XXX (Jan.–June, 2014), 193–
219.
Du Livre de la Prière Commune à Common Worship. La tradition de la prière commune dans l’Église d’Angleterre, 1549–2014. Natacha-Ingrid Tinteroff.
Revue d’Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses, 94 (Oct.–Dec., 2014), 407–24.
The Role of Catholicism in the Development of Lithuanian National Identity.
Miranda Zapor Cruz. Church History & Religious Culture, 94 (4, 2014), 479–
504.
Reglamentos Escolares de la Escuela Pía de Catalunya (1694–1931). Joan Florensa.
Archivum Scholarum Piarum, XXXVIII (2014), 65–130.
Humanitarian Action: The Joint Church Aid and Health Care Intervention in the
Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967–1970. Arna Oko Omaka. Canadian Journal of History, 49 (Winter, 2014), 423–47.
Le dialogue luthérien-orthodoxe de 2004 à 2014. Risto Saarinen. Istina, LIX
(Oct.–Dec., 2014), 367–85.
Secularization: The birth of a modern combat concept. Ian Hunter. Modern Intellectual History, 12 (Apr., 2015), 1–32.

414

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

415

ANCIENT
Cinquant’anni di Vetera Christianorum e di ricerca anticocristianistica in Italia.
Manlio Simonetti. Vetera Christianorum, 50 (2013), 5–44.
Le origini della chiesa di Roma in contesto: alcuni elementi di riflessione.
Emanuela Prinzivalli. Vetera Christianorum, 50 (2013), 275–300.
La successione petrina del Vescovo di Roma. Ricerca storico-archeologica sul martirio e la sepoltura di San Pietro in Vaticano. Michele Basso. Divinitas, LVII
(3, 2014), 247–347.
La data del martirio di Paolo di Tarso nella Lettera ai Corinti di Clemente romano.
Vittorio Capuzza. Antonianum, LXXXIX (Oct.–Dec., 2014), 561–70.
Compiling Narratives: The Visual Strategies of Early Christian Visual Art. Robin
M. Jensen. Journal of Early Christian Studies, 23 (Spring, 2015), 1–26.
Voluntary Martyrdom and Gnosticism. Philip L. Tite. Journal of Early Christian
Studies, 23 (Spring, 2015), 27–54.
Où en est la question du judéo-christianisme ancien? Présentation de quelques
publications récentes. Jean-Marie Auwers. Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique, 109
(July–Dec., 2014), 857–74.
“Unitas ex Africa: Was Tertullian the Orgio of Imperial Unification?” E. T. Walters.
American Journal of Ancient History, 6–8 (2007–2009) [2013], 25–65.
“Vedere” la Parola: alle origini dell’iconografia Cristiana. Appunti per la riconsiderazione di una fonte documentaria. Gabriele Pelizzari. Cristianesimo nella
storia, 35 (3, 2014), 715–45.
Lo sguardo della fanciulla. Ritratti e fisionomie nella pittura catacombale. Fabrizio
Bisconti. Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana, LXXXIX (2013), 53–84.
Praying to the Holy Spirit in Early Christianity. Boris Paschke. Tyndale Bulletin,
64 (2, 2013), 299–316.
Origen’s Veils: The Askēsis of Interpretation. Susanna Drake. Church History, 83
(Dec., 2014), 815–42.
The Genos of Demons and ‘Ethnic’ Identity in Eusebius’ ‘Praeparatio Evangelica’.
Hazel Johannessen. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 66 (Jan., 2015), 1–18.
Il battesimo a Torino nel IV secolo secondo le testimonianze letterarie e archeologiche. Luigi Cervellin. Archivio Teologico Torinese, 20 (1, 2014), 196–210.
Amphilochius of Iconium and Lycaonian Asceticism. Peter Thonemann. Journal of
Roman Studies, 101 (2011), 185–205.
Los mártires africanos y san Agustín. Guillermo Pons Pons. Revista Agustiniana,
LV (May–Aug., 2014), 373–409.
Was Priscillian a Modalist Monarchian? Tarmo Toom. Harvard Theological
Review, 107 (Oct., 2014), 470–84.

416

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Ditches of destruction—Cyril of Alexandria and the rhetoric of public security.
Maijastina Kahlos. Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 107 (Dec., 2014), 659–90.
Leo the Great and the social background of the Italian episcopate. Norman W.
James. Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia, LXVIII (Jan.–June, 2014), 3–9.
El simbolismo de la montaña en la configuración de la imagen del monje como
theios aner en Teodoreto de Ciro. Ramón Teja and Silvia Acerbi. Cristianesimo
nella storia, 35 (3, 2014), 747–64.
Die Taufe in Rom nach den frühen römischen Märtyrerlegenden. Stefan Heid.
Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana, LXXXIX (2013), 217–52.
Xystus episcopus plebi Dei. La “solidarietà semantica” dell’arte romana “in parietibus”
e dell’arte irlandese “in codicibus” focale della rinascenza carolingia (e del linguaggio figurativo europeo). Silvana Casartelli Novelli. Rivista di Archeologia
Cristiana, LXXXIX (2013), 9–50.
Le ossa dei santi Canziani. Andrea Tilatti. Cristianesimo nella storia, 35 (3, 2014),
765–86.
Césaire d’Arles (470–542): Prêcher l’ascèse aux laïcs. Isabelle Peree. Studia Monastica, 56 (1, 2014), 7–36.
Per una ricostruzione del Calendario Italico nel Martirologio geronimiano. Luca
Avellis. Vetera Christianorum, 50 (2013), 155–95.
Malattia, salute, salvezza nei Dialogi di Gregorio Magno. Angela Laghezza. Vetera
Christianorum, 50 (2013), 197–211.
Organización eclesiástica y social en la Galicia tardoantigua. Una perspectiva
geográfico-arqueológica del Parroquial Suevo. José Carlos Sánchez Pardo.
Hispania Sacra, 66 (2014), 439–80.
Chiese battesimali rurali dell’arcipelago dalmata. Josipa Baraka Perica. Rivista di
Archeologia Cristiana, LXXXIX (2013), 119–68.
Reliquie e patroni ai confine orientali della Venetia. Giuseppe Cuscito. Rivista di
Archeologia Cristiana, LXXXIX (2013), 189–216.
Evergetism among the Bishops of Hispania between the Sixth and Seventh Centuries: A Dialogue between Archaeological and Documentary Sources. Maria
de los Angeles Utrero and Francisco José Moreno Martín. Journal of Early
Christian Studies, 23 (Spring, 2015), 97–131.

MEDIEVAL
Vada Sabatia: dati a confronto per nuove ipotesi sulla cristianizzazione del Ponente
ligure. Gabriele Castiglia. Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana, LXXXIX (2013),
169–88.
Graeca non cantantur? Lingua Graeca quomodo in liturgiis Occidentalibus sit
adhibita. Andreas Weckwerth. Latomus, 73 (Sept., 2014), 775–87.

PERIODICAL L ITERATURE

417

Miniature diptych from Jerusalem. Yana Tchekhanovets. Byzantinische Zeitschrift,
107 (Dec., 2014), 893–902.
Peregrinatio e peregrinus tra fonti letterarie latine e irlandesi. Lucia Maria Mattia
Olivieri. Vetera Christianorum, 50 (2013), 301–12.
The Mass Pericopes for Saint Arnulf’s Day from the Drogo Sacramentary. Corey
M. Nason. Revue Bénédictine, 124 (Dec., 2014), 298–324.
Antecedentes del clericalismo y anticlericalismo en España (De Nerón a Carlos
III). Una introducción (III). La Hispania musulmana. Victor Manuel Arbeloa. Lumen, LXXIII (Apr.–Sept., 2014), 123–56.
Reconstrucción del breviario hispano-mozárabe. Tiempo de Cuaresma—I. Gabriel
Ramis Miquel. Anthologica Annua, 58 (2011), 127–704.
The “Ancient Passio” of St Dionysius (BHL 2171). Michael Lapidge. Analecta Bollandiana, 132 (Dec., 2014), 241–85.
Reims, Bibliothèque Carnegie, 806: a little-known manuscript of Benedict of
Aniane’s Concordia regularum. M. A. Claussen. Early Medieval Europe, 23
(Feb., 2015), 1–42.
La réinvention des Béatitudes dans le Manuel pour mon fils de Dhuoda. Brenda
Dunn-Lardeau. Le Moyen Âge, CXIX (3–4, 2013), 649–64.
Lordship in Ninth-Century Francia: The Case of Bishop Hincmar of Laon and his
Followers. Charles West. Past & Present, No. 226 (Feb., 2015), 3–40.
Documents de gestion inédits provenant de l’abbaye de Stavelot-Malmedy et concernant les domains de Lantremange, Jenneret et Louveigné (Xe–XIIe siècle).
Nicolas Schroeder and Alexis Wilkin. Bulletin de la Commission royale d’Histoire, 180 (2014), 5–48.
Rewriting the ecclesiastical landscape of early medieval Northumbria in the Lives
of Cuthbert. A. Joseph McMullen. Anglo-Saxon England, 43 (Dec., 2014),
57–98.
Liudprand of Cremona’s papa monstrum: the image of Pope John XII in the Historia Ottonis. Antoni Grabowski. Early Medieval Europe, 23 (Feb., 2015), 67–
92.
Empress Theophana, Sanctity, and Memory in Early Medieval Saxony. Laura
Wangerin. Central European History, 47 (Dec., 2014), 716–36.
Modeling Religious Experience in Old Norse Conversion Narratives: The Case of
Óláfr Tryggvason and Hallfreðr vandraeðaskáld. Christopher Abram. Speculum, 90 (Jan., 2015), 114–57.
“We ne motan deman ymbe pæt”: Clerical Judgment in Ælfric of Eynsham’s Lives
of Saints Swithun, Edmund, and Æthelwold. William E. Bolton. Viator, 46
(1, 2015), 21–42.
Il medioevo bizantino nelle isole di Gemile e Karacaören, Licia: le pitture e i graffiti. Vincenzo Ruggieri. Orientalia Christiana Periodica, 80 (2, 2014), 367–86.

418

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Isidore’s Etymologiae at the School of Canterbury. David W. Porter. Anglo-Saxon
England, 43 (Dec., 2014), 7–44.
Preaching, politics and episcopal reform in Wulfstan’s early writings. Jay Paul
Gates. Early Medieval Europe, 23 (Feb., 2015), 93–116.
Üçayak: a forgotten Byzantine church. Marina Mihaljević. Byzantinische Zeitschrift,
107 (Dec., 2014), 725–54.
Nascita e sviluppo di una Badia. San Casciano a Montescalari nel Valdarno superiore fiorentino (1040–1130). Igor Santos Salazar. Archivio Storico Italiano,
CLXXII (3, 2014), 403–33.
Legends and liturgy in the Old English prose Andreas. Bill Friesen. Anglo-Saxon
England, 43 (Dec., 2014), 209–29.
Hagiography and History in the Icelandic Saga of Edward the Confessor. Nicole
Marafioti. Viator, 46 (1, 2015), 93–114.
Commémorer à Cluny (XIe–XIIe siècles). Une mise en perspective anthropologique
et historique. Franz Neiske. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 100 (July–
Dec., 2014), 265–78.
Rhetoric, Reform, and Christian Eloquence: The Letter Form and Religious
Thought of Peter Damian. Christopher D. Fletcher. Viator, 46 (1, 2015), 61–
91.
Romanian Orthodox Monasticism: History and Confession. (From the beginning
to St Nicodemus of Tismana.) Nicu Dumitraşcu. Studia Monastica, 56 (1,
2014), 37–55.
Early Evidence for the Cult of Anne in Twelfth-Century England. Kati Ihnat.
Traditio, 69 (2014), 1–44.
Adventus in Jerusalem: the Palm Sunday Celebration in Latin Jerusalem. Iris Shagrir. Journal of Medieval History, 41 (1, 2015), 1–20.
La “collection” des lettres d’Abélard et Héloïse. Sylvain Piron. Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale, 57 (Oct.–Dec., 2014), 337–42.
Abbas Qui et Scriptor? The Handwriting of Robert of Torigni and His Scribal
Activity as Abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel (1154–1186). Benjamin Pohl. Traditio, 69 (2014), 45–86.
Women Pilgrims and Their Travelling Companions in Twelfth-Century England.
Anne E. Bailey. Viator, 46 (1, 2015), 115–34.
“Reinhildis Has Died”: Ascension and Enlivenment on a Twelfth-Century Tomb.
Shirin Fozi. Speculum, 90 (Jan., 2015), 158–94.
Michael Choniates at the Christian Parthenon and the Bendideia Festival of
Republic I. Byron David MacDougall. Greek,Roman,and Byzantine Studies, 55
(1, 2015), 273–99.

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Crusaders and mercenaries: the west-European soldiers of the Laskarids of Nicaea
(1204–1258). Savvas Kyriakidis. Mediterranean Historical Review, 29 (Dec.,
2014), 139–53.
A Franciscan contribution to the De gestis Britonum (1205–1279), and its continuation to 1299. Michael Robson. Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 107 (July–
Dec., 2014), 265–313.
El encuentro corre el riesgo de convertirse en un choque: Francisco de Asís y Alik
al Kamil, sultán (rey) de Egipto. Cristóbal Solares, OFM. Antonianum,
LXXXIX (Oct.–Dec., 2014), 713–25.
La politique funéraire des frères prêcheurs et mineurs au XIIIe siècle: réflexions
autour des sources normatives. Haude Morvan. Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in
Italia, LXVIII (Jan.–June, 2014), 11–43.
The Conversion of St. Francis and the Writing of Christian Biography, 1228–
1263. John Coakley. Franciscan Studies, 72 (2014), 27–71.
Of burning monks, unidentified churches and the last Cistercian foundation in the
East: Our Lady of Camina in the principality of Achaia. Nickiphoros I.
Tsougarakis and Christopher Schabel. Journal of Medieval History, 41 (1,
2015), 60–87.
Elevating Saint Germanus of Auxerre: Architecture, Politics, and Liturgy in the
Reclaiming of Monastic Identity. Anne Heath. Speculum, 90 (Jan., 2015), 60–
113.
La Tabula De ciuitate Dei dite de Robert Kilwardby. Problèmes d’attribution et tradition manuscrite. Antoine Brix. Revue d’Études Augustiniennes et Patristiques,
60 (1, 2014), 125–46.
I volgarizzamenti della “Vita” di s. Chiara d’Assisi: La tradizione manoscritta.
Monica Benedetta Umiker. Collectanea franciscana, 84 (3–4, 2014), 599–639.
Alcune leggende liturgiche latine su sant’Elisabetta d’Ungheria. Aleksander
Horowski. Collectanea franciscana, 84 (3–4, 2014), 641–704.
L’Exégèse de Jean de Galles, Franciscain du XIIIe siècle. Alain Boureau. Franciscan
Studies, 72 (2014), 153–71.
St. Anselm and the Good Samaritan Window at Canterbury Cathedral. T. A.
Heslop. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, LXXVII (2014), 1–33.
The Luxury Riccardiana Psalter in the Thirteenth Century: A Nun’s Prayerbook?
Cathleen Fleck. Viator, 46 (1, 2015), 135–60.
De recuperatione Terrae Sanctae: da Bonifacio VIII alla crisi del modello d’alleanza
cristiano-mongola. Luca Mantelli. Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia,
LXVIII (Jan.–June, 2014), 45–77.

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Les mutations de la sainteté de l’ermite Thibaut de Provins aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles: la promotion d’un modèle pastoral séculier au temps des ordres mendicants. Catherine Vincent. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 100 (July–Dec.,
2014), 279–300.
Defining Queenship at Greyfriars London, c. 1300–58. Laura Slater. Gender &
History, 27 (Apr., 2015), 53–76.
Eine andere Sicht auf Angela von Foligno? Der Liber Informationum beate Angele
de Fulgineo in einem Manuskript der Biblioteca Marciana zu Venedig.
Johannes Schlageter, OFM. Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 107 (July–
Dec., 2014), 315–36.
Une sainte reine et franciscaine: Les images de sainte Élisabeth de Hongrie au Trecento, en Italie. Clémentine Denèle. Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome,
Moyen Âge, 125 (1, 2013), 137–47.
Eine Exkommunikationsandrohung des Johannes Kalekas an den Metropoliten
von Trapezunt und ihre Hintergründe. Nestor Kavvadas. Byzantinische
Zeitschrift, 107 (Dec., 2014), 691–710.
Crossing boundaries in the Mediterranean: papal trade licences from the Regista
supplicationum of Pope Clement VI (1342–52). Mike Carr. Journal of Medieval
History, 41 (1, 2015), 107–29.
Hungering for Maleness: Catherine of Siena and the Medieval Public Sphere.
James White. Religious Studies and Theology, 33 (2, 2014), 157–71.
The Many Misattributions of Catherine of Siena: Beyond The Orchard in England.
Jennifer N. Brown. Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures, 41 (1, 2015), 67–84.
Middle English Gospel Glosses and the Translation of Exegetical Authority. A. B.
Kraebel. Traditio, 69 (2014), 87–123.
Pulpit and Cross: Preaching the Crusade in Fourteenth-Century England. Timothy Guard. English Historical Review, CXXIX (Dec., 2014), 1319–45.
Le Manipulus exemplorum. Un recueil d’Exempla bénédictin à attribuer à Jean
Bernier de Fayt (†1395). Antoine Brix. Revue Bénédictine, 124 (Dec., 2014),
353–64.
Irish clergy and the diocesan church in the ‘four obedient shires’ of Ireland, c. 1400–
c.1540. Sparky Booker. Irish Historical Studies, XXXIX (Nov., 2014), 179–
209.
Jean Gerson et les cas réservés. Un enjeu ecclésiologique et pastoral. Véronique
Beaulande-Barraud. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 100 (July–Dec.,
2014), 301–18.
San Vito di Vicenza nel contesto delle visite di Ambrogio Traversari (con suo
nuovo autografo). Simona Iaria. Aevum, LXXXVIII (Sept.–Dec., 2014), 553–
75.

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421

St. Edmund’s Shrinekeepers: Monastic Self-Depiction in Harley 2278. Timothy
R. Jordan. American Benedictine Review, 66 (Mar., 2015), 30–55.
Disputas entre latinos y griegos a propósito del purgatorio en el Concilio de Ferrara-Florencia. Miguel Ponce Cuéllar. Anthologica Annua, 58 (2011), 1–54.
Casi fiorentini negli atti della Penitenzieria Apostolica 1439–1484. Tobias Daniels
and Arnold Esch. Archivio Storico Italiano, CLXXII (4, 2014), 729–62.
Le Traité d’Humbert de Romans (OP) “De la prédication de la sainte Croix” et son
utilisation dans les guerres saintes du XVe siècle. Valentin Portnykh. Revue
d’Histoire Ecclésiastique, 109 (July–Dec., 2014), 588–623.
The Old Swedish Evangelium Nicodemi in the Library of Vadstena Abbey: Provenance and Fruition. Dario Bullitta. Scandinavian Studies, 86 (Fall, 2014), 268–
307.
“Scolpito non solo nel core”: dinnanzi all’immagine di Cristo. Esercizi spirituali e
cristocentrismo a Perugia fra Quattro e Cinquecento. Francesca Guiducci.
Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia, LXVIII (Jan.–June, 2014), 79–93.

SIXTEENTH CENTURY
Quelques enseignes de pèlerins et des moules de production de petits objets en
plomb découverts à Rennes. Françoise Labaune-Jean. Annales de Bretagne et
des Pays de l’Ouest, 121 (4, 2014), 7–22.
Spiritus, ecclesiae anima: Colet, Linacre, and a Galenic Mystical Body. Daniel
Lochman. Moreana, 51 (Dec., 2014), 115–38.
John Colet and Polydore Vergil: Catholic Humanism and Ecclesiology. Jonathan
Arnold. Moreana, 51 (Dec., 2014), 139–65.
Hellenism and the Sentences-Commentary of Giles of Viterbo, 1469–1532.
Daniel Nodes. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 66 (Jan., 2015), 19–46.
“De constructione ecclesiae Rubeae Vallis anno 1511”, La construction de l’église
du prieuré de Rouge-Cloître (Auderghem, Bruxelles) au début du XVIe siècle
selon Gaspar Ofhuys. Patrice Gautier, Antoine Baudry, Philippe Henne, and
Bram Vannieuwenhuyze. Mélanges de Science Religieuse, 71 (4, 2014), 45–58.
Conscience in the Early Renaissance: the case of Erasmus, Luther and Thomas
More. Hélène Suzanne. Moreana, 51 (Dec., 2014), 231–44.
La Regola del monastero del Santo Sepolcro di Venezia (1517). Mauro Papalini.
Archivum Franciscum Historicum, 107 (July–Dec., 2014), 393–426.
Maximilian I and Toleration of Judaism. David H. Price. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 105 (Jan., 2014), 7–29.
Andreas Osiander als Kabbalist. Anselm Schubert. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 105 (Jan., 2014), 30–54.

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Sensing Sacred Space: Ulm Minster, the Reformation, and Parishioners’ Sensory
Perception, c. 1470 to 1640. Philip Hahn. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte,
105 (Jan., 2014), 55–91.
The Inquisitorial Office in the Sixteenth-Century Habsburg Low Countries: A
Dynamic Perspective. Gert Gielis and Violet Soen. Journal of Ecclesiastical
History, 66 (Jan., 2015), 47–66.
Justification, Worship, and Poor Relief in the Sixteenth Century: A Historical
Concern of Contemporary Interest. David N. Power. Worship, 89 (Mar.,
2015), 124–46.
Anabaptism and the World of Printing in Sixteenth-Century Germany. Kat Hill.
Past & Present, No. 226 (Feb., 2015), 79–114.
‘Ye gods’: Political Obedience from Tyndale to Cromwell, c. 1528–1540. Ryan M.
Reeves. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 105 (Jan., 2014), 230–56.
Replacing the family? Beguinages in early modern western cities: an analysis of the
family networks of beguines living in Mechelen (1532–1591). Kim Overlaet.
Continuity and Change, 29 (Dec., 2014), 325–47.
Luther’s Translation of the Bible. Birgit Stolt. Lutheran Quarterly, XXVIII
(Winter, 2014), 373–400.
Heinrich Bullinger’s Influence on the Church of England. George Ella. Churchman, 128 (Summer, 2014), 133–46.
L’introduction de la masse personae-res-actiones dans la science canonique (XVIe
siècle). Laurent Kondratuk. Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, LXXVI
(3, 2014), 433–49.
Die Ravensburger Kirchenordnung von 1546: Ein Dokument reichsstädtischer
Allianzen und konfessioneller Positionierung. Sabine Arend. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 105 (Jan., 2014), 92–128.
Das Prinzip des allgemeinen Priestertums, ein politisches Konzept? Chang Soo
Park. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 105 (Jan., 2014), 129–58.
Church and State in the French Reformation (review article). Allan A. Tulchin.
Journal of Modern History, 86 (Dec., 2014), 826–61.
L’établissement de l’orthodoxie luthérienne à Strasbourg au XVIe siècle. Marc
Lienhard. Revue d’Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses, 94 (Oct.–Dec., 2014),
381–405.
Examining the Unexpected: Printed Images in the Prayer Books of Edward VI and
the Primers of Mary Tudor. Jayne Wackett. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte,
105 (Jan., 2014), 257–83.
Radical Geneva? The publication of Knox’s First Blast of the Trumpet and Goodman’s How Superior Powers Oght to be Obeyd in context. Charlotte Panofre.
Historical Research, LXXXVIII (Feb., 2015), 48–66.

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423

Vernacular Bible Translations and the Roman Inquisition in Italian History
between the XVI and XVIII Centuries. Maria Teresa Fattori. Revue d’Histoire
Ecclésiastique, 109 (July–Dec., 2014), 656–96.
Ecclesiastical Improvements, Lay Impropriations, and the Building of a PostReformation Church in England, 1560–1600. Lucy M. Kaufman. Historical
Journal, 58 (Mar., 2015), 1–23.
Communautés d’habitants et choix de la guerre civile en région toulousaine au
début des guerres de Religion. Pierre-Jean Souriac. Annales du Midi, 126
(Apr.–June, 2014), 195–216.
Notas sobre el origen de la Cofradía de la Santísma y Vera Cruz de Caravaca de la
Cruz. Vicente Montojo Montojo. Carthaginensia, XXX (Jan.–June, 2014),
177–92.
Saint Francis as “alter Christus”: Galle’s Series on the Life of Francis of Assisi.
Kees van Dooren. Collectanea franciscana, 84 (3–4, 2014), 705–42.
The Liturgical Commemoration of Orthodox Christians Killed During the Oprichnina. Andrei Bulychev. Russian Studies in History, 53 (Summer, 2014), 42–67.
Black legend, patriotic construction of alternative enemies and religious persecution after the St. Bartholomew Day Massacre (1574–1587). José Luis Egío.
Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, LXXVI (3, 2014), 451–69.
Women on the Edge: Madness, Possession, and Suicide in Early Modern Convents. Sharon T. Strocchia. Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 45
(Jan., 2015), 53–77.
La familia de Santo Tomás de Villanueva vista por sus paisanos (según los testimonios del proceso de beatificación). F. Javier Campos and Fernández de Sevilla,
OSA. Revista Agustiniana, LV (May–Aug., 2014), 323–48.
A Scottish Anti-Catholic Satire Crossing the Border: ‘Ane bull of our holy fader
the paip, quhairby it is leesum to everie man to haif tua wyffis’ and the
Redeswyre Raid of 1575. Amy Blakeway. English Historical Review, CXXIX
(Dec., 2014), 1346–70.
Per una storia della curia romana dalla riforma sistina, secoli XVI–XVIII. Maria
Teresa Fattori. Cristianesimo nella storia, 35 (3, 2014), 787–848.
Dévotions et spiritualité oratoriennes: l’orthodoxie de la réforme catholique et ses
marges. Anne Piéjus. Rivista de Storia e Letteratura Religiosa, L (1, 2014),
153–69.
The Adieu and Willecomme for Jan van Hembyze, or: The Battle between Script
and Print in Calvinist Ghent. Anne-Laure Van Bruaene. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 105 (Jan., 2014), 206–29.
The Theoretical Rationale for the Reformed Consistory: Two Key Works of
Theodore Beza. Kirk M. Summers. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 105
(Jan., 2014), 159–79.

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A Kingdom for a Catholic? Pope Clement VIII, King James VI/I, and the English
Succession in International Diplomacy (1592–1605). Christian Schneider.
International History Review, 37 (1, 2015), 119–41.
Breve recorrido en la postrimería del jesuita Gil de la Mata en la misión de Japón
(siglo XVI). Las últimas cuatro cartas inéditas desde Lisboa y Nagasaki.
Giuseppe Marino. Estudios Eclesiásticos, 89 (Sept., 2014), 499–531.
Corregir y disciplinar conductas: actitud de la Iglesia Católica contra la violencia
popular. Siglos XVI–XVII. Javier Ruiz Astiz. Hispania Sacra, 66 (2014), 481–
528.
Jerónimo Gracián de la Madre de Dios y sus contactos con el Islam en el tránsito
de los siglos XVI y XVII. Miguel Ángel de Bunes Ibarra. Teresianum, LXV
(1, 2014), 79–105.
“Local religion” in Corfu: sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. Theodossios Nikolaidis. Mediterranean Historical Review, 29 (Dec., 2014), 155–68.

SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
Elites and Ecclesiastical Careers in Early Modern Sicily: Bishops, Abbots and
Knights. Fabrizio D’Avenia. Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique, 109 (July–Dec.,
2014), 625–54.
Vicente Carducho and Drawings of the Life and Posthumous Miracles of St. Diego of
Alcalá. Álvaro Pascual Chenel and Ángel Rodríguez Rebollo. Master Drawings, 52 (Winter, 2014), 481–96.
Resisting the Rosicrucians. William Bradford Smith. Church History & Religious
Culture, 94 (4, 2014), 413–43.
El colegio de infantes de San Benito el Real de Valladolid (1617–1805). Ernesto
Zaragoza Pascual. Studia Monastica, 56 (1, 2014), 85–149.
Theologies of Sport: Protestant Ideas on Bodily Exercise, Sports Practice and
Christian Lifestyle in the Declaration of Sports Controversy in SeventeenthCentury England. Angela Schattner. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 105
(Jan., 2014), 284–312.
Images of Kingship: Charles I, Accession Sermons, and the Theory of Divine
Right. Elena Kiryanova. History, 100 (Jan., 2015), 21–39.
El Convento agustino de Santa Cruz de la Sierra. Historia y arte. Francisco Cillán
Cillán and José Ramos Rubio. Revista Agustiniana, LV (May–Aug., 2014),
349–72.
Apokalyptik und Irenik in Hugo Grotius’ späten theologischen Schriften. Michael
Becker. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 105 (Jan., 2014), 180–205.
El Juego de Luces y Sombras en Athanasius Kircher, S.J. Mauricio Beuchot.
Anámnesis, XXIV (July–Dec., 2014), 131–42.

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425

Deception at the Origin of Galileo’s Trial. Jules Speller. Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique, 109 (July–Dec., 2014), 698–726.
The politics of the chancel screen: Samuel Moore, Slaidburn, and the parochial
dynamics of Laudianism. James Mawdesley and Christopher Spencer. Seventeenth Century, 29 (4, 2014), 359–80.
The Rediscovery of Francisco Pacheco’s Drawing of the Adoration of the Cross.
María López-Fanjul y Díez del Corral. Master Drawings, 52 (Winter, 2014),
453–63.
Swimming with the Reformed Tide: John Forbes of Corse (1593–1648) on Double
Predestination and Particular Redemption. Aaron Clay Denlinger. Journal of
Ecclesiastical History, 66 (Jan., 2015), 67–89.
Minimal Faith and Irenic Ideals in Seventeenth-Century Scholarly Circles. Henk
Nellen. Church History & Religious Culture, 94 (4, 2014), 444–78.
Abt Hilarion Rancati und seine Haltung im Jansenismusstreit. Tanja Thanner.
Analecta Cisterciensia, LXIII (2013), 516–56.
Teaching sunspots: Disciplinary identity and scholarly practice in the Collegio
Romano [Gabriele Beati, S.J.]. Renee Raphael. History of Science, 52 (June,
2014), 130–52.
Sovereignty and Solidarity: Moral Obligation, Confessional England, and the
Huguenots. Benjamin de Carvalho and Andrea Paras. International History
Review, 37 (1, 2015), 1–21.
“Si mes Lettres sont condamnées à Rome…” Les Provinciales devant le SaintOffice. Jean-Louis Quantin. XVIIe Siècle, 66 (Oct.–Dec., 2014), 587–617.
‘Les ennemis du nom Chrestien’: echoes of the crusade in Louis XIV’s France. Phil
McCluskey. French History, 29 (Mar., 2015), 46–61.
Notizie Historiche (continuazione). Giancarlo Caputi. Archivum Scholarum
Piarum, XXXVIII (2014), 3–64.
La embajada de obediencia del duque de Segorbe y Cardona al papa Clemente X
(1671). Diana Carrió Invernizzi. Rivista Storica Italiana, CXXVI (Aug.,
2014), 319–41.
Le “cas Maimbourg”. La possibilité d’un gallicanisme jésuite au XVIIe siècle. JeanPascal Gay. Revue historique, CCCXVI (Oct., 2014), 783–831.
Le Sermon sur l’unité de l’Église de Bossuet et son interprétation. Cinthia Meli.
Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 100 (July–Dec., 2014), 319–32.
Le Rosaire de La Forêt-Fouesnant (Basse-Bretagne): jeux de pouvoir et création
collective de l’image religieuse royale sous Louis XIV. Géraldine Lavieille.
Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, 61 (Apr.–June, 2014), 89–118.
La Madre Mayor del Hospital de las Cinco Llagas de Sevilla en el Antiguo Régimen. Paula Emilia Rivasplata Varillas. Hispania Sacra, 66 (2014), 529–74.

426

PERIODICAL L ITERATURE

Jeu de masques: Rancé, les Mauristes et le Refuge huguenot. Daniel Larroque et
Les véritables motifs de la conversion de l’abbé de la Trappe, 1685. Olivier Donneau. Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique, 109 (July–Dec., 2014), 728–56.
James II and David Nairne: The Exiled King and his First Biographer. Edward
Corp. English Historical Review, CXXIX (Dec., 2014), 1383–1411.
St Demetrius Tuptalo and His Liber Vitarum Sanctorum. Francis J. Thomson.
Analecta Bollandiana, 132 (Dec., 2014), 306–421.
Sir Isaac Newton’s enlightened chronology and inter-denominational discourse in
eighteenth-century Ireland. Macdara Dwyer. Irish Historical Studies, XXXIX
(Nov., 2014), 210–29.
La devoción en la casa: Córdoba en el Antiguo Régimen. Antonia Garrido Flores.
Hispania Sacra, 66 (2014), 576–600.
Tamil Voices in the Lutheran Mission of South India (1705–1714). Joan-Pau
Rubiés. Journal of Early Modern History, 19 (1, 2015), 71–81.
Robert Challe et Malebranche: de la recherche de la vérité à la recherche de la vraie
religion. Alexandra Roux. XVIIe Siècle, 66 (Oct.–Dec., 2014), 651–75.
Fray Junípero Serra y la Universidad Luliana y Literaria de Mallorca. Albert Cassanyes-Roig and Rafael Ramis-Barceló. Archivum Franciscanum Historicum,
107 (July–Dec., 2014), 427–55.
Un priorato de la congregación de Valladolid en el siglo XVIII: San Frutos del
Duratón según una “relazión” de 1751–1752. Antonio Linage Conde. Studia
Monastica, 56 (1, 2014), 71–84.
Hume’s low road to toleration. G. Conti. History of Political Thought, 36 (1, 2015),
165–91.
Identität und historischer Blick. Zur Position der Kirchengeschichtsschreibung in
der Spätaufklärung. Dirk Fleischer. Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, 111
(Sept., 2014), 284–306.
“The New Heathens”: A Pandemic of Heresy in Late Eighteenth-Century Prussia.
Jonathan Blake Fine. Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, 44 (2015), 229–
54.

NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES
The power of the purse: student funding and the labour market for Dutch
Reformed and Catholic theology students, 1800–1880. Ruben Schalk. History
of Education, 44 (Mar., 2015), 131–55.
Catholic Life and Mission in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) During the Early British Period:
A Historical Glance. Jerome Velichor Abaranam. Urbaniana University Journal, LXVII (3, 2014), 231–47.

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427

La represión de los obispos liberales después del Trienio. Antonio Posada Rubín de
Celis, obispo de Cartagena (1821–1825). Maximiliano Barrio Gozalo. Anthologica Annua, 58 (2011), 55–98.
Building opposition: the Mant controversy and the Church of Ireland in early
Victorian Belfast. Sean Farrell. Irish Historical Studies, XXXIX (Nov., 2014),
230–49.
P. Giovanni Inghirami di S. Nicolò Vicario General de la Orden de las Escuelas
Pías (1844–1848) (continuación). Adolfo García-Durán. Archivum Scholarum
Piarum, no. 76 (2014), 131–211.
Gorham and the Penzance Commission. David Phipps. Churchman, 128 (Autumn,
2014), 199–217.
Globalizing British Christianity in the Nineteenth Century: The Imperial Anglican Emigrant Chaplaincy 1846–c.1910. Rowan Strong. Journal of Imperial and
Commonwealth History, 43 (1, 2015), 1–32.
La transmission de la mémoire huguenote dans la canton de Vaud, XIXe–XXe
siècle. Jean-Pierre Bastian. Revue d’Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses, 94
(Oct.–Dec., 2014), 425–42.
Louis Veuillot, L’Univers et l’intervention des laïcs dans les affaires de l’Église de
France au milieu du XIXe siècle. Arthur Hérisson. Revue d’histoire de l’Église
de France, 100 (July–Dec., 2014), 333–54.
Restauración efímera de los Jerónimos en El Escorial (1854). José Rodríguez Díez,
O.S.A. La Ciudad de Dios, CCXXVII (Sept.–Dec., 2014), 707–57.
They came with a purpose: educational journeys of nineteenth-century Irish
Dominican Sister Teachers. Jenny Collins. History of Education, 44 (Jan.,
2015), 44–63.
Profezia e millenarismo nel macolatismo lombardo ottocentesco. Marco Rochini.
Aevum, LXXXVIII (Sept.–Dec., 2014), 699–727.
“Christianity, Commerce and Civilization”: Child Labor and the Basel Mission in
Colonial Ghana, 1855–1914. Catherine Koonar. International Labor and
Working Class History, 86 (Fall, 2014), 72–88.
Confessional Calvinism and Evangelical Assurance: Isaac Newton, Ulster Revivalism and the Assurance Controversy in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, c.
1859–1867. Daniel Ritchie. History, 100 (Jan., 2015), 85–106.
La presencia de las monjas agustinas del monasterio de Santa Mónica de Begoña—
Bilbao, en la iglesia y la sociedad de su tiempo. Borja Vivanco Díaz. Studia
Monastica, 56 (1, 2014), 151–68.
L’evoluzione del dibattito sul “non expedit” all’interno della Curia romana tra il
1860 e il 1889. Saretta Marotta. Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia, LXVIII
(Jan.–June, 2014), 95–164.

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PERIODICAL LITERATURE

The Local History of an Imperial Category: Language and Religion in Russia’s
Eastern Borderlands, 1860s–1930s. Kathryn E. Graber and Jesse D. Murray.
Slavic Review, 74 (Spring, 2015), 127–52.
The Victorian Evangelical Shaftesbury: A Son of the Clapham Sect or a Brother
of the Recordites? David Furse-Roberts. Churchman, 128 (Summer, 2014),
119–32.
David King: British Advocate of Restoration in the Victorian Era. C. Philip Slate.
Restoration Quarterly, 56 (1, 2014), 15–27.
Origins of Anglo-Catholic Missions: Fr Richard Benson and the Initial Missions
of the Society of St John the Evangelist, 1869–1882. Rowan Strong. Journal
of Ecclesiastical History, 66 (Jan., 2015), 90–115.
Ernest Renan’s Race Problem. Robert D. Priest. Historical Journal, 58 (Mar.,
2015), 309–30.
Generalabt Teobaldo Cesari (1804–1879), sein Leben und Wirken. Pius Maurer.
Analecta Cisterciensia, LXIII (2013), 37–401.
Martin Kähler (1835–1912). Carl E. Braaten. Lutheran Quarterly, XXVIII
(Winter, 2014), 401–22.
Selling the Mission: The German Catholic Elite and the Educational Migration of
African Youngsters to Europe. Robbie Aitken. German History, 33 (Mar.,
2015), 30–51.
D. António José de Sousa Barroso. Un missionário dos três continentes. António
Júlio Limpo Trigueiros, SJ. Theologica, XLIX (1, 2014), 33–46.
La contracelebración carlista del cenetario de la Revolución Francesa. Agustín Fernández Escudero. Hispania Sacra, 66 (2014), 661–87.
St. Francis in Soho: Emmeline Pethick, Mary Neal, the West London Wesleyan
Mission, and the Allure of “Simple Living” in the 1890s. Ellen Ross. Church
History, 83 (Dec., 2014), 843–83.
Le bienheureux Marie-Joseph Cassant: Un chemin spirituel lumineux à l’épreuve
d’une formation laborieuse. Michelle Breuillé. Collectanea Cisterciensia, 76 (4,
2014), 353–68.
Fernand Cabrol et André Wilmart, bénédictins de Saint-Michel à Farnborough, et
les Bollandistes. Bernard Joassart. Analecta Bollandiana, 132 (Dec., 2014),
422–40.
La imagen de la familia en la prensa religiosa de Murcia en los inicios del siglo XX.
Francisco Javier Crespo Sánchez. Hispania Sacra, 66 (2014), 733–65.
Capuchin General Minister Pacificus Carletti of Seggiano: on programmed mandate (1908–1914). Benedict Vadakkekara. Collectanea franciscana, 84 (3–4,
2014), 503–46.

PERIODICAL L ITERATURE

429

Sulle riforme della curia romana nel Novecento. Enrico Galavotti. Cristianesimo
nella storia, 35 (3, 2014), 849–90.
Antonino De Stefano (1880–1964) modernista: la teologia della storia. Salvatore
Corso. Laurentianum, 55 (2–3, 2014), 333–551.
L’affaire de La Vigie. Le cardinal Amette suspect d’indulgence pour le modernisme.
Louis-Pierre Sardella. Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique, 109 (July–Dec., 2014),
758–81.
L’action du Comité catholique de propagande française en Espagne (1916–1918).
Santiago Casas. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 100 (July–Dec., 2014),
355–76.
El epistolario de la comisión española de 1923 para el dogma de la mediación de la
Virgen María. Román Sol. Scripta Theologica, 46 (Dec., 2014), 575–609.
The Christian Protest Movement, the Labour Government and Soviet Religious
Repression, 1929–1931. Giles Udy. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 66 (Jan.,
2015), 116–39.
The Myth of “Christian Rome” and the Institute of Roman Studies: An Attempted
Synthesis of Fascism and Catholicism. Donatello Aramini. Journal of Contemporary History, 50 (Apr., 2015), 188–214.
Were the National Socialists a Völkisch Party? Paganism, Christianity, and the Nazi
Christmas. Samuel Koehne. Central European History, 47 (Dec., 2014), 760–90.
En el funesto 75 aniversario del inicio de las hostilidades. Pío XII, la Guerra
Mundial y los judíos. Enrique Somavilla Rodríguez. Revista Agustiniana, LV
(May–Aug., 2014), 411–68.
L’offensiva radiofonica nazista contro il card. Hlond nel 1940. Alberto Monticone.
Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique, 109 (July–Dec., 2014), 783–813.
La conversion des enfants juifs caches dans la région liégeoise. Histoire et mémoire
(1942–2010). Vincent Genin. Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique, 109 (July–Dec.,
2014), 815–55.
Le radici teologiche e filosofiche del Dossetti politico (1943–1952). Rocco
Gumina. Ricerche Teologiche, XXV (1, 2014), 165–86.
The German Catholic Diaspora in the Second World War. Thomas Brodie.
German History, 33 (Mar., 2015), 80–99.
Nihilism and the Cold War: the Catholic reception of nihilism between Nietzsche
and Adenauer. James Chappel. Rethinking History, 19 (Mar., 2015), 95–110.
Lorenzo Milani. El Catecismo cronológico sobre la Vida de Jesús y el mapa de
Palestina. José Luiz Corzo. Cristianesimo nella storia, 35 (3, 2014), 891–951.
El pensamiento ético y político de Gregorio Rodríguez de Yurre (1913–1989). Un
resistente contra el autoritarismo. José María Aguirre Oraá. Scriptorium Victoriense, LX (July–Dec., 2013), 403–19.

430

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

The Diplomat and the Pioneer in Jewish-Catholic Relations prior to Nostra Aetate:
Jo Willebrands and Toon Ramselaar. Marcel J. H. M. Poorthuis. Journal of
Ecumenical Studies, 49 (Summer, 2014), 471–88.
D. Ignacio Oñatibia y la Comisión de Liturgia Preparatoria del Concilio Vaticano
II. José Antonio Gońi Beásoain de Paulorena. Scriptorium Victoriense, LX
(July–Dec., 2013), 265–335.
Mémoire du concile Vatican II. Le journal inédit de Maurice Pourchet, évêque de
Saint-Flour. Joël Fouilleron. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 100 (July–
Dec., 2014), 385–402.
An Australian Bishop at Vatican II: Matthew Beovich’s Council Diary. Josephine
Laffin. Australasian Catholic Record, 91 (Oct., 2014), 387–495.
Rituals of Forgiveness and Structures of Remembrance: Memorial Services and
Bone Depositories on the Island of Anafi, Greece. Margaret Elizabeth Kenna.
History of Religions, 54 (Feb., 2014), 225–59.
L’archivio di un ecumenista nel postconcilio: il fondo Feiner della Fondazione per
le scienze religiose Giovanni XXIII. Bruno Cherubini. Cristianesimo nella
storia, 35 (3, 2014), 953–66.
The Social Scientist Meets the “Believer”: Discussions of God, the Afterlife, and
Communism in the Mid-1960s. Miriam Dobson. Slavic Review, 74 (Spring,
2015), 79–103.
Missionary Institutes in the wake of the Second Vatican Council: the case of the
Missionaries of Africa. Richard K. Baawobr. International Journal for the Study
of the Christian Church, 14 (4, 2014), 403–18.
Música y sensación sonora: John Tavener. Boris Alvarado, Ricardo Espinoza Lolas,
and Patricio Landaeta Mardones. Hispania Sacra, 66 (2014), 767–84

AMERICAN AND CANADIAN
Le Jeune Dreams of Moose: Altered States among the Montagnais in the Jesuit
Relations of 1634. Drew Lopenzina. Early American Studies, 13 (Winter,
2015), 3–37.
“Shewing the difference betweene their conjuration, and our invocation on the
name of God for rayne”: Weather, Prayer, and Magic in Early American
Encounters. Sam White. William and Mary Quarterly, 72 (Jan., 2015), 33–56.
Teaching the Religious History of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. R. Scott Hansen.
Pennsylvania History, 82 (Winter, 2015), 52–64.
Keeping the Faith: The Catholic Context and Content of Justus Engelhardt
Kühn’s Portrait of Eleanor Darnall, ca. 1710. Elisabeth L. Roark. Maryland
Historical Magazine, 109 (Winter, 2014), 391–427.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

431

“The Practice of Conveying and Suffering the Small-pox”: Inoculation as a Means
of Spiritual Conversion in Cotton Mather’s Angel of Bethesda. Lucas Hardy.
Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, 44 (2015), 61–79.
Reforming the Literary Black Atlantic: Worshipful Resistance in the Transatlantic
World. Andrew M. Pisano. Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, 44 (2015),
81–100.
“They Carry Their Religion … into Every Act of Their Public and Private Lives”:
Quaker Consumption of Early Photographic Images in Philadelphia, 1839–
1860. Anne Verplanck. Early American Studies, 13 (Winter, 2015), 237–78.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Krause’s Moment in Macomb. William Wangelin. Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly, 87 (Winter, 2014), 35–47.
The Case of the Catholic Know-Nothings. Tracy Matthew Melton. Maryland
Historical Magazine, 109 (Fall, 2014), 350–71.
“The consequence of this rigorously Protestant view of history”: The AngloCatholic mind of Frederick Adolphus Porcher. Mitchell G. Klingenberg.
South Carolina Historical Magazine, 115 (Apr., 2014), 122–47.
“An End to Unjust Inequality in the World.” Randall Balmer. Church History &
Religious Culture, 94 (4, 2014), 505–30.
“His Loyalty Was But Lip Service”: Loyalty Oaths and the Military Arrests of Two
Ministers in Occupied Virginia during the Civil War. Sean A. Scott. Virginia
Magazine of History and Biography, 122 (4, 2014), 298–335.
Baptist Ecclesiology in Historic Perspective: The Mid- to Late-Nineteenth Century. C. Douglas Weaver. Perspectives in Religious Studies, 41 (Fall, 2014),
277–95.
Sr. Blandina, Fr. Bakanowski, and the Significance of Germs on the Frontier.
Thomas W. Jodziewicz. Catholic Southwest, 25 (2014), 22–43.
Wake the Devil from His Dream: Thomas Dudley, Quincy Ewing, Religion and
the “Race Problem” in the Jim Crow South. Tim Vivian. Anglican and Episcopal History, 83 (Dec., 2014), 371–416.
Agency, Race, and Christianity in the Strange Career of Daniel Flickinger Wilberforce. Andrew Witmer. Church History, 83 (Dec., 2014), 884–923.
Debs is Different: Rerum Novarum and U.S. Labor History. Jason Morgan. Modern
Age Quarterly Review, 57 (Winter, 2015), 27–36.
A Spirit of Insubordination and Opposition: A Parallel Struggle in the Creation of
Independent Polish Catholic and Methodist Churches in Baltimore, Maryland. Thomas L. Hollowak. Polish American Studies, 71 (Fall, 2014), 43–77.
The Queen’s Jews: Religion, Race, and Change in Twentieth-Century Canada.
Jacalyn Duffin. Canadian Journal of History, 49 (Winter, 2014), 369–94.

432

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

“You are as good as anyone that walks God’s earth, and never forget it!” The SBS
Create the “Negro Notre Dame” in Jim Crow Louisiana. Amanda Bresie.
Catholic Southwest, 25 (2014), 44–59.
The 1917 Quadricentennial of the Reformation: American Lutheran Unity and
Union Attempts. John C. Wohlrabe, Jr. Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly, 87 (Winter, 2014), 12–34.
Working for God, Country and “Our Poor Mexicans”: Catholic Women and
Americanization at the San Antonio National Catholic Community House,
1919–1924. Jeanne Petit. Journal of American Ethnic History, 34 (Spring,
2015), 5–33.
Sherwood Eddy, the missionary enterprise, and the rise of Christian internationalism in 1920s America. Michael G. Thompson. Modern Intellectual History, 12
(Apr., 2015), 65–93.
Holy Cross Hospital, Austin: The Birth, Good Life, and Death of a Community
Resource. Marian J. Barber. Catholic Southwest, 25 (2014), 60–96.
The Mass-Clock and the Spy: The Catholicization of World War II. John C.
Seitz. Church History, 83 (Dec., 2014), 924–56.
A Militant Crusade in Africa: The Great Commission and Segregation. Richard
Jordan. Church History, 83 (Dec., 2014), 957–87.
Jean Charlot’s Southwest Religiosity. Glenda L. Carne and Amanda L. Pierce.
Catholic Southwest, 25 (2014), 3–21.
“Navaho Reservation Camp Meeting a Great Success!” The Advent of Diné Pentecostalism after 1950. Kimberly Jenkins Marshall. Ethnohistory, 62 (Jan.,
2015), 95–117.
The Peace Corps in U.S. Foreign Relations and Church-State Politics. David
Allen. Historical Journal, 58 (Mar., 2015), 245–73.
“The Most Righteous White Man in Selma”: Father Maurice Ouellet and the
Struggle for Voting Rights. Paul T. Murray. Alabama Review, 68 (Jan., 2015),
31–73.
The Called, the Chosen, and the Tempted: Psychologists, the Church, and the
Scandal. Tom McCarthy. American Catholic Studies, 125 (Winter, 2014), 1–
49.
Nuns’ Stories: Writing the History of Women Religious in the United States.
Bernadette McCauley. American Catholic Studies, 125 (Winter, 2014), 51–68.

LATIN AMERICAN
El Directorio para Confesores. Un Instrumento Pastoral para medir la evangelización. Roberto Jaramillo Escutia. Efemérides Mexicana, 32 (Sept.–Dec.,
2014), 345–78.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

433

Holy Organ or Unholy Idol? Forming a History of the Sacred Heart in New Spain.
Lauren G. Kilroy-Ewbank. Colonial Latin American Review, 23 (Dec., 2014),
320–59.
El colegio de Tepotzotlán y la disciplina del clero secular en el Arzobispado de
México, 1777–1821. Mónica Hidalgo Pego. Hispania Sacra, 66 (2014), 601–
19.
Modernidad y sociedad barroca: la revolución independenista en Córdoba del
Tucumán y Monasterio de Santa Catalina (1810–1830). Guillermo Nieva
Ocampo. Hispania Sacra, 66 (2014), 621–60.
La segunda coronación de la Virgen de Luján. Robo de la corona y peregrinación
de desagravio (1897). Juan Guillermo Durán. Revista Teología, L (Aug.,
2014), 145–69.
“Vuestra Madre” de la Santa Montaña en San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico: ¿La articulación del mito de la Virgen María en la persona de Elena Ache? Gerardo
Alberto Hernández Aponte. Hispania Sacra, 66 (2014), 689–731.
Attività apostolica e catechesi del padre Giuseppe da Monsano missionario cappuccino nella stato di Bahia. Giuseppe Avarucci. Collectanea franciscana, 84 (3–4,
2014), 547–98.
Enrique Dussel and Liberation Theology: Violence or Dialogue? Miguel Ángel
Quintana-Paz. Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 26 (1/2, 2014), 135–46.
Protestant Growth and Change in El Salvador: Two Decades of Survey Evidence.
Patricia B. Christian, Michael Gent, and Timothy H. Watkins. Latin American Research Review, 50 (1, 2015), 140–59.

Other Books Received
Marked with an asterisk below are those instances where a book was sent out for
review but a review was not remitted to the journal.
Agamben, Giorgio. Pilate and Jesus. Trans. Adam Kotsko. (Stanford: Stanford
University Press. 2015. Pp. xii, 63. $15.95 paperback.)
Cadwallader, Robyn. The Anchoress: A Novel. (New York: Farrar, Straus and
Giroux. 2015. Pp. viii, 308. $26.00 clothbound.)
*Chu, Cindy Yik-Yi. The Catholic Church in China, 1978 to the Present. (New York:
Palgrave. 2012. Pp. xii, 175. $85.00 clothbound.)
Cunningham, Lawrence S. The Chapels of Notre Dame. Photography by Matt
Cashore. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. 2012. Pp. xii, 172.
$45.00 clothbound.)
Dean, Joan Fitzpatrick. All Dressed Up: Modern Irish Historical Pageantry. [Modern
Irish Historical Studies.] (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. 2014. Pp.
xxii, 335. $39.95 clothbound.)
Doglio, Maria Luisa, and Carlo Delcorno (Eds.). Prediche e predicatori nel Seicento.
(Bologna, Italy: Società editrice il Mulino. 2013. Pp. 221. €17,00 paperback.)
The five essays in the volume are “‘Icone simboliche’ del predicare: la Predica
in lode di San Corrado e Il Tempo Trionfato di Paolo Aresi” by Angelo Alberto
Piatti (pp. 29–75); “‘Per gareggiar con Crisostomo e con Bernardo.’ L’Utile
spavento del peccatore di Gian Francesco Maia Materdona” by Giorgio Forni
(pp. 77–109); “Tra ‘divine lettere’, ‘umane erudizioni’ e ‘vaghi geroglifici’: l’enciclopedia dei ‘concetti’ predicabili nei Serafici splendori di Mario Bignoni” by
Guido Laurenti (pp. 111–59); “Il trono di sole, panegirico di Francesco
Amedeo Ormea per Amedeo IX di Savoia” by Luisella Giachino (pp. 161–
91); and “Storiografia e predicazione. Fra Tesauro e Bartoli” by Giovanni Baffetti (pp. 193–210).
Donahue, John R., S.J. Seek Justice That You May Live: Reflections and Resources on
the Bible and Social Justice. (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press. 2014. Pp. xviii, 310.
$29.95 paperback.)
Drees, Clayton J. Bishop Richard Fox of Winchester. (Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
2014. Pp. vi, 206. $45.00 paperback.)
Duffy, Eamon. Saints & Sinners: A History of the Popes. 4th ed. (New Haven: Yale
University Press. 2015. Pp. xiv, 513. $23.00 paperback.) This new edition
brings the history to the first year of Pope Francis. The first edition (1997)
was reviewed by Simon Ditchfield, ante, 85 (1999), 256–60.
434

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

435

Ehrman, Bart D. Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early
Christian Polemics. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2013. Pp. xii, 628.
$39.95 clothbound.)
Frechette, Christopher G., Christopher R. Matthews, and Thomas D. Stegman,
S.J. (Eds.). Biblical Essays in Honor of Daniel J. Harrington, SJ, and Richard J.
Clifford, SJ.: Opportunity for No Little Instruction. (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.
2014. Pp. xxii, 323. $29.95 paperback.)
*Jullien, Florence. Le Monachisme en Perse: La réforme d’Abraham le Grand, père des
moines de l’Orient. [Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, Vol. 622,
Subsidia, Tomus 121.] (Louvain, Belgium: Éditions Peeters. 2008. Pp. xxx,
293. €66,00 paperback.)
Klein, Hans. Zwei intertestamentarische Hymnen im Lukasevangelium: Benediktus
und Magnifikat. [Salzburger Exegetische Theologische Vorträge, Band 5.]
(Vienna: LIT Verlag. 2014. Pp. vi, 130. €19,90 paperback.)
Kristeva, Julia. Teresa, My Love: An Imagined Life of the Saint of Avila. Trans. Lorna
Scott Fox. (New York: Columbia University Press. 2014. Pp. xvi, 630. $35.00
clothbound.)
Krüger, Elmar. Der Traktat “De ecclesiastica potestate” des Aegidius Romanus: Eine
spätmittelalterliche Herrschaftskonzeption des päpstlichen Universalismus.
[Forschungen zur kirchlichchen Rechtsgeschichte und zum Kirchenrecht,
Band 30.] (Cologne, Germany: Böhlau Verlag. 2007. Pp. xx, 488. €61,60
clothbound.)
Lamm, Julia A. (Ed. and Trans.). Schleiermacher: Christmas Dialogue, the Second
Speech, and Other Selections. [Classics of Western Spirituality.] (Mahwah, NJ:
Paulist Press. 2014. Pp. xviii, 296. $29.95 paperback.)
Lucas, Adam. Ecclesiastical Lordship, Seigneurial Power and the Commercialization of
Milling in Medieval England. (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing. 2014. Pp.
xxii, 414. $165.00 clothbound.)
McCloskey, Pat, O.F.M. Peace and Good: Through the Year with Francis of Assisi.
(Cincinnati: Franciscan Media. 2014. Pp. xvi, 397. $19.99 clothbound.)
Nadal, Jerome, S.J. Annotations and Meditations on the Gospels: Cumulative Index.
Prepared by Joseph P. Lea. Introd. Walter S. Melion. (Philadelphia: St.
Joseph’s University Press. 2014. Pp. x, 196. $39.95 paperback.)
*Norton, Peter. Episcopal Elections, 250–600: Hierarchy and Popular Will in Late
Antiquity. [Oxford Classical Monographs.] (New York: Oxford University
Press. 2007. Pp. xii, 271. $105.00 clothbound.)
Oden, Thomas C. A Change of Heart: A Personal and Theological Memoir. (Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. 2014. Pp. 384. $40.00 clothbound.)
*Rebillard, Éric. Transformations of Religious Practices in Late Antiquity. [Variorum
Collected Studies CS 1028.] (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing. 2013. Pp.
xii, 346. $165.00 clothbound.)

436

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

Reid, Jennifer. Finding Kluskap: A Journey into Mi’kmaw Myth. [Signifying (on)
Scriptures.] (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. 2013. Pp.
x, 122. $64.95 clothbound.)
Vance, Laura. Women in New Religions. [Women in Religions.] (New York: New
York University Press. 2015. Pp. x, 189. $17.00 paperback.)
*Vanderputten, Steven. Monastic Reform as Process: Realities and Representations in
Medieval Flanders, 900–1100. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 2013.
Pp. xiv, 247. $55.00 clothbound.)
Von Stamwitz, Alicia (Ed.). The Spirit of Saint Francis: Inspiring Words from Pope
Francis. (Cincinnati: Franciscan Media. 2015. Pp. xii, 178. $22.99 clothbound.)