THE CATHOLIC
HISTORICAL REVIEW
VOL. 102

WINTER, 2016

NO. 1

Negotiated Sanctity: Incorruption, Community,
and Medical Expertise
BRADFORD BOULEY*
The incorruption of a saint’s body became a key miracle for CounterReformation saints, as it signaled their connection to God and therefore
the correctness of the Catholic faith. Most canonized and many
prospective saints in the seventeenth century were subjected to a
posthumous medical examination. Competing local factors affected the
process, including popular support for the prospective saint, the
involvement of ecclesiastical and secular authorities, and the strength
of the medical community. In the end, the attempt to make the miracle
of incorruption a matter of medical opinion resulted in a negotiated
truth about the state of the body.
Keywords: saint; medicine; incorruption; miracle; Zacchia, Paolo

I

n 1625 the apostolic phase of the canonization process for Pope Gregory X, who had been dead nearly 350 years, opened in Arezzo, Italy.
Among the purported miracles to be considered in deciding whether he
qualified as a saint was the fact that his body was said to have lain, since
1276, “incorrupt and whole . . . [and] emitting a sweet odor.”1 The Church

*Dr. Bouley is an assistant professor of history at the Pennsylvania State University in
University Park, email: bab449@psu.edu. The author would like to thank the Fulbright Commission, the American Academy in Rome, Stanford University, the University of Southern
California postdoctoral program, and Pennsylvania State University for support that has
allowed for the completion of this article. He would also like to thank Maria Pia Donato,
Paula Findlen, Craig Martin, Nancy Siraisi, Mary O’Neil, and the two anonymous reviewers
for their helpful comments on this manuscript. Any errors that remain are the author’s.
1. Vatican City, Archivio Segreto Vaticano (ASV), Congregazione dei Riti Processus
(RP) 2155, fol. 22r: “Item ponit & quod corpus ipsius Beati Gregorii Decimi post lapsem 346
[sic] annorum ab eius obitu integrum et incorruptem inspicitur, et suis pontificiis vestibus

1

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had recognized such bodily incorruption as a conventional sign of sanctity
since medieval times. Prior to the seventeenth century, however, popular
acclamation decided whether the body of the deceased had miraculously
resisted rot.2 Now, when it came to determining whether or not Gregory’s
body was incorrupt, the judges in this case called not on popular but on
expert opinion: they summoned several physicians to testify about the state
of Gregory’s corpse.3 Gregory’s case was not unusual: in the hundred years
after papal canonizations resumed following the Reformation, nearly every
saint with a reputation for bodily holiness was examined posthumously by
a medical practitioner, sometimes undergoing a full autopsy.4
ornatum in marmoreo eminenti sepulchro suavem emittens odorem, quod in die testificatis
eiusdem omnibus fidelibus patet, quod fuit, et est verum publicum et notorium palam.” For a
discussion of the phases of Gregory’s trial and its context, see Simon Ditchfield, “How Not
to Be a Counter-Reformation Saint: The Attempted Canonization of Pope Gregory X,
1622–45,” Papers of the British School at Rome, 60 (1992), 379–422.
2. André Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, trans. Jean Birrell (New York,
1997) pp. 427–33. Vauchez observes that a pleasant smelling, incorrupt body was a key element of sanctity in the Middle Ages. For a broader work on bodily incorruption in popular
culture, see Piero Camporesi, The Incorruptible Flesh: Bodily Mutation and Mortification in
Religion and Folklore, trans. Tania Croft-Murray (New York, 1988).
3. On medical testimony about the holy body in canonization proceedings more generally and the pressures placed on physicians during such trials, see Bradford Bouley, “Contested Cases: Medical Evidence, Popular Opinion, and the Miraculous Body,” in Médecine et
religion: Collaborations, compétitions, conflits (XII e–XX e siècles), ed. Maria Pia Donato, Luc
Berlivet, Sara Cabibbo, Raimondo Michetti, and Marilyn Nicoud (Rome, 2013), pp. 139–62.
That study touches on some of the same material discussed here, but subsequent research
indicates that incorruption is of such importance that it should be treated separately from
other ideas about bodily holiness. On a separate note, the term physician designated university-trained medical practitioners; such professionals testified in Gregory’s case. However, a
wide variety of medical practitioners existed in the early-modern period and testified in canonization proceedings. The preference of canonization judges seems to have been for physicians. This was likely due to the fact that their university training allowed them to apply a
philosophical framework to their interpretations of what was found in the human body. On
medical diversity in this period, see Gianna Pomata, Contracting a Cure: Patients, Healers, and
the Law in Early Modern Bologna (Baltimore, 1998), pp. 56–94; and David Gentilcore, Healers
and Healing in Early Modern Italy (New York, 1998), pp. 1–28.
4. An examination of records at the Archivio Segreto Vaticano, where most of the
apostolic canonization processes from this period are housed, reveals that at least eighteen of
twenty-six saints canonized between 1588 and 1700 were examined by a medical practitioner.
These include Diego of Alcalá, Carlo Borromeo, Filippo Neri, Ignatius of Loyola, Isidro
Labrador, Teresa of Ávila, Francis Xavier, Isabel of Portugal, Andrea Corsini, Thomas of
Villanuova, Francis de Sales, Maria Magdalene de Pazzis, Pedro de’ Alcantara, Rose of Lima,
Luis Bertrán, Ferdinando III of Castile, Lorenzo Giustiniani, and Paschal Baylon. In the
eight cases of canonized saints from this period who were not subjected to a posthumous
medical examination, three were early and so declared incorrupt prior to the institution of
routine medical examinations (Hyancith, Francesca Romana, and Raymond Penafort); two

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3

This innovation signaled a turning point in the process of saintmaking. The field of medicine had adopted many new techniques in the
sixteenth century. Most significantly, numerous physicians and other medical practitioners used direct anatomical observation to understand better
how to treat and know the human body.5 Canonization officials valued this
ability to use discrete observations to draw conclusions about the natural
world. Physicians thus became the experts who judged, using a combination of practical experience and theoretical knowledge, whether the state of
a body was beyond the range of what they considered normal.
Nevertheless, the medical professionals examining Gregory’s corpse
had trouble determining if its level of incorruption exceeded the realm of
the natural.6 The doctors asserted that Gregory’s body had been known at
one time to have been incorrupt, but they now noted that the body had
decayed in recent years. One of these physicians, Francesco di Sant Gossari, expressed the following generally held opinion: “for some time the
body has not seemed to me to be as complete as I remembered it to be.”7
Another physician, Gaspare Maltachini, stated that he had seen the body
many times in the last fifty years but that “it is no longer at present as

lacked sufficient remains for there to be an examination that would confirm or deny incorruption (Filippo Benizzi and Gaetano Thiene); one did not enjoy a reputation of being incorrupt (Francisco Borgia); and the last two (John of God and John of Sahagun) seem likely to
have been examined given a few references found, but a medical report was not uncovered.
Thus, the tally did not include the last two. In addition to these saints canonized in this
period, many other prospective saints were similarly examined but not elected.
5. On debates surrounding the introduction of new methods in medicine and reactions
to them see Nancy Siraisi, “Giovanni Argenterio, Medical Innovation, Princely Patronage,
and Academic Controversy,” in Medicine and the Italian Universities, 1250–1600 (Boston,
2001), pp. 328–55; Anita Guerrini, “Experiments, Causation, and the Uses of Vivisection in
the First Half of the Seventeenth Century,” Journal of the History of Biology, 46 (2013), 227–
54; Roger French, Dissection and Vivisection in the European Renaissance (Brookfield, VT,
1999), pp. 162–92, 230–73; and Andrea Carlino, Books of the Body: Anatomical Ritual and
Renaissance Learning, trans. John Tedeschi and Anne C. Tedeschi (Chicago, 1999), pp. 1–8,
194–212. On the connection between anatomical observation and new methods in medicine,
see Gianna Pomata, “Observation Rising: Birth of an Epistemic Genre, 1500–1650,” in Histories of Scientific Observation (Chicago, 2011), pp. 45–80.
6. On the divisions of nature, see Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park, Wonders and
the Order of Nature, 1150–1750 (New York, 1998), pp. 120–28; and Lorraine Daston, “Marvelous Facts and Miraculous Evidence in Early Modern Europe,” Critical Inquiry, 18,
(1991), 93–124.
7. ASV, RP 2155, fol. 90v: “Io ho veduto più volte quando ero giovanetto il corpo di
questo Beato Pontefice integro e incorrotto con li suoi habiti Pontificii entro il sepolchro marmoreo che sopra ho deposto il quale da poco tempo in qua non mi par cosi integro come ho
memoria d’haverlo veduto prima. . .”

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NEGOTIATED SANCTITY

whole and solid as it was before.” Reasoning further, Maltachini suggested
that the rotting of the body in recent years might be due to the decaying of
the wooden casket that held Gregory’s corpse and to the heat emitted by
the numerous lamps lit near his tomb.8
Gregory was, in fact, never canonized. This failure was not due to the
medical testimony alone. As Simon Ditchfield notes in his study of saintmaking, Gregory’s candidacy was hindered by a lack of patronage and was
really only pushed forward through the efforts of one Piacentine hagiographer, Pietro Maria Campi.9 The lack of patronage also affected how the
medical practitioners in Arezzo interpreted the state of Gregory’s corpse.
Campi cajoled testimony in Arezzo, where Gregory was buried, but was
unable to engineer an official medical inspection of the body.10 As such an
inspection had become commonplace in cases involving bodily incorruption, the failure of such a visit to occur is noteworthy.11 In judging Gregory’s body, then, the doctors were forced to rely on memory or casual
visits to the tomb. In addition, Campi—perhaps seen as a meddlesome
outsider—likely pressured these medical professionals to testify favorably
about Gregory’s corpse. The medical testimony should therefore be understood as a reaction to these circumstances. Simply put, Gregory’s body no
longer seemed so “miraculous” after Campi began to interfere with local
veneration of the deceased pontiff.
As this case suggests, the incorruption of a corpse was never unambiguous: local opinion, ecclesiastical authority, political pressures, medical
expertise, and theological concerns all contributed to the attempt to define
the boundary of the natural when it came to a rotting human body. As
Aviad Kleinberg has noted for the cases of medieval saints, “the status of
saint was conferred upon a person in a gradual process that involved disagreement and negotiation, as well as collaboration and even collusion.”12
This is equally true for miracles in the early-modern period. When it came
8. ASV, RP 2155, fol. 59r: “Io l’ho visto molte volte da cinquant’anni in dietro nel
qual tempo detto corpo era molto più intiero, che non è di p[rese]nte o che ciò sia nato per
essersi per corto del tempo corrosa la cassa di legno e tavola dove sia posato d[etto] corpo, o
perché sia stato toccato con corone, et altro da fedeli come sopra ho deposto, o che il caldo
de[i] lumi de quali si sono tenuti le persone che hanno voluto vedere detto corpo o della lampada, che dentro si soleva tenervi accesa, o per altro accidente non per più di presente cosi
intiero e solido come prima.”
9. Ditchfield. “How Not to Be a Counter-Reformation Saint,” pp. 419–22.
10. Ibid., pp. 394–95.
11. See the discussion later in the article.
12. Aviad M. Kleinberg, Prophets in Their Own Country (Chicago, 1992), p. 4.

BRADFORD BOULEY

5

to sanctity, even medical knowledge of a human body was negotiated.
When a doctor looked into a potentially holy cadaver, he understood it
both as a possible locus for sanctity and as a subject of medical knowledge.
How he interpreted what he found therein was not a strict reporting of the
facts—if that ever is possible—but rather an observation conditioned by a
variety of competing factors.13
Importance and Theology of Incorruption
Although incorruption was an important and popular miracle in the
Middle Ages, it became even more crucial to the Catholic faith after the
Reformation.14 Early Protestants rejected the possibility of this miracle and
had mocked the idea that the human body could act as a conduit for the
divine.15 The numerous attacks in which relics were either defamed or
destroyed in the 1520s were well-known displays of the antipathy felt by
Protestants for what they viewed as a manifestation of clerical deceit and
corruption.16 Therefore, belief in the possibility of incorruption became a
badge of Catholic identity and a miracle that was thought to prove the
veracity of the faith.17 Its importance is illustrated by the seventeenth-century canonization of Catherine of Bologna. As historian Gianna Pomata
argues, the incorruption of Catherine’s body was considered one of her key
miracles and therefore also one that was hotly debated.18
Given its importance, this miracle of incorruption posed additional
problems for canonization officials. Although it aroused enthusiasm in the
populace, which was certainly to be encouraged, such zeal could also be
misdirected toward unworthy individuals whose bodies somehow appeared
13. For a recent consideration of the possibility and history of “objective” knowledge,
see Lorraine Daston and Peter Gallison, Objectivity (New York, 2007).
14. John Gager, “Body Symbols and Social Reality: Resurrection, Incarnation and
Asceticism in Early Christianity,” Religion, 12 (1982), 345–64; and Vauchez, Sainthood in the
Later Middle Ages, pp. 427–28.
15. Carlos M. N. Eire, War Against the Idols (New York, 1986), pp. 1–2, 312.
16. See, for example, Robert Scribner, Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (London, 1987), pp. 71–102; and Lee Palmer Wandel, Voracious Idols and
Violent Hands: Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Strasbourg and Basel (New York, 1999).
17. Peter Dear, “Miracles, Experiments, and the Ordinary Course of Nature,” Isis, 81,
(1990), 663–83. Dear observes in this article that, especially in the period after Trent, miracles
became key demonstrations of the Catholic faith. Indeed, he argues that they served a purpose
as analogous experiments for the later English Royal Society. That is, just as an experiment
could confirm a theoretical assertion, so, too, could a miracle confirm Catholic doctrine.
18. Gianna Pomata, “Malpighi and the Holy Body: Medical Experts and Miraculous
Evidence in Seventeenth-Century Italy,” Renaissance Studies, 21 (2007), 568–86, here 568–71.

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NEGOTIATED SANCTITY

incorrupt.19 Incorruption was a sign of sanctity that was potentially too
independent of official church authority—it was subjective and therefore
open to interpretation. Thus, members of the Rota Tribunal and the Congregation of Rites—the two bodies that oversaw canonization proceedings
from 1588 onward—sought methods whereby to verify this miracle but
make it independent of popular opinion.
When a canonization proceeding moved from its local or diocesan
phase to its apostolic or papal phase, the Rota Tribunal issued letters nominating new local judges to conduct the inquiry and including instructions
on what questions to ask witnesses and how other miracles should be confirmed.20 By the early-seventeenth century, such instructions began to
specify that the tomb of the purportedly holy individual must be surveyed
and the body unearthed. These letters did not necessarily specify that medical practitioners be used in confirming the incorruption of the corpse.
However, following exhumation, medical professionals almost always
examined the corpse immediately, implying that the recourse to experts
was mandatory.21
The understanding that medical verification was required may have
come from the fact that canonization manuals had codified both the
importance of incorruption and the role of medicine in its confirmation by
this period. Felice Contelori, a principal legal adviser to Pope Urban VIII
(1623–44), stressed its importance in his authoritative 1634 manual on
canonization, Tractatus et praxis de canonizatione.22 In this work, he cited
the incorruption of a corpse after death and its emission of a sweet19. See, for example, several cases brought before the Roman Inquisition in which the
discovery of an incorrupt body sparked unapproved venerations, in at least one case even of
an unknown individual. Vatican City, Archivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della
Fede (ACDF), Stanza Storica (St. St.) B-4-B, fasc. 14; B-4-F, fasc. 1, fasc. 9; B-4-P, fasc. 3,
fasc. 13.
20. For the role of the Rota and the Congregation of Rites in canonization and the various stages in a canonization process, see Miguel Gotor, Chiesa e santità nell’Italia moderna
(Rome, 2004), pp. 39–40; idem, “La canonizzazione dei santi spagnoli nella Roma barocca,”
in Roma y España: un crisol de la cultura europea en la edad moderna, ed. Carlos José and Hernando Sánchez (Madrid, 2007), pp. 621–39, here pp. 623–25; Simon Ditchfield, “Tridentine
Worship and the Cult of the Saints,” in The Cambridge History of Christianity, ed. R. Po-Chia
Hsia, vol. 6 (New York, 2007), pp. 201–24, here pp. 208–12.
21. See, for example, the processes for Isidro Labrador, ASV, RP 3192, fol. 648r;
Andrea Corsini, ASV, RP 762, fols. 147r–47v; and Isabel of Portugal, ASV, RP 501, fols.
40v–41r.
22. On Contelori, see Giovanni Camillo Peresio, Vita di Monsig. Felice Contelori
(Rome, 1684).

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7

smelling odor as the first two miracles that he said could count for canonization, thereby giving them precedence.23 Furthermore, he specifically
asserted that physicians and surgeons held authority as expert witnesses,
claiming that they were allowed to interpret evidence—even if they had not
been present when the supposed miracle had occurred.24
What Contelori left unsaid, however, was exactly what standards
should be applied by medical professionals when determining whether the
body of a deceased holy person could be considered incorrupt. It was, in
fact, extremely difficult in practice to say whether a miracle had occurred,
because Catholic theology on incorruption left quite a bit of room for
interpretation in judging this miracle.
Theologians asserted that a holy body was allowed to have rotted a
little and still be considered miraculous because the Catholic theory of
incorruption depended on ideas about resurrection at the end of time.
Catholic theology states that during the Last Judgment, the entire flesh of
a deceased individual would be brought together and reanimated.25 Before
that event, the bodies of deceased saints, which were thought to enjoy a
direct connection with God, might demonstrate signs of their election by
foreshadowing this reanimation. The incorrupt corpse provided a glimpse
of the resurrection and the victory over death and decay that the elect
would enjoy.26 But, even incorrupt corpses, by virtue of existing in this
transient world, would show some sign of the passage of time.27 Saintly
bodies reflected a double promise: both that the world will end and that the
elect will be saved. Thus, saintly bodies could still be counted as miracu23. Felice Contelori, Tractatus et Praxis de Canonizatione (Lyons, 1634), pp. 144–45.
24. Ibid., p. 209. The question arises, however, as to whether or not the Church actually
preferred firsthand medical testimony, since, if it did, this would imply that canonization officials gave special weight to sensory experience as a means with which to discern the holy. In
nearly all the cases considered here the medical practitioners did indeed inspect the corpse
themselves before they testified about it. However, there are a few cases—such as Francis
Xavier or Rose of Lima—in which medical testimony given far away by a less prestigious
medical practitioner was reinterpreted in Rome. On balance, it seems that canonization officials preferred that the most prestigious witnesses possible examine the body firsthand before
giving evidence. However, barring that, it favored secondhand testimony from more eminent
practitioners rather than firsthand observations from non-elite medici.
25. Caroline Bynum, “Material Continuity, Personal Survival and the Resurrection of
the Body: A Scholastic Discussion of Its Medieval and Modern Contexts,” in “The Body,”
spec. issue, History of Religions, 30, No. 1, (1990), 51–85, here 52; idem, The Resurrection of
the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336 (New York, 1995), pp. 154–55; idem, Christian
Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe (New York, 2011), pp. 187–92.
26. Bynum, The Resurrection, p. 200.

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lously incorrupt even if a cadaver had degraded to some extent in respect
to how it had appeared in life.
Furthermore, it was believed that holy bodies might begin to show
some signs of rot in this world as an indication of their status in heaven.
Resurrection of the body implied a scheme of punishments and rewards.
The body that had either sinned or worked great piety on Earth would be
brought back together to answer for its actions. The elect would be sorted
based on moral achievements, gender, and ecclesiastical status.28 The
bodily remains that bore evidence of a saint’s elect status on Earth would
also signify his or her position in heaven. In sum, then, from a theological
point of view, the resistance of a human body to rot over a long period of
time was a difficult matter to measure.29 Theology left open specifics such
as how much rot was allowed for a body to still be considered miraculously
incorrupt. It was partially owing to this difficulty that canonization officials
turned to the experts on the body, medical professionals, in an attempt to
identify where the boundary of the miraculous lay in the human body.
Medicine and the Church
From at least the thirteenth century, doctors regularly verified healing
miracles during a canonization process.30 Following the Reformation,
however, as David Gentilcore and Fernando Vidal argue, positive medical
testimony became an absolute requirement for the acceptance of a healing
miracle during a canonization proceeding. Such expert testimony differed
from the observations of a layperson: it was characterized both by references to medical experience and philosophical training.31 Earlier canonizations had not required this level of detail—a mere affirmation sufficed that
the healing was medically inexplicable.32
Although the alliance between the Church and medical professionals
had long been established, the increasing reliance of canonization officials
on medical experts to judge incorruption in a human body represented a
27. Ibid., p. 210.
28. Ibid., p. 110.
29. Pomata, “Malpighi and the Holy Body,” pp. 578–82.
30. Joseph Ziegler, “Practitioners and Saints: Medical Men in Canonization Processes
in the Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries,” Social History of Medicine, 12 (1999), 191–225.
31. Gentilcore, Healers and Healing, pp. 187–98; and Fernando Vidal, “Miracles,
Science and Testimony in Post-Tridentine Saint-Making,” Science in Context, 20 (2007),
481–508.
32. Ziegler, “Practitioners and Saints,” p. 220.

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9

significant change in this relationship. Previously, the body of a prospective
saint had only rarely been a subject of medical inquiry and, in those few
cases in which it was scrutinized, the evidence seems not to have been
brought forth in the canonization attempt. Furthermore, there was a difference in the type of evidence in the earlier cases: medical practitioners
who opened medieval holy women—and it was always women—found
objects such as implements of the passion or figured stones and took these,
rather than anatomical details, as the sign of holiness in the cadavers.33 In
contrast, during the early-modern period, medical professionals gave evidence in nearly every case involving a claim of bodily wondrousness for a
prospective saint and relied on anatomical and philosophical specifics—
that is, details requiring expertise—when making their decisions.
The reason for this shifting role of physicians lies in the fact that just
as the Catholic faith was experiencing a period of profound change and
renovation, so, too, was the medical profession. Although still rooted in
classical medical authorities such as Galen and Hippocrates, medicine by
the early-sixteenth century was undergoing what has been termed a
“Renaissance” in its understanding of the human body.34 This was fueled
by the increasing availability of old texts and a circulation of some new
texts from the ancient world.35
During the sixteenth century, the medical profession increasingly
emphasized firsthand experience of anatomy as a guide to understanding
the human body. Although the annual practice of dissection in the famous
medical schools of Bologna and Padua dated to at least the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, respectively, the goal behind these demonstrations was
to serve as a visual aid to the text.36 By the early-sixteenth century, though,
a few physicians, including Alessandro Benedetti, Jacopo Berengario da
Carpi, and Niccolò Massa, had begun dissecting bodies as a way of uncovering new knowledge about the workings of human anatomy.37
33. Katharine Park, “The Criminal and the Saintly Body: Autopsy and Dissection in
Renaissance Italy,” Renaissance Quarterly, 47 (1994), 1–33; idem, Secrets of Women: Gender,
Generation, and the Origins of Human Dissection (New York, 2006), pp. 47–52, 169–80.
34. Andrew Cunningham, The Anatomical Renaissance: The Resurrection of the Anatomical Project of the Ancients (Brookfield, VT, 1997); and Nancy Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: A Guide to Knowledge and Practice (Chicago, 1990), pp. 190–93.
35. Owsei Temkin, Galenism: Rise and Decline of a Medical Philosophy (Ithaca, NY,
1973), p. 125.
36. Andrea Carlino, Books of the Body, pp. 1–2; and Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine, pp. 73–77.
37. Carlino, Books of the Body, p. 2; and French, Dissection and Vivisection, p. 96.

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NEGOTIATED SANCTITY

Real change in attitudes toward dissection is apparent in the 1543
publication of Andreas Vesalius’s On the Fabric of the Human Body. Despite
his reliance on Galen in some respects, Vesalius also argued forcefully for
the utility of firsthand knowledge of dissection.38 A number of anatomists,
including Realdo Colombo and Charles Estienne, were quick to add their
own arguments about the structure of the human body based on firsthand,
empirical observation.39 By the seventeenth century, Vesalian methods of
dissection, according to historian Roy Porter, “had become the golden
method for anatomical investigation.”40
Thus, by the early-seventeenth century, medicine was a discipline well
known for making sense of the workings of the human body by using
unusual details found therein to prove broader assertions.41 Many believed
anatomy was uniquely able to yield details about the life of a deceased individual that otherwise would not have been known.42 In consequence, an
unusually large number of case studies of individual anatomies came out in
this period, resulting in what Jonathan Sawday calls a “culture of dissection.”43 In the search to know the true nature of an individual, anatomy
might quite literally reveal the inner person.
It was this ability to interpret particular details in the human body that
made medicine useful to Catholic canonization officials. The importance

38. Numerous authors have written about the importance of Vesalius and debated the
place of his 1543 work as a turning point. See Carlino, Books of the Body, pp. 1, 44; French,
Dissection and Vivisection, pp. 163–79; and Charles O’Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels,
1514–1564 (Berkeley, 1964).
39. Realdo Columbo, De re anatomica libri XV (Venice, 1559); and Charles Estienne,
De dissectione partium corporis humani libri III (Paris, 1545).
40. Roy Porter, “Medical Science,” in The Cambridge History of Medicine, ed. Roy
Porter (New York, 2006), pp. 136–75, here p. 138. On the increasingly important role of
anatomy in medical education, see Cynthia Klestinec, “Practical Experience in Anatomy,” in
The Body as Object and Instrument of Knowledge: Embodied Empiricism in Early Modern Science,
ed. Charles T. Wolfe and Ofer Gal (New York, 2010), pp. 33–57.
41. Anthony Grafton and Nancy Siraisi, Natural Particulars: Nature and the Disciplines
in Renaissance Europe (Cambridge, MA, 1999), pp. 1–21; Gianna Pomata, “Praxis Historialis:
The Uses of Historia in Early Modern Medicine,” in Historia: Empiricism and Erudition in
Early Modern Europe, ed. Gianna Pomata and Nancy Siraisi (Cambridge, MA, 1999), pp.
105–46; and Nancy Siraisi, “Vesalius and Human Diversity in De humani corporis fabrica,” in
Medicine and the Italian Universities, pp. 287–327.
42. Nancy Siraisi, “Signs and Evidence: Autopsy and Sanctity in Late Sixteenth-Century Italy,” in Medicine and the Italian Universities, pp. 356–80, here pp. 358–61.
43. Jonathan Sawday, The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture (New York, 1995), p. 3.

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FIGURE 1. Portrait of Paolo Zacchia, n.d. Wellcome Library, London.

of medicine in distinguishing the supernatural was noted by papal physician and “father” of forensic anatomy Paolo Zacchia (see figure 1):
. . . so as to pursue full and undoubted truth, in examining some miracles
the [Tribunal of the] Sacred Roman Rota sometimes orders doctors to be
sent for . . . Since we, who incessantly pursue the works of nature, can
recognize easily those things, which deviate from its normal operation,
and those which excel the power of its operations.44

According to Zacchia, physicians were now recognized by church authorities for their ability to delineate the boundaries between natural and supernatural—that is, miraculous—phenomena.

44. Paolo Zacchia, Quaestionum Medico-Legalium Tomi Tres Editio Nova, a Variis
Mendis Purgata, Passimque Interpolata, et Novis Recentiorum Authorum Inventis ac Observationis aucta, 4.1.1 (Frankfurt, 1666), p. 282: “In nonullis ergo miraculis examinandis sacra Rota
Romana, ut plenam, & indubitatam veritatem assequatur Medicos interdum accersi iubet,
eorumque sententiam exposcit, . . . Nos enim, qui Naturae operibus indesinenter insistimus,
facile ea, quae ab eius operibus desciscunt, eiusque operandi potentiam exuperant, cognoscere
possimus.”

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NEGOTIATED SANCTITY

Medicine and Incorruption
Zacchia’s writing about the supernatural drew upon what was commonplace knowledge for the medical community. Stemming from
Scholastic debates and particularly the work of St. Thomas Aquinas, earlymodern natural philosophers and theologians had established three general
categories into which phenomena occurring in the natural world could be
divided: natural, preternatural, and supernatural.45 Natural occurrences
were those that were brought about by the normal workings of nature. Preternatural events were unusual but were created through natural means. It
required an expert such as a trained physician to decipher how nature
brought about a preternatural phenomenon. In contrast, a supernatural
event was divinely inspired and therefore impossible through the regular
workings of nature.46 The failure of a body to rot after a lengthy period in
the ground was a “supernatural” event.
In determining whether the level of rot found in a human body was
natural, preternatural, or supernatural, seventeenth-century physicians drew
heavily on their new practical experience with human anatomy. In many
cases this involved an empirical testing of the corpse, sometimes including
dissection. The physicians examining potential saints Giacomo della Marca
and Andrea Corsini, for example, opened the chest cavities of the deceased
to inspect the effects of previous embalming efforts on the body. In della
Marca’s case, one physician even noted that he and his colleagues had
checked “by hand” the interior of the holy man’s corpse. This detail underlines the importance of careful, firsthand examination that doctors undertook in verifying the incorruption of a body.47 A doctor who examined
Isabel of Portugal in 1612 was careful to point out that he tested her flesh
in multiple places to ensure that her bodily integrity stretched throughout
her frame. He stated that he “did not only look but also touched by hand
from the right shoulder down the whole arm to the hand.”48 In the case of
Teresa of Ávila, the physician Ludovico Vazquez felt her abdomen in sev45. Zacchia and Contelori assert these divisions but add further subdivisions to the category of supernatural. Zacchia, Quaestionum Medico-Legalium, 4.1.2, pp. 283–84; and Contelori, Tractatus, pp. 166–77.
46. Daston and Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, pp. 120–28.
47. ASV, RP 2009 (Giacomo della Marca), fol. 446r. “Thoracem sine visceribus invenimus albo mundoque go[s]sipio . . . repletum , gos[s]ipium extricavimus, totumque Thoracem
manibus satis iudicavimus, sed praeter illud nihil in ipso invenimus”: ASV, RP 762 (Andrea
Corsini), fol. 149r.
48. ASV, RP 501, fol. 596r: “ . . . et non solum vidi, sed etiam illud manu tetigi ab
humero dextro per totum brachium usque ad manum.”

BRADFORD BOULEY

13

eral locations to check for rot. Finding that the skin seemed smooth and
lifelike, he repeated this tactile examination on numerous occasions, returning at different times of day and in different weather conditions to determine if the flesh had changed.49 Vasquez relied on his own, personal experience in testing the corpse at different times and in different atmospheric
conditions—a procedure akin to experimentation—to help him decide
whether the preservation of Teresa’s body should be counted as supernatural. In another, similar case, doctors repeatedly manipulated the body of
Luis Bertrán in an attempt to ascertain its level of preservation. In the words
of the notary, they looked “at every part [of his body], touching it frequently.”50 This examination included a partial dissection, from which they
noted that they found the body to be without any previous signs of corruption “not just in the internal parts and extremities, but also in the head,
chest, and abdomen.”51 Thus, when physicians examined the bodies of
potentially holy individuals, they engaged in observation, testing, and even
dissection of the corpse in an attempt to isolate signs that would indicate
whether miraculous incorruption was present or not. These skills were a
product of the recent emphasis on anatomical knowledge and the importance attached to firsthand investigation of the body. The Vesalian revolution thus also changed the ways in which holiness was now understood.
In trying to measure the boundary of the natural in this way, physicians
relied on medical theory as well as practical experience. Until the early part of
the seventeenth century, the main text employed was Aristotle’s Meteorology,
which discussed the theory behind how quickly and why things decay.52 By
49. ASV, RP 3156, unfoliated, estimated fol. 712: “Ludovicus Vasquez medicus Civitatis Abulem . . . qui de praedictis testatur, et q[uod]d[ictu]m corpus non fuerat apertum nec
unctum balsamo, quia tetigit eius ventrem plenum cum suis intestinis, et cum tanta carne in
illis partibus, prout in vita extare poterat et declarat super incorruptione, odore, et liquore, et
quia naturali, nisi miraculosa, illud esse non poterat, et q[uod] pro maiori confirmatione praedictorum diversis vicibus, et horis sine praeventione monialium ingressus fuit monast[eriu]m
pro visitandis infirmis, et petiit, et obtinuit sibi ostendi dictum corpus, et praecipue quando
maximus calor vigebat, et semper illud vidit eodem modo quo a principio, et erat valde leve,
et indicavit illud pondus carnis sanctificatae.”
50. ASV, RP 3361, fols. 1516r–16v: “. . . inspexerunt corpus praefati Beati Ludovici,
conspicientes super ab omni parte, et saepius tangentes, viderunt quod totus corpus erat integru[m], et articulatu[m], et quod solum ei deficiebant tres digiti manu sinistri.”
51. Ibid., fols. 1517r–17v: “et quod corpus praefati Beati Ludovico manet, et continuo
servatum fuit Integrum absque aliqua putrefactione, et absque aliquo signo praecedentis corruptionis no[n] solum in partibus internis et extremis, sed etia[m] in capite, pectore,
abdomine . . .”
52. Craig Martin, “Interpretation and Utility: The Renaissance Commentary Tradition
on Aristotle’s Meteorologica IV” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2002), p. 148. Martin

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NEGOTIATED SANCTITY

the 1630s, however, Zacchia had produced an authoritative guide, Quaestiones
Medico-Legales, for doctors who would be called upon to testify before church
authorities. He enjoyed a close relationship with the Tribunal of the Rota,
which regularly asked him to testify about a number of matters, including
whether or not the bodies of prospective saints should be considered holy. In
fact, about forty of his expert testimonies before the Rota still survive.53
During the papacy of Urban VIII—that is, the 1620s through the 1640s—
Zacchia outlined the lessons from his experiences in his Quaestiones.54 In this
work, he explained in careful detail the differences among natural, preternatural, and supernatural phenomena when found in the body.
In his guide, Zacchia warns his readers to beware of embalming efforts
or desiccation as they can make a normal body appear at times to be incorrupt.55 He advises potential testators that a body can only be considered
miraculously incorrupt if it is preserved not just in the “harder and drier”
parts but also those that are “softer and wetter.”56 That is, Zacchia encouraged his readers to focus on fatty tissue as the true measure of how much
rot the body has endured. Through his manual, then, Zacchia told his
readers where to look within the human body for incorruption and how to
test it. Physicians who sought to demarcate the boundaries of the supernatural for the Church now had a practical guide to accompany their
broader theological understanding of incorruption.57
Nevertheless, despite his specificity, Zacchia warned his readers that a
doctor must also consider more than just his initial observations because
factors such as weight, gender, and cause of death can all affect the length
argues that, from the late-sixteenth to the early-eighteenth centuries, book 4 of the Meteorology came to be considered a central medical text and the key work on how bodies decay.
53. Paolo Zacchia, Quaestionum Medico-Legalium Tomus Posterior Quo Continentur
Liber Nonus et Decimus Necnon Decisiones Sacrae Rotae Romanae ad Praedictas Materias Spectantes, ad Lanfranco Zacchia Collectae (Lyons, 1661).
54. On Zacchia, see Silvia De Renzi, “Per una biografia di Paolo Zacchia: nuovi documenti e ipotesi di ricerca,” in Paolo Zacchia: Alle origini della medicina legale, 1584–1659, ed.
Alessandro Pastore and Giovanni Rossi (Milan, 2008), pp. 50–73, here p. 53.
55. Zacchia, Quaestionum Medico-Legalium, 4.1.10, pp. 318–21.
56. Ibid., p. 321: “Cum vero, ut notum est, naturaliter omnia cadavera corrumpantur &
putrefiant, sciendum est ad majorem miraculi evidentiam, ut superius dixi, cadaver ex miraculo incorruptum servatum, debere non solum secundum solidiores & sicciores partes tale conservari, sed etiam secundum moliores & humidiores, & secundum eas, quae magis sunt putrefactioni obnoxiae: & hae quidem ab omni genere putrefactionis immunes sint, oportet.”
57. On the importance of Zacchia’s work and its wide circulation in the seventeenth
century, see Maria Gigliola and Renzo Villata, “Paolo Zacchia, la medicina come sapere globale e la ‘sfida’ al diritto,” in Paolo Zacchia alle origini della medicina legale 1584–1659, pp. 9–49.

BRADFORD BOULEY

15

of time that a body can remain without rot.58 Thus, even as a standard
guide and set of techniques began to be employed by medical professionals,
incorruption was still considered something that required an understanding of more than just what could be observed at the tomb.
Negotiating Incorruption
By the early-seventeenth century, the demand and the skills to turn a
popular element of sanctity—the incorrupt corpse—into a matter of expert
opinion were all in place. Medical professionals had developed a set of
empirical tools and even had a practical guide through which they could
identify the boundaries of the natural within the human body. Still, the
evaluations of the bodies of deceased holy men and women did not resemble any ideal of “disinterested” medical science; rather, they represented a
negotiation in which personal belief, local opinion, and church authority
could all affect how the evidence at hand was read. A few examples will
illustrate this point.
The failed canonization process of Francisco Jerónimo Simón, a parish
priest from Valencia, demonstrates the ways in which the understanding of
a holy body, even in the eyes of medical experts, was conditioned by various
competing local interests. Shortly after Simón died in April 1612, many of
the faithful from within his parish, Sant’Andrés, began venerating him as
a holy individual and declared his corpse to be incorrupt through a
miracle.59 This local enthusiasm was soon accompanied by wider support
throughout the city. During his sermons, the famous Franciscan preacher
Antonio Sobrino lauded Simón’s asceticism and works of piety. Stirred up
by Sobrino, large sections of Valencia’s populace began to venerate the
dead priest. Sick individuals experienced healings and other miracles at
Simón’s tomb.60 Several eminent personages, including Cardinal Gaspar
Borja and Francisco Gómez de Sandoval (the Duke of Lerma and King
Philip III’s favorite), began to support Simon’s canonization.61 An ambitious priest and metropolitan canon, Balthazar Borja, opened the cause for
Simon’s canonization.62 Borja, although ordinarily without such authority,

58. Zacchia, Quaestionum Medico-Legalium, 4.1.10, p. 320.
59. ACDF, St. St. C-1-D, b. 1, fol. 20r.
60. Maria Antonietta Visceglia, Roma papale e Spagna: Diplomatici, nobili e religiosi tra
due corti (Rome, 2010), pp. 243–44. Visceglia discusses Simon’s case as an example of how
Spanish interests played out in the Roman Curia.
61. Ibid., p. 242.
62. Ibid.

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was allowed to proceed because the archbishop’s seat was temporarily
empty.63
As had become commonplace in canonization proceedings, Borja
solicited medical practitioners in the city of Valencia to attest to the miraculous incorruption of Simón’s body.64 One physician, José Pérez, claimed
that Simón’s body exuded an “odor of sanctity” and that after his death,
“the Divine Goodness began to show hidden [signs of] sanctity” via the
cadaver, including his failure to rot.65 Two other doctors further testified
that the corpse had a range of wondrous abnormalities that could only be
divinely inspired.66 These physicians gave unambiguous testimony about
the holiness of Simón’s body.
Yet, within the space of a few years, the same doctors reversed their
statements. After the canonization process had been sent to Rome, Spanish priest Pedro Cabezas journeyed to the Holy City to denounce Simón.67
Among his accusations, Cabezas claimed that Simón’s holy body had been
faked, with saint-like qualities produced by washing the corpse in sweetsmelling water and displaying it in favorable lighting.68 Pope Paul V
immediately called upon the Spanish Inquisition to investigate these
charges.69 The Inquisition had, in fact, already taken some interest in the
case due to claims that the veneration surrounding the body was excessive
63. ACDF, St. ST., C-1-A, fols. 1v–2r.
64. The fact that Borja ordered an examination of Simón’s body before the apostolic
phase of the process began might mean that he knew that medical evaluation was becoming a
key requirement for canonization and therefore sought to obtain verification early in the
process. Further indication that local promoters of an individual’s sainthood were aware of the
new medical and anatomical criteria for holiness emerges in the case of Lorenzo Giustiniani,
discussed later, in which it seems that an earlier effort had attempted to fix Giustiniani’s corpse
by sewing it back together to make it appear to be incorrupt. See ASV, RP 3528, fol. 101r.
65. ACDF, St. St., C-1-C, 1118r–18v, 1122r: “nel medesimo giorno di San Marco, in
cui morì il Servo di Dio Don Simo, incominciò la Divina Bontà a manifestare la di lui nascosta santità”; “l’odore della di lui santità [sic].”
66. Ibid., fol. 1471r; ASV, RP 4235, fol. 908r. The doctors were Paolo Giuseppe
Leonart and Michele Tudela, who were both listed as “Medicinae Doctor.” Leonart is also
described as being a professor at the University of Valencia (St. St., C-1-C, fols. 1469v–70r).
67. ACDF, St. St. C-1-D, b. 10, fols. 16r: “Pietro Cabesas Spagnuolo . . . venne in
Roma a contradire la Causa della Canonizatione del P[adr]e Don Francesco Geronimo
Simón.”
68. ACDF, St. St. C-1-C, fols. 493r–93v: “havevano portato alla Chiesa, lavatolo con
acque di molti odori, colocassero il cadavero dirimpetto ad una finestra, nella quale vi erano
le vetrate, con tal disposizione che il Sole riverberasse nella di lui faccia, talche pareva, che gli
uscissero li splendori, quandoche non erano altro, che il riflesso del sole. . .”
69. Ibid., fol. 5r.

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17

and unapproved.70 With encouragement from Rome, inquisitors re-interviewed many testators, including some physicians involved in the case.
Tudela, who had testified about Simón’s saintly corpse, changed his statement and asserted that he had never seen holy signs in the man’s body.71
He was subsequently accused of lying in the earlier process so as to “please
the people” of the city of Valencia.72
Although in Simón’s case it might appear that medical opinions
swayed easily with the changing political and religious winds, the situation
was more complex. In the years between 1612, when the process was
opened, and 1619, when the process was initially halted, a number of conflicts broke out in the city over Simón’s canonization, and a competing
canonization attempt for the previous archbishop had even been started.73
The conflict that his canonization had stirred up possibly conditioned
examiners to interpret the evidence of Simón’s corpse less favorably than
before. Furthermore, no truly detailed medical testimony survives in the
documents for Simón’s canonization, so it is impossible to determine the
actual extent of the bodily evidence. In such a context, it is easy to believe
that evidence that might at first have seemed convincing slowly began to
appear somewhat less so to the medical testators.
The pressures exerted by the local community in Simón’s example
were not unique. After Andrea Castaldi died on May 16, 1629, the citizens
of Naples immediately hailed his corpse as miraculously incorrupt. Members of the Roman Inquisition deemed such veneration premature and
ordered a local agent to remove the body from its exalted position in a
church to a group tomb. A Neapolitan mob then asserted that it would
stone anyone who attempted to do so.74 Thus, physicians who testified
about the holiness of certain prominent figures did so in a setting characterized by violent public opinion and possible threats to their lives.
Nevertheless, medical professionals were not mere mouthpieces of
public opinion and at times issued verdicts on the holiness of the body that
70. Visceglia, Roma papale e Spagna, pp. 242–52.
71. ACDF, St. St. C-1-D, busta 10, fol. 9v: “che il D[otto]r Tudela gli disse, che in
salute, et in infirmità haveva visitato il P[adre] Simone, ma già mai haveva trovato in lui segni
di santo, prova la falsità di questo Testim[oni]o, perche interrogato il D[otto]r Tudela avanti
il vescovo dice il Contrario . . .”
72. ACDF, St. St. C-1-B, 233r: “. . . che uno delli maggiori banditori della di lui santità è stato il d[ett]o Dottor Tudela per compiacere il Popolo.”
73. Visceglia, Roma papale e Spagna, p. 242.
74. ACDF, St. St., B-4-C, fasc. 12, fols. 32r–32v.

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NEGOTIATED SANCTITY

opposed local enthusiasm and ecclesiastical wishes. During the apostolic
phase of the canonization of Lorenzo Giustiniani, for example, a physician
and a surgeon refused to give a positive verdict about the state of the holy
man’s corpse. Indeed, when the fifteenth-century Venetian patriarch’s
corpse was exhumed in 1624, the two medical practitioners stated that they
found a “very decayed skeleton.”75 The physician performing the examination, Alberto Colombo, stated that an earlier embalming effort had actually made the corpse worse as it was now “totally put together with silver
threads, and in part with cloth and glue, but with little knowledge of the
art [of anatomy]. Due to this, there was created in the skeleton a rather
large deformity.”76
The negative judgment of these medical practitioners about Giustiniani’s body is somewhat surprising, given the immense desire of powerful
individuals to produce a positive verdict. The Doge of Venice had specifically called upon the papacy to open the process of canonization for the
saint.77 The Venetian ambassador in Rome (possibly Raniero Zeni) and
Pietro Campori, bishop of Cremona, repeatedly requested that the papacy
move the process forward.78 The current patriarch of Venice, Giovanni
Tiepolo, was deeply involved with the promotion of Giustiniani’s sanctity.79 Finally, the church in which the examination of Giustiniani’s
cadaver took place was ordered closed during the procedure, so that a
crowd of people would not gather.80 That a crowd might assemble implied
that there was widespread popular devotion to the deceased patriarch. So,
when Colombo and the surgeon, Paulo Giulio, came to look at the body,
they were already undoubtedly aware of what high-ranking religious officials as well as local believers wanted to hear. How, then, did they come to
produce a negative verdict?
A growing sense of professionalism in the medical profession might be
one reason why Colombo, in particular, chose to pronounce a negative verdict in this case. Medical testators were usually paid by the promoters of an
75. ASV, RP 3528, fol. 106v: “Questo corpo . . . è un scheletro molto consumato.”
76. Ibid., fol. 107r: “Tutto questo Corpo scheletro è stato messo insieme et alligato
parte con filo d’argento, et parte con tela et colla, ma con puoco [sic] giudizio dell’arte; Dal
ch’ ne nasce una deformità dello scheletro assai grande.”
77. Gio. Battista Maffei, Vita di S. Lorenzo Giustiniano Primo Patriarca di Venetia
(Rome, 1690), p. 57.
78. Ibid., p. 58.
79. See, for example, Tiepolo’s efforts surrounding the incorruption of Giustiniani’s
corpse: ASV, RP 3528, fols. 105r–07v.
80. Ibid., fol. 105v.

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individual’s sanctity during a canonization proceeding. Judging from later
documents, a normal payment might be about ten scudi, a respectable
sum.81 However, as Gianna Pomata has argued in her study of medical
practice in Bologna, already by the first half of the seventeenth century
physicians were beginning to see themselves as an elite professional group.
With increasing frequency, they were not paid for specific cures and successful outcomes. In this way, they distinguished themselves from lesser
practitioners such as surgeons and apothecaries.82 Colombo likely did not
want to seem as if his opinion was purchased—like a base surgeon—by
merely telling the canonization officials what they wanted to hear. Furthermore, since he practiced medicine in Venice, Colombo was very near
the prestigious medical school at the University of Padua. He, therefore,
would have been part of or at least aware of an eminent medical community both in and around Venice. This would have exerted additional pressure on Colombo to testify according to how a strict medical evaluation
would have judged Giustiniani’s corpse: as succumbing to decay. After all,
given the enthusiasm for Giustiniani’s canonization, everyone—including
other medical practitioners—would have known the circumstances surrounding his testimony. In this context, safeguarding his professional reputation may have outweighed communal or religious obligations.
The examination of the corpse of Gregorio Barbarigo by the two eminent Italian physicians Antonio Vallisneri and Giovan Battista Morgagni

81. Pope Benedict XIV, De servorum Dei beatificatione et beatorum canonizatione liber
tertius (Bologna, 1737), pp. 426, 588. Silvia de Renzi has noted that the physician Giulio
Mancini only received nine scudi for three months’ salary at one point in his career. However,
a physician at the Santo Spirito Hospital in Rome would earn a salary of 100 scudi per year
in the seventeenth century. Silvia de Renzi, “Medical Competence, Anatomy and the Polity
in Seventeenth-Century Rome,” Renaissance Studies, 21 (2007), 551–67, here 558; idem, “‘A
Fountain for the Thirsty’ and a Bank for the Pope: Charity, Conflicts, and Medical Careers
at the Hospital of Santo Spirito in Seventeenth-Century Rome,” in Health Care and Poor
Relief in Counter-Reformation Europe, ed. Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham (New
York, 1999), pp. 99–130, here p. 110.
82. Pomata, Contracting a Cure, pp. 140–71. Physicians also distinguished themselves
from surgeons, apothecaries, and other medical practitioners by the philosophical sophistication of their answers to a variety of questions. Almost all witnesses were, for example, asked if
they knew the difference between grace and a miracle. Physicians routinely provided complex
and theologically sound answers to this question, whereas surgeons did not. See, for example,
Leonart’s thorough definition of miracle in the proceedings for Francisco Simón: ACDF St.
St. C-1-C, fols. 1472v–74r. For a series of physician and surgeon commentaries on the subject
in one volume, see ASV, RP 3474, fols. 4179r, 4210v–11r, 4226v, 4709r. On another note,
canonization officials occasionally asked physicians to assess the credibility of a surgeon,
whereas the reverse never seems to have happened. See, for example, ASV, RP 2009, fol. 496v.

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FIGURE 2. Engraving of Giovan Battista Morgagni by Nathaniel Dance-Holland,
n.d. Wellcome Library, London.

(see figure 2) provides a final, albeit late, case that demonstrates most
clearly the conflict among local opinion, ecclesiastical authority, and medical professionalism when it came to understanding the holy body.83 Vallisneri was the chair of practical and then of theoretical medicine at the
University of Padua from 1700 until his death in 1730.84 Morgagni was
another equally famous physician. Dubbed the father of modern anatomical pathology, Morgagni helped explain the effect of disease on human
organs.85 Thus, the team sent to look at Barbarigo’s body represented the
finest medical minds in the Italian peninsula.
On December 18, 1727, Vallinsieri, Morgagni, and the surgeons
Antonio Masieri and Agostin Danieli examined Barbarigo’s cadaver,
which had been exhumed as part of the apostolic process of his canoniza83. For a longer consideration of this case, see Bouley, “Contested Cases.”
84. On Vallisneri, see Dario Generali, ed., Antonio Vallisneri: La figura, il contesto, le
immagini storiografiche (Florence, 2008); idem, Antonio Vallisneri: Gli anni della formazione e
le prime ricerche (Florence, 2007); and Ivano Lombardi, Un nume del Settecento: Antonio Vallisneri (Lucca, 1998).
85. On Morgagni, see Valentina Gazzaniga and Elio de Angelis., eds., Giovan Battista
Morgagni, Perizie medico-legali (Rome, 2000).

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tion.86 When interviewed as to their opinion of the corpse’s state, all four
medical practitioners asked for time to reflect about what they had seen.87
Canonization officials gave them two days to submit a written report in
which they were specifically required to declare whether or not Barbarigo’s
physical state was miraculous.88
On December 19, 1727, the day after the exhumation of the corpse,
Vallisneri wrote about the situation to his friend and regular correspondent, the priest Ludovico Antonio Muratori. In this letter, Vallisneri
stated, “to tell the truth, we did not find him [Barbarigo] in such a good
state.” This placed Vallisneri in an awkward situation, since, he told Muratori, he did not feel that he could lie, having sworn on the Sacred Scriptures. However, at the same time, Vallisneri indicated that he could not
describe the body as it really was, presumably because that would dash the
hopes for the prospective saint’s canonization.89 In his response, Muratori
observed that Vallisneri was stuck in a
bad situation . . . for it is necessary to say the truth, but the already
printed avvisi from Mantua state that you and Signor Morgagni were
authentic testators to [Barbarigo’s] supernatural incorruptibility, and to
say otherwise would be terrible.

In this instance, public opinion had strongly asserted already how Vallisneri and Morgagni were supposed to testify. As Muratori observed, Vallis-

86. ASV, RP 3478, fols. 619r–29r.
87. ASV, RP 3478, fols. 619v–20r.
88. Ibid., fol. 620r: “Et statim DD[icti] Judices quemlibet ex dictis Peritis separatim
monuerunt, ut infra triduum, nempe die sabbati, quae erit 20 me[n]s[is] Decembris
curren[tis] facta per eos magis matura reflexione, et ponderatione referant, et unusquisque
eorum referat in scriptis quid sibi videatur de statu dicti ven[erabi]lis Corporis, et in specie an
dici possit incorruptum, et in statu miraculoso. Qui Periti se promptos, ac paratos exhibaerunt
satisfaciendum infra tempus praedictum omne sibi imposito, et referendum suam opinionem
in scriptis.”
89. Vallisneri to Muratori, Padova, December 19, 1727, in Carteggi con Ubaldini. . . .
Vannoni, Nazionale del Carteggio di L.A. Muratori, ed. Michela L. Nichetti Spanio, vol. 44
(Florence, 1978), Letter 225, p. 311: “A me toccò dare il duro giudizio, perché erano preoccupati dal miracolo, ma per dire il vero non lo trovammo in troppo buono stato, onde mi
riserbai di porre il mio parere in iscritto, in cui anderò cautissimo e fedele, perché mi fecero
giurare colle mani sopra l’Evangelo di dire la verità, altrimenti, come spergiuro sarei scomunicato, non potendomi assolvere se non il Pontefice, o un penitenziere in articulo mortis,
onde immaginate se voglio dir menzonge adulatrici. Non è mica menzogna, né sarà mai s’io
dico che sono . . .” The author thanks Paula Findlen for bringing this collection of letters to
his attention.

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neri and his colleagues were stuck in a “labyrinth” with only their own wits
to guide them out of their predicament.90
In his report to the Congregation of Rites, submitted two days after
the initial survey of the body, on December 20, 1727, Vallisneri recounted
in thorough detail the exhumation of the corpse and his careful examination of it. He then addressed six points in discussing whether the body was
miraculously incorrupt, employing a combination of observations and
empirical testing of the corpse.91 From these details, Vallisneri concluded
that the body was a “wondrous” thing. However, he declined to comment
on whether or not a miracle had actually occurred, stating that “whether
this thing qualifies as a miracle intervening above the order of nature it is
not in my talents or in my ability to define.”92
In his final letter to Muratori on the subject, Vallisneri added, “in the
end, it seems to me that I succeeded in liberating myself from the difficulty
with dexterity. His eminence [Cardinal Giovan Francesco Barbarigo, Gregorio’s nephew] was satisfied, and that is enough for me.”93 He then
reflected that neither he nor Morgagni actually said the body was miraculously incorrupt but rather “wondrous, which is within the confines of a
miracle, but not actually a miracle.”94 Vallisneri exploited the fact that his
90. Muratori to Vallisneri, Modena, January 2, 1728, in ibid., Letter 226, p. 312:
“Brutto cimento che è quello a cui vi veggo esposto (e n’ho dispiacere) per la ricognizione del
cadavere del fu venerabile card. Barbarigo; perché dire la verità è necessario’ e pure gli avvisi
di Mantova già stampati mettono voi, e il sig. Morgagni come autentici testimoni della sopranaturale incorruttibilità, e il dire diversamente sarà odioso costì. A me è noto che la spezieria
aiutò. In sì fatto labirinto starò a vedere come saprete condurvi.” Although Muratori is writing
back to Vallisneri after Vallisneri had already submitted his report, it seems likely that the
avvisi were circulating before Vallisneri gave his final verdict on Barbarigo. After all, Vallisneri initially wrote to Muratori on December 19, and Muratori wrote back on January 2. In
the period between many printers would have closed for various Christmas holidays. Also,
Muratori was not in Mantua and so would have only seen the avvisi after they had been in
circulation for at least a few days. It may be hypothesized, therefore, that for Muratori to have
seen the avvisi and write about them by January 2, they must have been printed at about the
same time or before Vallisneri visited Barbarigo’s tomb.
91. ASV, RP 3478, fols. 624v–25v.
92. Ibid., fol. 625v: “Haec omnia mihi diligenter, ac singillatim perpendenti admiranda
sane visa sunt. Utrum tamen ad haec prestanda miraculum supra naturae ordinem intercesserit, nec ingenii, nec facultatis meae est definire.”
93. Vallisneri to Muratori, Padova, January 17, 1728, in ibid., letter 227, p. 313: “Sono
stato al certo in pensiero molto, ma finalmente parmi d’essermi riuscito di liberarmi dagli
imbrogli con destrezza. Sua Eminenza è restato sodisfatto, e tanto a me basto.”
94. Ibid.: “Né io, né il sig. Morgagni abbiamo mai detto della sopranaturale incorruttibilità, ma solo dicemmo che vi era del mirabile, ch’è ne’confini del miracolo, ma non è miracolo, a chi ben intende.”

BRADFORD BOULEY

23

expert knowledge allowed him to argue subtly that the body’s state was just
below the defining boundary for a miracle. He used the murky line
between preternatural and supernatural to render the most diplomatic
answer.
Vallisneri’s reasons for equivocating are fairly clear. Both ecclesiastical
authority and popular opinion—stretching all the way to the avvisi issued
in Mantua—strongly dictated how he should view the body. Yet Vallisneri’s own personal and professional beliefs refused to allow him to be positive unambiguously in his verdict. In another letter to Muratori, he stated
that he was bothered by those who enthusiastically advertised Barbarigo’s
incorruption without sufficient proof of it, because it “gives cause to the
heretics, who make fun of and joke about the lives and miracles of our
saints.”95 Vallisneri was deeply concerned about the reputation of Italian
intellectual culture, and he had worried in another, much earlier letter to
the Roman physician Giovanni Maria Lancisi that the French, in particular, “little esteem us Italians.”96 Vallisneri, then, seemed concerned both
with defending the faith and defending the reputation of Italian intellectuals—including himself—when testifying about the wondrous body of
Barbarigo. He therefore had to walk a tightrope between declaring outright that the body was saintly and sticking to his professional opinion that
the body had somewhat decayed. Vallisneri’s concerns very much mirrored
those of his predecessors.
Incorruption as Medical or Religious Truth?
In his Quaestiones Medico-Legales, Zacchia himself seems to have
indicated that the truth in certain cases was not an absolute matter. He
concludes, when discussing honor, a key trait to have in a reliable witness,
“that honor is the exhibition of respect in the witnessing of virtue: or we
say that honor is a certain outward sign of excellent virtue through civic
95. Antonio Vallisneri to Ludovico Antonio Muratori, Padova, May 6, 1726, in Carteggi, Letter 200, pp. 289–90: “Una cosa sola mi dispiace, che può far dire gli eretici de’quali
ne sono continuamente in Padova, ed è che tutti, o quasi tutti, per farlo veder santo, alludono
all’incorruttibilità del corpo . . . quando nella spezieria dello Scarella mostrano la ricetta de’balsami co’quali fu imbalsamato, e vi è gente ancor viva che era presente quando l’imbalsamarono,
e tutta Padova il confessa, e lo dice. Questo è pure un manifestamente imporre, e dar campo
agli eretici che si burlino, e si faccian beffe delle vite, e de’miracoli de’ nostri Santi . . .”
96. Rome, Biblioteca Lancisiana, Fondo Lancisi, MS. 262, p. 632: “. . . mando a
V[ostro] S[ignore] Ill[ustrissi]mo il mio Libricciuolo . . . vi troverà da per tutto seminato un
libero, e filosofico ardimento particolarmento contro i Franzesi [sic], che si poco stimano noi
altri Italiani.”

24

NEGOTIATED SANCTITY

action.”97 Such a notion of honor as connected to civic action might
include testifying favorably about the evidence of a prospective saint’s miracles if such testimony could either support or quash the beliefs of his local
community. After all, incorruption was a matter not of absolute but of
degrees. It was therefore subjective. Faith, honor, and concern for his
community might lead a doctor to interpret physical evidence liberally if
at all possible. Furthermore, such favorable testimony may not have even
been a conscious choice but rather an outcome of a physician’s cultural
milieu that conditioned how he even experienced the viewing of holy
cadavers. It may be speculated that the dilemma experienced by Vallisneri
was actually unusual, and many medical testators saw no conflict among
their professional, communal, and religious obligations. In many ways,
then, the medical examination of saintly cadavers mirrors Steven Harris’s
characterization of Jesuit science, which sought “to spread and strengthen
the Catholic faith wherever it was found to be weak, unknown, or under
attack.”98
Zacchia’s definition of honor makes an interesting contrast with the
case of the Royal Society, which Steven Shapin has studied and which has
been taken up by other scholars. Shapin argues that the entire basis for
knowledge production in Restoration England was the idea that gentlemen were honorable and would therefore tell the truth about what they
observed in nature. The status of a gentleman in early-modern England
was achieved by economic, social, and biological circumstances that left the
individual largely unswayed by monetary or patronage inducements.99 Zacchia’s definition, in contrast, highlighted civic virtue and respect toward
one’s community as marks of honor. These very different criteria necessarily affected what could be considered fact and truth in two contemporary
societies. In the view of early-modern Catholic intellectuals, the interpretation of natural phenomena could not be disinterested because such conclusions deeply affected communal bonds and the strength of the renewed
faith after the Reformation. As Peter Dear has argued, the existence of
continued miracles provided both clear evidence for the truth of Catholi-

97. Zacchia, Quaestionum Medico-Legalium, 6.3.1, p. 496: “. . . dicamus cum Aristotele,
honorem esse exhibitionem reverentiae in virtutis testimonium: vel dicamus quod honor est
significatio quaedam excellentiae virtutis per actus civiles.”
98. Steven J. Harris, “Confession-Building, Long-Distance Networks, and the Organization of Jesuit Science,” Early Science and Medicine, 1 (1996), 287–318, here 288.
99. Steven Shapin, A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century
England (Chicago, 1985), pp. 42–63.

BRADFORD BOULEY

25

cism and worked to evangelize those who might be lackluster or wavering
in their faith.100
Thus, in the body of Catholic saints medical practitioners found what
might be called a double knowledge.101 There was, on the one hand, the
physical evidence that the increasingly accomplished study of anatomy
made more and more easily read by expert physicians. Yet, on the other
hand, the body was not at any point in this period viewed solely as a medical specimen. It was, especially for Catholics, connected intimately with
the divine that could suddenly become imminent in this world through the
bodies of saints. Thus, judging a prospective corpse during a canonization
proceeding was not a simple act where the evidence at hand was easily
reduced to a comprehensible category. Rather, it was a process of negotiation in which the various demands of the community, the faith, and the
practice of medicine conditioned the ways in which the truth of the saintly
body was understood.

100. Dear, “Miracles, Experiments, and the Ordinary Course of Nature,” pp. 663–83.
On the power of the saints to evangelize in this period, see Philip M. Soergel, Wondrous in
His Saints: Counter-Reformation Propaganda in Bavaria (Berkeley, 1993).
101. Pomata, “Malpighi and the Holy Body,” p. 585. Pomata makes a similar observation, stating that the physicians in the case she examined must have had a sort of “double
vision” in which they saw the body in both a spiritual and a medical light.

Murder in the Refectory:
The Death of António de Andrade, S.J.
MICHAEL J. SWEET*
The poisoning of António de Andrade—rector of New St. Paul’s College, deputy of the Goa Inquisition, former Provincial of Goa, and the
founder of the Jesuit mission in Tibet—presents a possibly unique documented instance of a prominent Jesuit murdered by his own subordinates in the Society of Jesus. After the event, a narrative developed that
portrayed Andrade as a martyr whose zealous work for the Inquisition
resulted in his assassination by a New Christian. The transcript of the
Goa Inquisition’s inquiry into this matter provides persuasive evidence
that the motive for the murder was personal animosity and that the
perpetrators were disgruntled priests and brothers at the college. The
author examines the evidence of the inquiry and traces the development
of the hagiographic narrative of his death.
Keywords: Andrade, António de, S.J.; Noronha, Miguel de,
Count of Linhares; New Christians; Goa Inquisition; Goa
Jesuits; Poisoning

I

n the more than two centuries between the founding of the Society of Jesus
and its suppression in 1773, opponents of its work murdered many of its
missionaries. Such deaths were considered martyrdoms, and some of the victims were beatified or canonized. The assassination of António de Andrade,
the rector of New St. Paul’s College and a deputy of the Goa Inquisition, was
quite another matter. He died on March 19, 1634, a fortnight after he
ingested poison that had been mixed into his drinking water. Within a
decade, Andrade’s death had given rise to a narrative ascribing the poisoning
to a crypto-Jewish assassin employed by a New Christian merchant; the
motive was said to be Andrade’s role in the Inquisition’s persecution of the
merchant’s family. Yet an Inquisition inquiry (devassa) into Andrade’s death

*Dr. Sweet is senior preceptor in the College of Letters and Science at University of
Wisconsin–Madison, email: msweet@wisc.edu. Unless otherwise noted, translations have
been provided by the author. The author thanks Miguel Rodrigues Lourenço, Jared Hendrickson, Trent Pomplun, Leonard Zwilling, Judith Chasnoff, Beth Newman, and Rob
Rhyner, as well as several anonymous reviewers, for their assistance and valuable suggestions.

26

MICHAEL J. SWEET

27

that was brought to light in the 1990s1 suggests a very different story: that the
crime was committed by a handful of Jesuit malcontents, each of whom had
been punished by Andrade for their infractions of Jesuit rules of deportment.
Discussed will be the evidence supporting their guilt found in the inquiry and
the development of the narrative of Andrade’s death that held sway from the
mid-seventeenth to the mid-twentieth centuries.
Andrade’s Life
Born in 1580 at Oleiros in central Portugal, Andrade entered the Society of Jesus in 1596 at the College of Coimbra and in 1597 was sent with
other novices to found a new novitiate in Lisbon.2 In 1600 he arrived in
Goa, completing his education at Old St. Paul’s College.3 After ordination,

1. “The Inquiry instituted by this Holy Office into the death of Fr. António de Andrade, religious of the Society of Jesus and its Representative” [Devassa que se criou neste Santo Oficio da morte
do padre António de Andrade religioso da Companhia de Jesus e Deputado dele]; original in the
Archivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Portuguese Inquisition Pro.13942, fols. 1a–38a
(hereafter referred to as Devassa). Giuseppe Toscano, who knew of its existence, was unable
to procure a copy; see Alla Scoperta del Tibet: Relazioni dei Missionari del Sec. XVII (Bologna,
1977), pp. 404–05, n3. Nor is it cited in Hughes Didier’s Os Portugueses no Tibete: Os primeiros
relatos dos jesuítas (1624–1625) (Lisbon, 2000). It was first discussed and quoted in Célia
Cristina da Silva Tavares, Jesuítas e inquisidores. A cristianidade insular (1540–1682) (Lisboa,
1994), pp. 229–33. The inquiry was instituted on March 29, 1624 (Devassa, fol.1a), ten days
after Andrade’s death date of March 19, as reported in Phillipe Alegambe, Mortes Illustres et
gesta eorum de Societate Jesu, qui in odium fidei pietatis, etc. ab Ethnicis, Haereticis, etc. sunt occisi,
aerumnisuè confecti, 2:442 and accepted by later writers such as Cornelis Wessels, Early Jesuit
Travellers in Central Asia (The Hague, 1924), p. 82 and Toscano, Scoperta, p. 404. In this article, quotations from the Devassa follow the practice of many contemporary Portuguese scholars, with the text in modernized orthography.
2. The fullest account of Andrade’s life is found in Giuseppe M. Toscano, Scoperta, pp.
75–77. A useful English source remains Wessels’s Jesuit Travellers, p. 46 et seq. Most of the
details in these accounts are taken from earlier Jesuit biographical collections that will be discussed at length later; for example, Alegambe, Mortes Illustres, 1:438–42.
3. São Paulo o velho, originally founded as a Franciscan seminary in 1521, became a
Jesuit college after the arrival of St. Francis Xavier and his companions in Goa in 1542. It was
the largest and most prestigious Jesuit educational institution in the Portuguese empire, as
was its successor; owing to its insalubrious location, it was replaced by New St. Paul’s (São
Paulo o novo) in 1610. Dauril Alden, The Making of an Enterprise: The Society of Jesus in Portugal, Its Empire, and Beyond (Stanford, CA, 1996), pp. 44–45, Cristina Osswald, “Jesuit Art
in Goa between 1542 and 1655: From Modo Nostro to Modo Goano,” in Reinterpreting
Indian Ocean Worlds, ed. Stefan C. A. Halikowski Smith (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2011), pp.
255–86, here pp. 257–58, 262. All subsequent references to the College will be to New St.
Paul’s, which has not survived. The buildings were abandoned after the Jesuits’ expulsion
from Goa in 1759; see Liam Matthew Brockey, The Visitor: Andrė Palmeiro and the Jesuits in
Asia (Cambridge, MA, 2014), p. 441.

28

MURDER IN THE REFECTORY

he performed missionary work at the Salsete peninsula south of Goa city
and was put in charge of the Jesuit College in Rachol, the administrative
center for the Jesuit parishes in Salsete, where a respected Jesuit seminary
was located.4 Subsequently he was appointed rector of New St. Paul’s College. By 1621, Andrade was serving as Superior of the Jesuit mission in the
Mughal Empire, headquartered at the residence in Agra.
The Mughal Empire was then at the height of its power in South Asia,
and Andrade dealt directly with the emperor Jahangir (r. 1605–27) and his
chief ministers at the courts in Agra and Lahore. The Jesuits had initially
believed that Jahangir was favorably disposed toward Christianity and
would eventually be baptized. Although he maintained Akbar’s policy of
toleration, allowing the Jesuits and other Catholic missionaries to preach,
build churches, and make converts, the emperor remained a Muslim, and by
1623 Andrade had conceded that the Jesuits’ missionary work in the
Mughal domains had not met with much success.5 On March 20, 1624,
Andrade boldly embarked on an exploratory mission to Tibet, then a littleknown area “beyond the mountains”; it was rumored to host kingdoms of
lost schismatic Christians or their descendants.6 After a strenuous winter
crossing of the Himalayas with his companion, the coadjutor brother
Manuel Marques7 (the first known Europeans to do so), Andrade arrived in
Tsaparang, capital of the Western Tibetan kingdom of Guge, where the
Buddhist king Tri Tashi Dakpa8 extended a warm welcome to him. After a
brief stay Andrade returned to India, where he obtained formal permission
and support for the mission from his superiors at Goa: the Visitor André
Palmeiro and the Provincial Francisco Vergara.9 Andrade then returned to

4. Alden, Enterprise, p. 46.
5. Brockey, The Visitor, p. 464.
6. The first notice of Tibet by the Jesuits was in 1582, although at that time the
Tibetans were believed to be pagans; see John Correia-Alfonso, Letters from the Mughal Court
(Bombay, 1980), p. 103. Later reports from Kashmiri Muslim merchants and others stated
that the Tibetans were Christians, with churches and a celibate clergy: Wessels, Jesuit Travellers, pp. 11–13; Toscano, Scoperta, pp. 66–69.
7. On Marques (1596–after 1641), see Wessels, Jesuit Travellers, pp. 47, 62–63, 86–88.
8. In Tibetan spelling, Khri Bkra shis grags pa; he was the last king of independent
Guge; see Luciano Petech, The Kingdom of Ladakh C. 950–1852 A.D. (Rome, 1977), p. 107.
9. Vergara (1550–1634) served as Provincial from 1624–26, directing a Jesuit province
that included Mozambique, Ethiopia, Gujarat, and Agra, Lahore, and Delhi in the Mughal
Empire, as well as Goa and other Portuguese territories on the west Indian coast. The Visitor
Palmeiro was displeased with Andrade for undertaking the journey to Tibet without seeking
permission, with enthusiasm supplanting ecclesiastical procedure (Brockey, The Visitor, pp.
158–59).

MICHAEL J. SWEET

29

FIGURE 1. Portrait of António de Andrade, c. 1634. Lisbon, Academy of Science.
Unknown artist, Goa. Image courtesy of Wikipedia Creative Commons.

Tsaparang, where he founded an active and for a time promising mission;
the Jesuits forged a strong alliance with the king, who supported their building a church, allowed them to proselytize freely, and suppressed their Buddhist monastic opponents.10 Andrade’s reputation rests on his work in
Tibet: he has been honored in his homeland as “the first explorer and
founder of the mission to Tibet,”11 and his writings have been influential in
the construction of Western views on Tibet and its religion.
Returning to Goa around 1629, Andrade was to serve as Provincial
(1630–33) and then again as rector of St. Paul’s (1633–34); he also functioned as a deputy of the Goa Inquisition (1632–34), responsible for
preparing cases to be prosecuted by the tribunal (see figure 1).12

10. See Wessels, Early Travellers, pp. 69–75 and Andrade’s own account in Didier, Os
Portugueses, pp. 96–100, 121–146 et seq.
11. “Missionis Tibethensis Primus Explorator et Fundator” is the inscription on Andrade’s
portrait (see figure 1) found in the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon; see Toscano, Scoperta, p.
403; Didier, Os Portugueses, p. 25.
12. Toscano, Scoperta, p. 404.

30

MURDER IN THE REFECTORY

It has often been stated that Andrade was about to return to Tibet at the
time of his death.13 However, in a letter to the Superior General dated February 4, 1633, Andrade reported on the conquest of the kingdom of Guge
by its longstanding enemy, Ladakh; he recognized that this meant the probable end of the mission, and he recalled the missionaries who were scheduled
to travel there.14 Moreover, only a month earlier, he had been nominated to
the powerful position of Visitor (Visitator) to the Jesuit provinces of China
and Japan,15 although he could not have known this at the time. His death
from poisoning, possibly the unique documented instance of a Jesuit Superior murdered by his own subordinates,16 gave rise to conflicting accounts.
Contention in Goa
During his term as Provincial, Andrade had significant interactions
with Miguel de Noronha, the viceroy and the 4th Count of Linhares
(1585–1647, r. 1629–35). Noronha came from the highest level of the Portuguese aristocracy and had acted with notable success as governor and
captain-general of Tangier (1624) before his posting to Goa as its
viceroy.17 He served directly under Phillip IV, the Habsburg ruler of the
united crowns of Spain and Portugal, and his authority extended throughout the Portuguese Indies, a widely scattered coastal mercantile realm
headquartered at Goa that included outposts in East Africa, the Moluccas,
Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and the Malabar Coast. By the time of his appointment, Portuguese military and economic power was in decline in India and
elsewhere in the Indies,18 and Noronha was expected to defend the

13. See, for example, Angel Santos, Las Missiones Bajo el Patronato Portugues (Madrid,
1977), pp. 473–74; Bernard Calloc’h, “La Mission Portuguese de Tibet,” in Missionação Portuguesa e Encontro de Culturas: Actas do Congresso Internacional de História (Braga, Portugal, 1993),
p. 119, and Richard F. Sherburne, “António de Andrade,” in Diccionário Histórico de la Compañía
de Jesús (DHCJ), ed. Charles O’Neill and Joaquín Domínguez, 4 vols. (Madrid, 2001), 1:161.
14. The unpublished text of this letter dated Feb. 4, 1633, from Andrade to Muzio
Vitelleschi, the Superior General of the Society, is found in the Roman Archives of the Society of Jesus (ARSI), Goa 73, fols. 93a–94b.
15. Didier, Os Portugueses, p. 25. A Jesuit Visitor was an inspector sent to a province or
subprovince with plenipotentiary decision-making powers, responsible only to the Superior
General in Rome.
16. A literature search and discussions with specialists in this field have turned up no
comparable instance.
17. Anthony R. Disney, “The Viceroy Count of Linhares at Goa, 1629–1635,” in II
Seminário Internacional de História Indo-Portuguesa. Actas, ed. Luis de Albuquerque and Inácio
Guerreiro (Lisbon, 1985), pp. 303–15, here p. 305.
18. Sanjay Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire in Asia 1500–1700: A Political and
Economic History, 2 vols. (London, 1993), 1:151–58, 165–69; Anthony Disney, A History of

MICHAEL J. SWEET

31

remaining Portuguese settlements and their trading privileges from further
encroachment by the rival Dutch, English, and Indian powers. Besides his
civil and military responsibilities, Noronha had his own substantial commercial interests: the viceroyalty of Goa was considered a lucrative
appointment, and the count brought back a fortune upon his return to
Europe.19 As a matter of course, his financial interests involved him in
mutually profitable dealings with New Christian (Cristãos-Novos) merchants in Goa and elsewhere in the Mughal realm. These New Christians
were the descendants of Jewish families who had remained in Portugal
after the conversion edict of 1496 and were compelled to convert to Christianity.20 They included prominent merchant families who participated in
an extensive and successful global trading network.21 From 1632–36, they
were subject to a new wave of persecution in Goa, although some escaped
arrest by the Inquisition owing to the viceroy’s protection.22 Noronha was
critical of certain Goan clerics for their alleged misconduct, corruption,
and cupidity. As he wrote, most religious (of all orders as well as secular
priests) believed that “what belongs to the king can be stolen and hidden
with a perfectly clear conscience.”23 Although he acknowledged the honesty and other moral and intellectual virtues of the Jesuits,24 and trusted
Andrade to the point of sending him on a diplomatic mission in 1630 to
an important ruler in Gujarat,25 the viceroy was often annoyed with the
Portugal and the Portuguese Empire: From Beginnings to 1807, 2 vols. (New York, 2009),
2:168–69; James C. Boyajian, Portuguese Trade in Asia under the Habsburgs, 1580–1640 (Baltimore, 1993), pp. xiii–xiv, 184, 220.
19. Disney, “Linhares,” pp. 305, 314.
20. Renée Levine Melammed, A Question of Identity: Iberian Conversos in Historical Perspective (Oxford, 2004), pp. 53–62. Many were wealthy merchants who periodically had assets
seized by the Inquisition and others who extorted or expropriated large sums of money and
other valuables from them (Subrahmanyam, Empire in Asia, pp. 117–22). On the financial
motives of the Goa Inquisition, see Paulo Arana, “Early Modern Asian Catholicism and
European Colonialism: Dominance, Hegemony, and Native Agency in the Portuguese
Estado da Índia,” in Polycentric Structures in the History of World Christianity, ed. Klaus
Koscherke and Adrian Hermann (Wiesbaden, 2004), pp. 285–306, here pp. 303–04.
21. They were part of a “substantial network of New Christian trade, embracing
Nagasaki, Manila, Macau, Cochin and Goa . . . extending beyond the limits of the Estado
into Agra, Bijapur and inland south India”; see Subrahmanyam, Empire in Asia, 1:120–21.
See also Boyajian, Portuguese Trade, p. xiv.
22. Subrahmanyam, Empire in Asia 1:120–21, Boyajian, Portuguese Trade, pp. 179–83.
23. From the unpublished portion of Noronha’s diary, cited in Disney, “Noronha,” p. 311.
24. Charles E. Boxer, The Church Militant and Iberian Expansion (London, 1978), p. 69.
25. He negotiated a treaty in 1631 between the viceroy and Mirmuza, the Nawab of
Surat, Cambay (now Khambhat) and Bharuch, which were all important trading centers at
the time; see Fernando Castelo-Branco, “Aspectos da Vida e da Obra do Explorador do
Tibete, Padre António de Andrade,” in II Seminário, pp. 503–11, here pp. 507–09.

32

MURDER IN THE REFECTORY

Jesuits, as he believed they “wanted everywhere to be superior in everything” 26 and challenged the authority of the vice-regal government.27
The Poisoning and Its Aftermath
Although Andrade lived in the midst of a highly contentious environment marked by disputes among merchants, officials of the vice-regal government, representatives of the Inquisition, and rival ecclesiastics, these
factions typically fought each other nonviolently through legal, commercial, and political strategies.28 Thus, despite the lurid reputation of Portuguese Goa in the popular imagination, Andrade’s murder is anomalous
and shocking. Sources have until recently differed on the details of this
case, but all are agreed on the essential facts: his poisoning on March 3,
1634, the night before he was to preach a sermon at an auto-da-fe of the
Goa Inquisition, and his death, following much suffering, on the generally
agreed-upon date of March 19. The perpetrators and motives for this act
have been matters of speculation, until the discovery in the 1990s of the
Inquisition pre-indictment inquiry into the matter of Andrade’s death.29
With this document, based on sworn testimony by eyewitnesses, a more
coherent account of his poisoning and its aftermath can be assembled. The
panel of inquiry, headed by António de Faria Machado (Goa Inquisitor
from 1630 until 1635), began hearing testimony in Goa on March 29,
1634. Machado was assisted in the investigation by the deputy Jerónimo de
Paixão, who was Vicar General of the Dominicans in Goa.30 The Inquisi-

26. “Em toda a parte queriam ser superiores em tudo”: Miguel de Noronha, Diario do 3o
Conde de Linhares, Vice-Rei da Índia, 2 vols. (Lisboa, 1937–43), 2:186.
27. For example, the commander, the chief magistrate, and the chief of customs at
Chaul (60 km south of Mumbai) complained to Noronha about a Jesuit, Bartolomeu Freire,
who was refusing to comply with official demands (Noronha, Diario, 2:186). The viceroy was
displeased about the power of the Jesuits in Salsete and their defiance of governmental
authority in Tuticorin in Malabar, where they had even set up their own customs post; see
Disney, “Linhares,” p. 312.
28. For example, in the protracted, unsuccessful struggle of the Augustinians to limit the
expansion of the New College of St. Paul’s, described in Brockey, The Visitor, pp. 167–69, and
the controversy begun in 1630 between the viceroy and the inquisitor of Goa, João Delgado da
Figueira, over his right to be carried in a palanquin (Tavares, Jesuítas e inquisidores, pp. 226–
27). Figueira later was the subject of an inquiry about irregularities in his conduct in office, carried out by the Visitor to the Goa Inquisition, António de Vasconcelos, with Andrade acting
as his secretary; see Tavares, Jesuítas e inquisidores, pp. 171–74 and Francísco Bethencourt, The
Inquisition: A Global History, 1478–1834 (Cambridge, UK, 2009), pp. 218–19.
29. See Devassa; Tavares, Jesuítas e inquisidores, pp. 229–33.
30. Baião, Inquisiçāo de Goa, 1:216–23; Tavares, Jesuítas e inquisidores, p. 164; Noronha,
Diario, 2:310.

MICHAEL J. SWEET

33

tion considered itself the relevant authority to pursue this investigation,
as Andrade’s death initially was believed to be connected with his service
to the tribunal. There were no significant differences among the witnesses regarding the circumstances of the rector’s demise. The statement
given by the theology instructor Tomás de Barros, resident at St. Paul’s
College, was the longest and most detailed. According to his testimony
and that of Diogo de Santa Maria, an Augustinian brother and physician
who was called in some days later, Andrade was taking his Lenten dinner
at the second meal service (a segunda mesa)31 in the refectory of the college on Saturday, March 3, 1634, the day before he was to preach the
sermon at an auto-da-fé. He poured some water from a clay pitcher in
front of him into his china cup. After drinking three mouthfuls, he spat
out what was in his mouth and cried out to his companions, “Help me!
I’ve been poisoned!”32 He then immediately rose from the table and went
to the pantry, where he drank a large quantity of Portuguese olive oil as
an emetic, and was then brought to the infirmary, where he began vomiting copiously. It was noted that the places on the floor where he vomited appeared blackened.33
Three of the witnesses were medical professionals; the first to testify
was the previously mentioned Santa Maria, who held a degree from the
University of Coimbra. He cited the strong stench pervading Andrade’s
rooms34—as well as the patient’s symptoms of urinary retention for six
days, a flow of blood from his mouth, and intermittent pulse during the
last three days of his life—as clear signs that the cause of death was a distilled poison.35 Santa Maria was first called to attend Andrade, accompa31. A segunda mesa is the second dinner service, provided at Jesuit establishments at 5,
7, or 8 p.m.; see María Cristina Osswald, “Everyday Life of Catholic Missionaries in India,”
in East and West. Exploring Cultural Manifestations, ed. Kala Acharya (n.p., 2010), pp. 151–
56, here p. 158. There were two servings of each meal (lunch and dinner), and most of the
residents were accommodated at the first service (a primeira mesa); see María Cristina Osswald, “Interiores Jesuítas em Portugal por Altura da Supressão: Excertos por a Reconstrução
dum Quotidiano,” in Luis Machado de Abreu and José Eduardo Franco, Para a história das
Ordens e Congregações Religiosas em Portugal, na Europa e no Mundo. 2 vols. (Prior Velho, Portugal, 2014), 1:839–53, here p. 844.
32. “Ajuda me, deram me peçonha.” Devassa 2a. If the principal poison was mercury
bichloride, such an immediate reaction to its painful effects was inevitable. An early-twentieth-century victim of mercury bichloride poisoning was similarly reported to have immediately exclaimed, “O my god, I’ve been poisoned.” Deborah Blum, The Poisoner’s Handbook
(New York, 2010), p. 107.
33. Devassa, fol. 2a. Witness: Santa Maria.
34. Achou o dito padre em suas câmeras que lhe mostravam muito fedorentas”: Devassa, fol. 2a.
35. Peçonha refinada; Devassa, fol.1b.

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MURDER IN THE REFECTORY

nied by Manuel Reis Pinto, the chief physician (fisico-mor) of Goa, on
Wednesday, March 8, five days after the incident. However, Andrade
received immediate and ongoing medical attention from the college’s infirmarian,36 the sixty-three-year-old Italian brother Giuseppi de Mezanha,
who had many years of experience in the diagnosis and treatment of illness,
including poisoning.37 Mezenha concurred with the diagnoses of the other
medical professionals.38 Barros cited the observations of another resident at
the college, Alberto de Polonia, who is described in the Devassa as someone “knowledgeable about medicine” (sabe de medicina). Polonia observed
that Andrade suffered from bloody diarrhea, an inflamed mouth, high
fever, itching, and boils all over his body, and that he spat clotted blood.39
Which poison induced these awful symptoms? In addition to observing the patient, the medical men sought an answer through several experiments. Mezanha took the courageous step of testing the water by dipping
his fingertip into it and then touching his tongue, which “remained
scorched for many days.”40 A less hazardous test involved putting a silver
spoon into some of the suspect liquid and finding that all parts of the
spoon that touched the water turned black. Finally, they gave some of the
water to a dog and noted its effects: vomiting, dysentery, and indications
of fear. The animal was then killed, and an examination noted that its
intestines were swollen and blood was present in the stomach.41

36. On this institution, see Society of Jesus, The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, trans.
and ed. George E. Ganss (St. Louis, 1996), pp. 22–28 (nos. 302–04), and Borges, Goa Jesuits,
pp. 27–28, 113. The Jesuit order did not include medicine in its curriculum, as ordained
priests were banned by canon law from practicing as physicians; however, many Jesuit temporal coadjutor brothers were highly skilled in pharmacy and general medical practice, and
Jesuits in India were prominent as hospital administrators. See Ines G. Županov, “Conversion, Illness and Possession: Catholic Missionary Healing in Early Modern South Asia,” in
Divine Remedies: Medicine and Religion in South Asia, ed. Ines G. Županov and Caterina
Guenzi (Paris, 2008), pp. 263–99, here pp. 263–69. New St. Paul’s College was known for
its large infirmary and well-stocked pharmacy; see Manoel José Gabriel Saldanha, História de
Goa, 3 vols. (Panaji, 1979), 1:60.
37. “Disse que sabidamente a sua morte foi causada de peçonha que lhe deram o que ele testemunha saber por saber da arte de medicina, e haver ia muitos anos que a exercita…”: Devassa, fols.
28a–b.
38. Devassa, fol. 29a.
39. “…lhe arrebentou a boca toda, e se fez negra…e lançava por ela gotas de sangue….Era
grande borbulha e coceira por todo o corpo e o grandíssimo ardor interior…”: Devassa, fols. 4a–b.
40. “…tocando ele com a ponto de dedo na dita água e levando-o á lingua, lhe ficou escaldada
por muitas dias”: Devassa, fol. 29a.
41. “….matando-se logo ali o cachorro par aver o que tinha nas entranhas … abrindo-o
acharam as tripas inchadas e o estômago com algum sangue…”: Devassa, fol. 4a. Witness: Barros.

MICHAEL J. SWEET

35

These results point to mercury bichloride as the principal ingredient of
the poison given to Andrade. Like Santa Maria, several other witnesses
described the poison as distilled (refinada), and Mezanha also calls it a sublimate (solimão)—that is, corrosive sublimate, the common earlier term for
mercury bichloride. This deadly poison was known in Europe by the
Middle Ages42 and was part of the poisoners’ armamentarium in the earlyseventeenth century.43 Its most common effects are vomiting, bloody diarrhea, a weak pulse, and urinary retention (due to the severe kidney damage
it causes), as well as inflammation of the mouth, all of which were observed
in Andrade’s case. However, the vice-rector of the college, Manuel de
Sousa, summarized the opinions of the medical witnesses that the poison
was not one substance but rather a mixture of various poisons,44 possibly
including white arsenic45 and other active and inactive substances, as was
the common practice among professional poisoners of the time.46
The witnesses testified about the possible perpetrators of the crime.
Rumors had circulated at the college that the assassin was one of the two
sons of João Rodrigues, a Portuguese New Christian businessman resident
in Goa who was accused of Judaizing by the Inquisition and was the subject of a case in preparation by Andrade. However, since neither of the sons
had access to the refectory and may not even have been near the college on
the day of the poisoning, the witnesses dismissed these rumors.47 They
were unanimous in their belief that the perpetrators were Jesuits. The three
chief suspects were António Rodrigues Jr.,48 a priest of the Professed
42. John Emsley, The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison (Oxford, 2005), pp. 3–4.
43. This was seen in the well-known case of the English poet and courtier Thomas
Overbury. See Emsley, Elements, pp. 74–89.
44. “Disse mais que os médicos assetaram que a peçonha não só foi está todo, mas que poderia
ter mistura de outros . . .”: Devassa, fol. 17b.
45. White arsenic (arsenic trioxide) was also a poison known from antiquity and widely
used throughout the ages; see Emsley, Elements, pp. 141–49; Blum, Poisoner’s Handbook, pp.
78–80.
46. For example, in the Overbury case, the list of poisons to be used included mercury
bichloride and arsenic, as well as diamond powder and ground spiders; see Emsley, Elements,
p. 80.
47. Barros declared that the boys had been called away by their employer and were not
present at the college (Devassa, fol. 4b). Another witness, Bento Ferreira, also exculpated the two
sons, whose names he gave as João Rodrigues and Ignacio de Souza, giving a different reason for
their innocence. According to Ferreira, the young men were at the college on the day of the poisoning, but they were there quite openly to visit their friends in supervised public spaces and
would have had no access to the refectory or other private areas; see Devassa, fols. 20b–21a.
48. In Devassa 5b he is first referred to as António Rodrigues Júnior and subsequently
as Rodrigues or Rodrigues júnior (lowercase). It is therefore more likely that here juniór is not
the surname but used to designate “the younger.”

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MURDER IN THE REFECTORY

House portrayed as the ringleader of the anti-Andrade conspiracy; his
“great friend” (grande amico) and subordinate (dependente), Brother
António Salvador,49 a resident at the College named as the actual poisoner;
and Diogo de Areda, a priest resident at the Professed House and the purported procurer of the poison. As the method of murder was a complex,
“custom-made” (estilada)50 poison that required a long time to prepare, the
witnesses were unanimous that it could not have been manufactured at the
college, where such an unusual activity would have been detected easily.
The three principal actors in the poisoning appear to have been motivated wholly by their personal animosity toward Andrade, who had
already caused them major problems and threatened their continued presence in the order. Andrade had dismissed Rodrigues from his important
post as head (Propósito) of the Professed House and had punished him in
other unspecified ways.51 Andrade also had disciplined Salvador and
Areda for their violations of Jesuit rules: Salvador had been barred from
his studies and placed on kitchen duty—a particularly humiliating
penalty—and he and Areda had been threatened with dismissal from the
Society.52 All three were rumored to be New Christians;53 had their
49. Devassa, fol. 11a. Witness: Caló.
50. Devassa, fol. 31b. Witness: João da Souza.
51. “o haver privado do oficio de Propósito da casa essa....e o ter castigado e haver entres eles
outros pejados desgostos nascido do governo [de Andrade]”: Devassa, fol. 21b (Witness: Bento Ferreira). The large building of the Professed House was the residence for fully ordained Jesuit
priests, situated next to the church of the Bom Jesus; see Alden, Enterprise, p. 45, and Osswald, “Jesuit Art,” p. 266. Punishments for infractions of rules included public reprimand, a
requirement to eat kneeling at a separate table, and assignment to menial labor; see Osswald,
“Everyday Life,” p. 159, and Alden, Enterprise, pp. 282–97.
52. Devassa, fols. 11a, 24a. Their exact infractions were not listed, although Barros
(Devassa, fol. 6a) refers to “matters of affection and friendship, transgressions which cause
great anguish in the Society” (coisas de afeição e amizades, faltas que na Companhia se sentam
muito); this suggests possible, off-limits fraternization or offenses against chastity. The Professed House, where both Areda and Rodrigues lived, was known for its luxurious style of life
and was “from the beginning an object of scandal, including within the order itself.” Robert
Schrimph, “Le Diable et le goupillon,” in Goa 1510–1685. L’inde portugaise, apostolique et commercial, ed. Michel Chandeigne (Paris, 1996), pp. 115–34, here pp. 131–32.
53. Caló (Devassa, fol. 16a) reported the widespread belief at the college that Andrade
had sent to Portugal to investigate Salvador’s suspected impurity of blood and that the latter was
aware of this. Men known to have Jewish or Muslim ancestry were barred from membership in
the Society of Jesus from 1593 until 1946; see José Eduardo Franco and Célia Cristina da Silva
Tavares, Jesuítas, e Inquisição. Cumplicidades e Confrontações (Lisboa, 2012), pp. 31–37. Nevertheless, some exceptions were made; on Jesuits of Jewish origin and Jesuit opposition to purity
of blood laws, see Robert Aleksander Maryks, The Jesuit Order as a Synagogue of Jews: Jesuits of
Jewish Ancestry and Purity-of-Blood Laws in the Early Society (Leiden, 2010), pp. 159–213.

MICHAEL J. SWEET

37

Jewish ancestry been proven, they would have been expelled from the
Society. Areda held a highly influential position as the viceroy’s
confessor,54 and as such he had easy entrée to the vice-regal palace and
other residences in the city. Both mercury bichloride and white arsenic
had many legitimate medical uses55 and would have been readily available
to a physician. The vice-rector named two possible medical sources for the
poison: António Ferreira, a priest who was Areda’s close confident at the
Royal Hospital56 and also suffered embarrassment because of Andrade,
and Dom Fernando (no surname provided), the viceroy’s personal physician, who was ironically described by an earlier witness as possessing
“many and very refined poisons for the good purposes that the viceroy had
for them.”57 The vice-rector and other witnesses strongly implied that the
likeliest source was the viceroy’s household. Areda was identified as the
supplier of the poison not only by the powerful adherents of the late rector
but also by Brother Fernando da Fonseca, a first-year scholastic known to
be a close friend of Salvador and punished and perhaps even incarcerated
by Andrade.58
In his detailed testimony the theology instructor Tomás de Barros
presented many particulars against Salvador. He reported that “[o]n the
day of the poisoning the said Brother Salvador did not eat at the proper
[first] meal, serving as was his custom and duty,”59 but he was present at
the second meal serving when the incident took place and exclaimed,
“Jesus, what a calamity!”60 However, after the meal a terror-stricken
Brother Manuel Rodrigues went to inform Brother Miguel de Almeida of
the incident, and he met Salvador, who was with Fr. João da Costa. Salvador feigned ignorance of the matter, saying, “What’s this, is the Father
Rector unwell or ill?”61 The priest and college administrator (minister)
Cristóvão de Atouguia told Barros that he had overheard Salvador conjecture that the poisoner sought only to prevent the rector from preaching at
54. Devassa, fol. 12b. Witness: Flamínio Caló.
55. Emsley, Elements, pp. 104–09.
56. The Jesuits administered the Royal Hospital at Goa (Hospital del-Rey); see
Županov, “Conversion, Illness and Possession,” pp. 263, 270.
57. “muitas e muito finas peçonhas para os bons intentos que o Príncipe nisso teria”: Devassa,
fol. 6b. Witness: Barros.
58. Devassa, fols. 23b–24a.
59. “Não ir o dito irmão Salvador comer o dia da peçonha á própria mesa sendo costume e
obrigação ir a ela”: Devassa, fol. 7a.
60. “Achando-se o dito irmão Salvador na segunda mesa quando o caso aconteceu e
dizendo:“Jesus que desastre!”: Devassa, fol. 7b.
61. “…que é isso, está o padre Reitor mal ou está doente?”: Devassa, fol. 7b.

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MURDER IN THE REFECTORY

the auto-da-fé and did not intend to kill him.62 Moreover, for three or four
days after the incident, Salvador was observed to be very pale, upset, and
halting in his speech,63 and on the day that Andrade was to be interred,
Salvador went to incense the body, although he had not received orders
from his superior to do so.64 Barros ascribed this action to Salvador’s wish
to divert suspicion from himself.65 Other witnesses confirmed Barros’s
observations.
The priest Flamínio Caló gave additional and damning eyewitness
testimony. He stated that he saw Salvador hide in the water storage room
next to the refectory, which had a window overlooking the rector’s customary table. The refectory, water storage room, and kitchen would have been
on the ground floor of the college—a large, impressive, and beautifully
decorated four-story cruciform building.66 Caló inferred that before mealtime, when the priests and brothers would be in their cells for the preprandial examination of conscience,67 Salvador had entered the refectory
through the water room and placed the poison in Andrade’s water pitcher.
A later witness, the young student brother Pero da Costa, confirmed this
supposition, declaring that he saw Salvador emerging from the water storage room and entering the refectory—such activity, he noted, was something out of the ordinary.68 Caló testified that he had reported his suspicions to the vice-rector. Caló also speculated about the motivation for the
crime, mentioning Salvador’s hostility toward Andrade since the rector had
attempted to dismiss Salvador from the Society during his term as Provincial. Caló and others emphasized the strong friendship that existed
between Salvador and his co-conspirator (and possible relative) Rodrigues
(Jr.), who had traveled with him from Portugal to Goa.69

62. “...pode ser que quem lhe deu a peçonha, não pretendeu matá-lo, senão impedir-lhe que não
pregasse no cadafalso”: Devassa, fol. 7b.
63. “…ele dito irmão Salvador andou aquela dia depois do caso três ou quatro a ele próximos,
muito descorado e como perturbado e no falar embaraçado”: Devassa 7b–8a.
64. “…o dito irmão Salvador o dia em que se enterrou o dito padre Andrade, se foi meter a
incensar seu corpo, sem ser para isso mandado pelo ministro da dito colégio”: Devassa, fol. 8b.
65. “… per dar satisfação de se e tirar alguma suspeita que dele poderia haver”: Devassa, fol.
8b.
66. Saldanha, História de Goa, 1:56–57.
67. The examination of conscience was scheduled at 4 p.m.; see Osswald, “Everyday
Life,” p. 158. The rooms of the priests and brothers would have been some distance from the
refectory, likely on the upper floors.
68. “…viu sair o dito irmão [Salvador] pera a refeitório da casa da água que está contigua
com o refeitório, coisa desacostumada”: Devassa, fol. 34b.
69. Devassa, fols. 11a (Witness: Caló), 32b (Witness: Atouguia).

MICHAEL J. SWEET

39

Caló identified another antagonist of Andrade’s: the Jesuit João da
Rocha, the titular bishop of Hierapolis, who was listed along with
Rodrigues and Areda as among the “great friends of Br. Salvador and enemies of Fr. Andrade.” The bishop was a powerful figure in Goa and a
member of the governing council; when he first arrived in Goa in 1624, his
ostentatious conduct and pretentions were a source of embarrassment to
his superiors.70 Caló and other Jesuits who were questioned found it somewhat suspicious that, at a time when Andrade seemed to be improving and
his recovery seemed possible, Antão de Moraes, a priest and the bishop’s
favorite servant,71 visited the college and assured the community that
Andrade’s illness would end with his death.
Finally, there was the rather implausible hearsay testimony of Ferreira,
a senior priest and a lecturer at the college who stated that Andrade had
spoken to him and Sousa several months previously of the enmity of
Rodrigues and the others and predicted not only that they would poison
him but also that if they did so, the poison would be placed in the water
pitcher in the refectory.72 He also said that during Andrade’s final illness, he
had fingered Rodrigues as the probable culprit and that for some time, the
rector had been so frightened of poisoning that whenever he had or imagined a twinge, “he immediately returned to his room to take an antidote.”73
A Crime Without Punishment
As can be seen, there was a great deal of testimony suggesting Salvador’s
culpability in Andrade’s demise. Much of it was hearsay or inference, but
there was Caló’s persuasive eyewitness testimony about Salvador hiding in
the water storage room. Had Salvador been remanded for an actual trial, he
would likely have been convicted.74 The summing up of the investigating
70. Noronha, Diario, 1:33; on Rocha’s early career in Goa, see Brockey, The Visitor, pp.
184–85.
71. “criado e mimoso”: Devassa fols. 13a–b.
72. “…padre Andrade lhe dissera falando-lhe nas malquerenças destes padres de que tem dito:
Olhe padre, que me hão de dar peçonha….que se dessem peçonha havia de ser na gorgoleta no
refeitório…”: Devassa, fols. 24a–b.
73. “o dito padre Andrade, estando nesta sua doença da peçonha, disse: Forte António
Rodrigues foi este que tanto me custa….E tanto se arreçava o ditto padre António de Andrade de lhe
haveram de dar peçonha que qualquer pontada ou acha que tinha, logo se recolhia a seu cubículo a
tomorar contrapeçonha”: Devassa, fol. 27b.
74. The vast majority of those who were tried by the Holy Office in Portugal and its
empire were found guilty, in a process that often relied on anonymous denunciations and confessions extracted by intimidation and torture; see Bethencourt, Inquisition, p. 6. For a

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MURDER IN THE REFECTORY

attorney (promotor) requested that Salvador be arrested and imprisoned by
the Inquisition for “being generally considered to be a New Christian,
among whom are found the greatest hostility toward the ministers of the
Holy Office”75 and that he should be “examined concerning this crime.”
In fact, the board of inquiry of the Holy Office found against arresting
Salvador, ruling on July 18 that
. . . although there are legitimate suspicions against him to warrant his
being imprisoned, since this type of crime is difficult to prove it is not
within the jurisdiction of this Tribunal of the Holy Office to affirm from
this inquiry that the death of Fr. António de Andrade was plotted and
schemed by the said Br[other]. Salvador because of private enmities that
he and other persons interviewed about this matter may have had . . .76

This decision not to charge anyone in Andrade’s death was upheld by the
Inquisitor General in Lisbon on February 29, 1636. Likely based on this
decision, no charges were filed by the civil (crown) authorities of Goa.
The failure to prosecute the murder of a person of Andrade’s status
strongly suggests that the crime was covered up, perhaps to protect the reputation of the Jesuit order or that of Noronha and his associates. The testimony does suggest that Noronha may have been complicit in some
manner, given that the viceroy’s physician was the most likely source of the
poison. After Noronha left Goa for Madrid, anonymous posters in Goa
accused him of culpability in Andrade’s death,77 which suggests that information from the secret Inquisition inquiry may been leaked by one of the
viceroy’s enemies.
As far as the Goa Jesuits were concerned, they were known for their discretion concerning internal dissension78 and would have had a powerful
detailed account of the judicial use of torture by the Inquisition in Goa, see Anant K. Priolkar,
The Goa Inquisition (Bombay, 1961), pp. 150–60.
75. “tido geralmente por cristão-novo, nos quais se acha mais propensão contra os ministros do
Santo Oficio”: Devassa, fol. 36a.
76. “ainda que contra ele resultavam indícios legítimos para ser preso, vista a qualidade do
crime ser de dificultosa prova que não pertinência a conhecimento dele ao Tribunal do Santo Oficio
por constar da mesma devassa que a morte do P. António de Andrade foi maquinada, e traçada em
razão de inimizades particulares que come ele tinham o dito irmão Salvador e mais pessoas que se tem
que nisto entreveram”: Devassa, fols. 30b–31a.
77. Subramanyam, Portuguese Empire, 1:172. There is no mention of Andrade’s death
in the viceroy’s diary for this time period.
78. Even a rumormonger like Manucci, who had close contacts with the Society, had
to admit his ignorance of their internal conflicts: “If among them any difference arises, it is

MICHAEL J. SWEET

41

incentive to avoid the scandal that would have been provoked by revealing
the murder of a Superior by his own subordinates or by placing a member of
the order on trial. For that reason, they were careful to have always a Jesuit
as part of the Goa Inquisition;79 at the time of Andrade’s death, the Goa
Provincial Álvaro Tavares (1575–1637) was a deputy of the Inquisition80 and
so would have had influence in suppressing any further investigation.
Andrade certainly had his share of enemies among the Goa Jesuits;
Ferreira testified to the existence of an anti-Andrade faction. After first
naming Rodrigues (Jr.) as the head of the conspiracy, he reveals that this
priest did not act alone: “there being among us many Fathers and Religious
of the party of Fr. António Rodrigues who thought that they could never
be free of the authority of Fr. Andrade unless they gave him [poison] and
caused his death.”81
Witnesses dismissed the claim that Andrade was poisoned to prevent
him from preaching the Inquisition sermon on the following day, as they
asserted that “the poison was given to the Father not as the Deputy of the
Holy Office, but rather as the Superior of the order”82—that is, because of
his role in disciplining and punishing errant Jesuits. The Inquisition
motive was a red herring spread by Salvador, who was reported to have said
on the day of the poisoning that “this was doubtlessly done by the Jews to
prevent the Fr. Deputy from preaching at the place of execution.”83 As the
eyewitness de Almeida testified: “It appeared to the witness that the
brother said this in order to dissimulate, wanting to place the blame on the
New Christians.”84 Moreover, nothing would have been gained by preventing Andrade from preaching at the auto-da-fé, which proceeded the
next day on schedule, with another priest delivering the sermon.85

kept such a secret that no one hears of it.” See Nicolao Manucci, Storia do Mogor or Moghul
India 1653–1708, trans. William Irvine (London, 1907), p. 166.
79. Brockey, The Visitor, p. 436.
80. Devassa, fol. 10r.
81. “Se ter entre nós muitos padres e religiosos que este da facção do dito padre António [22a]
Rodrigues acharam que não poderiam ver livres nunca do governo do padre Andrade senão dandolhe e causando-lhe a morte”: Devassa, fols. 21b–22b.
82. “a peçonha seria dada ao padre não como o Deputado de Santo Oficio, senão como o
Prelado da Religião”: Devassa, fol. 31a.
83. “Sem falta isto feriam judeus pera que o padre Deputado não pregasse no cadafalso”:
Devassa, fol. 28a.
84. “O que ele testemunha lhe parece disso o dito irmão por dissimulação e querer pôr a culpa
aos cristãos-novos”: Devassa, fol. 28a.
85. Noronha, Diario, 1:17.

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MURDER IN THE REFECTORY

From Murder Victim to Martyr
Increasing persecution of New Christians in Goa and in other regions
of the Portuguese empire occurred from 1633 to the mid-1640s.86 Given
this resurgence of antisemitism, it is not surprising that Andrade’s assassination soon was recast as a tale of martyrdom at the hands of treacherous
crypto-Jews. Despite the unlikeliness of New Christian merchants daring
to provoke the Inquisition further by taking violent action against one of
its officials, they were politically the safest target; as automatic suspects,
they could be accused without any fear of retaliation.
The earliest printed sources for the hagiographic narrative surrounding
Andrade’s death are the Jesuit biographies written by Philippe Alegambe
and Juan Eusebio Nieremberg, published in 1643 and 1645 respectively.87
Both contain accounts of the Virgin Mary’s appearance to Andrade during
the agony of his dying and her consoling words, “Soon, my son, you shall
suffer no more (Iam, fili, nihil dolebit amplius).”88 Further development of
the story can be seen in Alegambe’s second account (1657–59) in which he
more accurately reports that the poisoning took place at the college89 and
not at the auto-da-fé as he had stated earlier.90 However, Alegambe, who
does not cite his sources, did not identify the chief suspect as Salvador but
rather pointed to an unnamed son of the New Christian merchant João
Rodrigues.91 Alegambe states that Rodrigues first tried to suborn Andrade
with bribes and, when that failed, plotted the rector’s death, sending his son
who was a coadjutor brother or a servant at the college to poison Andrade.92
It is worth recollecting that a version of this story was cited and dismissed
as improbable by the Jesuit witnesses at the Inquisition hearing.

86. Subrahmanyam, Portuguese Empire, 1:112. Boyajian (Portuguese Trade, p. 184)
attributes this persecution to the increased competition at this time for a share of the dwindling Portuguese trade in Asia.
87. Philippe Alegambe, Bibliotheca Scriptorum Societatis Jesu … et illustrium elogiis adornata (Antwerp, 1643), p. 34; Juan Eusebio Nieremberg, Honor del Gran Patriarcha San Ignacio
de Loyola (Madrid, 1645), p. 411.
88. Alegambe, Bibliotheca Scriptorum, p. 34, repeated in Nieremberg, Gran Patriarcha,
p. 411.
89. Alegambe, Mortes Illustres, 2:442.
90. Alegambe, Bibliotheca Scriptorum, p. 34, echoed by Nieremberg, Gran Patriarcha,
p. 411.
91. Alegambe (Mortes Illustres, 2:442) described Rodrigues as being of “tainted descent”
(infecti generis).
92. Alegambe, Mortes Illustres, 2:442, translated in Toscano, Scoperta, pp. 405–06. It is
improbable that the son of a prosperous merchant would have been employed as a servant.

MICHAEL J. SWEET

43

The claim that Andrade was poisoned for his zeal in the service of the
Inquisition and the account of the Virgin Mary’s appearance and consoling
words at the moment of his death transforms the missionary from the
victim of a sordid crime of personal vindictiveness into a potential martyr.
Martyrdom via the agency of perfidious Jews employing poison was already
a theme in Catholic hagiography.93 Alegambe’s characterization of
Andrade as a martyr for the faith was elaborated upon by the early-eighteenth-century Jesuit hagiographer António Franco, who wrote that
Andrade was killed because of his diligence as a deputy of the Inquisition,
“. . . out of hatred for which, and because of the exertions he made for the
Holy Office, a Jew gave him poison, of which the Father died.”94
A number of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Jesuit writers
repeated the story of the Virgin’s appearance to Andrade, with minor variations;95 an engraving of this scene in Mathias Tanner’s martyrology96
shows a goblet with a serpent (symbolizing poison) on a table; the dying
Andrade sits at the table gazing at a vision of the Virgin and Child (see
figure 2).97 There were also accounts of unusual events associated with
Andrade’s death; Alegambe tells us that although the body “. . . had been
packed in lime, and marble placed on the sarcophagus, they said that, a rare
wonder, a likeness of the Father appeared on it, as clear as if he were alive.”98
He also writes that a Polish priest and future martyr was cured of a severe
fever after invoking Andrade at his tomb and that a woman was delivered
from a difficult childbirth through his intercession.99 This narrative of
Andrade’s martyrdom has been repeated well into the twentieth century.100
93. For example, in the case of the priest Luis Alvares (1539–90), see António Franco,
Imagem da virtude em o noviciado da Campanhia de Jesu na Corte de Lisbon (Coimbra, 1717),
pp. 223–34.
94. “...em odio dele e das dilegências que fazia por parte do Santo-Oficio, um judeo lhe deu
veneno de que o Padre morreu”: António Franco, Ano Santo da Companhia de Jesus em Portugal
(1730; rpt. Porto, 1931), p. 152.
95. Besides the versions in Alegambe and Nieremberg, this story appears, with variations, in accounts of 1657, 1665, 1675, and 1717; see Toscano, Scoperta, p. 406n6.
96. Societas Jesu usque ad sanguinis & vitae profusionem militans . . . qui ex Societatis Jesu
in causa Fidei, & virtutis propugnatae, violenta morte toto orbe sublati sunt (Prague, 1675).
97. In Tanner, Societas Jesu, p. 372.
98. “... calce quoque unidue stipatus est;& marmor impositum tumulo, in quo, aiunt, raro
prodigio, Patris ad vivum expressam effigiem exstitisse”: Alegambe, Bibliotheca Scriptorum, p.
35. Similar in Nieremberg, Gran Patriarcha, p. 411 and Diôgo Barbosa Barbosa Machado,
Biblioteca Lusitana Histórica, Crítica e Chronológica, 4 vols. (1741; repr. Lisboa, 1930–35),
1:198–99.
99. Alegambe, Bibliotheca Scriptorum, p. 35.
100. See Toscano, Scoperta, p. 40n2.

MURDER IN THE REFECTORY

44

FIGURE 2. Allegorical representation of the dying Andrade, with his vision of the
Virgin with the Infant Jesus. From Matthias Tanner, Societas Jesu usque ad sanguinis
& vitae profusionem militans…qui ex Societatis Jesu in causa Fidei, & virtutis propugnatae, violenta morte toto orbe sublati sunt. Prague, 1675. Digital scan courtesy of the
Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Marquette University
Libraries.

Conclusions
The Inquisition inquiry provides a clear picture of the contentious
factionalism within the Jesuit community of Goa. Based on the testimony of witnesses who were at the scene, there is a reasonable certainty
that Salvador carried out Andrade’s poisoning, motivated by personal
dislike stemming from past chastisement and the fear of future punishment or expulsion. He had accomplices among the anti-Andrade faction
at the college, including Rodrigues and Areda; the latter may have been
aided by the complicity of the viceroy’s physician. Although the New
Christians may well have hated Andrade because of his role as an officer
of the Inquisition, there is no credible testimony that they were involved
in the crime.

MICHAEL J. SWEET

45

The Inquisition Devassa, as a private judicial record of testimony given
under oath shortly after the events, is the most reliable document bearing
on this case that exists, despite its unfortunate lack of any testimony by
those who were actually accused of the crime. It depicts Andrade’s murder
as a sordid deed perpetrated by men who feared and hated him, out of concern for their own status and livelihood and to avenge past wrongs. It
appears that Andrade’s scrupulousness in punishing clerical laxity led to his
death. The later published accounts of his final days, produced for the consumption of the general public, appear less reliable.101 They present a conventionally edifying narrative that granted Andrade the blessed end of a
martyr and erased the embarrassing participation of fellow Jesuits in his
assassination. Instead, the poisoning was blamed on Jewish or New Christian enemies of the Inquisition, reflecting the increased harassment of New
Christian merchants in Portuguese Asia and pandering to the antisemitic
prejudice that was prevalent in Portugal and Spain during this period.

101. On the relative unreliability of published accounts meant for the general public see
John Correia-Alfonso, Jesuit Letters and Indian History (Bombay, 1969), pp. 8–9.

Ecclesial Dissent in Italy in the Sixties
DANIELA SARESELLA*
In the wake of the Second Vatican Council, Italian bishops influenced
by the teachings of the Council believed the Church should be involved
more actively in the plight of the poor. Similarly, some Catholic organizations in Italy decided to withdraw their electoral support from the
Democrazia Cristiana, thus making a religious choice. The reactions to
these changes were neither few nor slow in coming, as was shown by
the positions of some cardinals and the rise of movements committed to
defending tradition.
Keywords: Crisis of Christendom; Italian Catholic Church;
Second Vatican Council

C

atholic scholars, like Catholics in general, continue to be profoundly divided by the events of the 1960s—especially by the
Second Vatican Council. Some conservative Catholics blame the Council for the decline in church attendance since the 1960s; others blame
not the Council itself, but its misinterpretation by many believers.
Giuseppe Alberigo and others regarded the new pontificate of John
XXIII and the Council as a positive watershed within Catholic culture.1
After the long pontificate of Pius XII and its weighty legacy, the community of the faithful started to approach the problems of the contemporary world with the open-minded, sharing the spirit embraced by the
new pontificate of John.2
Although space precludes an extensive analysis here of the effects of
the Second Vatican Council or reference to the broad academic literature

*Dr. Saresella is a professor in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of
Milan, email: daniela.saresella@unimi.it. Unless otherwise noted, all translations in this article have been done by the author.
1. Giuseppe Alberigo, Transizione epocale. Studi sul Vaticano II (Bologna, 2009), pp.
765–849. See also Giuseppe Ruggeri, “Ricezione e interpretazioni del Vaticano II. Le ragioni
di un dibattito,” in Chi ha paura del Vaticano II?, ed. Alberto Melloni and Giuseppe Ruggieri
(Rome, 2009), pp. 17–44.
2. See Marco Roncalli, Giovanni XXIII. Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, una vita nella storia
(Milan, 2006); Alberto Melloni, Papa Giovanni. Un cristiano al Concilio (Turin, 2009).

46

DANIELA SARESELLA

47

on the subject,3 it is nonetheless important to recall that the eschatological
tension endemic in Christianity since its origins finally seemed to have
become incorporated into the thinking of that period, so much so that the
Council itself has been viewed by some scholars as the “accomplishment of
the prophets’ dream.” On this issue Giuseppe Dossetti wrote that “a certain ecclesiology was brought into the Council, and it was the effect of
firsthand experience and of the necessity to keep the Church above worldly
matters, and away from, politically and ecclesiologically, debatable political
situations.”4
The changes experienced by the Church in the 1950s meant transformations for the political sphere as well. As Pietro Scoppola pointed out,
there can be no “real democracy if there is no religious reform first, a way
to interpret religious life in accordance with the responsibilities democracy
requires.”5 It is no coincidence, then, that the political dialogue between
the Catholic Democratic Party (DC) and the Socialist Party (PSI)
occurred at that time.
John XXIII did not intervene in the dispute directly but, despite the
prevailing opinions within the Roman Curia, he encouraged Christian
Democrat representatives (such as Amintore Fanfani and Aldo Moro) who
3. See Jared Wicks, “More Light on Vatican II,” The Catholic Historical Review, 94
(2008), 75–101; Massimo Faggioli, “Council Vatican II: Bibliographical Overview 2007–
2010,” Cristianesimo nella storia, 32 (2011), 755–91. See also Daniela Saresella, “La Chiesa
contemporanea tra modernità e tradizione,” Passato e presente, 87 (2012), 139–53.
4. “si portò nel Concilio una certa ecclesiologia che era riflesso anche dell’esperienza
fatta e della necessità di non impegnare la Chiesa nelle cose mondane, la Chiesa in quanto
tale, e di non camuffare, politicamente e ecclesiologicamente, realtà politiche opinabili”: A
colloquio con Dossetti e Lazzati, interview by Leopoldo Elia and Pietro Scoppola (Bologna,
2003), p. 106. Dossetti (1913–96) was an exponent of the left wing of the DC who abandoned politics in 1951. After becoming a monk, he founded the Piccola famiglia dell’Annunziata. See Enrico Galavotti, Il giovane Dossetti: gli anni della formazione, 1913–1939
(Bologna, 2006); idem, Il professorino: Giuseppe Dossetti tra crisi del fascismo e costruzione della
democrazia 1940–1948 (Bologna, 2013); Paolo Pombeni, Giuseppe Dossetti: l’avventura politica di un riformatore cristiano (Bologna, 2013); Alberto Melloni, Dossetti l’indicibile. Il quaderno scomparso di “Cronache sociali”: i cattolici per un nuovo partito a sinistra della Dc (Rome,
2013).
5. “una vera democrazia se non c’è prima riforma religiosa, un modo di intendere la
vita religiosa adeguato alle responsabilità che la democrazia richiede”: Pietro Scoppola, Un
cattolico a modo suo (Brescia, 2008), p. 63. Scoppola (1926–2007) was an exponent of democratic Catholicism and an important historian of the twentieth-century Italian Catholic
world. See Agostino Giovagnoli, Chiesa e democrazia. La lezione di Pietro Scoppola (Bologna, 2011); Giordano Frosini, Pietro Scoppola. Un cristiano del nostro tempo (Bologna,
2012).

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ECCLESIAL DISSENT IN ITALY IN THE SIXTIES

had turned to him for advice to pursue their efforts in the direction of an
opening to the PSI.6
Clergy
Numerous attempts were made in the years following the Council to
change the whole Italian ecclesial community, and the appointment of
bishops by John XXIII sometimes expressed this need for change.7 Two
such cases were Msgr. Emilio Guano, a longtime activist in the Azione
Cattolica Movement (AC)8 who was appointed bishop of Livorno in 1962,
and Msgr. Michele Pellegrino,9 a professor of philology and Christian literature who was to serve as cardinal archbishop of Turin until 1977 (see
figure 1). Another notable example was that of Giacomo Lercaro10—archbishop of Ravenna and Cervia before his appointment as archbishop of
Bologna by Pius XII and subsequent elevation to cardinal. His important
contribution to the Council was followed by his efforts to infuse the
instructions and principles of the Council into his diocese.
In the sixties, the tendency to regain contacts with the theological
currents of Northern Europe became widespread in the Italian Church
and in theology still bound to the neo-Scholastic tradition, even though
traditional principles were hardly ever called into question, either in the
6. Agostino Giovagnoli, Il partito italiano. La Democrazia cristiana dal 1942 al 1994
(Rome-Bari, 1996), pp. 100–07. See also Augusto D’Angelo, Moro, i Vescovi e l’apertura a
sinistra (Rome, 2005); Michele Marchi, “Aldo Moro segretario della Democrazia cristiana.
Una leadership politica in azione (1959–1964),” Mondo contemporaneo, 2 (2010), 105–36.
7. See Andrea Riccardi, “Dalla Chiesa di Pio XII alla Chiesa giovannea,” in Papa Giovanni, ed. Giuseppe Alberigo (Rome-Bari, 1987), pp. 133–73; Alberto Monticone, “L’episcopato italiano dall’Unità al Concilio Vaticano II,” in Clero e società nell’Italia contemporanea,
ed. Mario Rosa (Rome-Bari, 1992), pp. 327–30; Bartolo Gariglio, “I Vescovi,” in La nazione
cattolica. Chiesa e società in Italia dal 1958 ad oggi, ed. Marco Impagliazzo (Milan, 2004), pp.
91–116.
8. The Azione Cattolica movement, founded in the late-nineteenth century, is the
oldest and most widespread of the Catholic lay associations in Italy. See Ernesto Preziosi, Piccola storia di una grande associazione (Rome, 2013).
9. See Convegno su Michele Pellegrino a dieci anni dalla morte (Turin, 1997); Una città
e il suo vescovo: Torino negli anni dell’episcopato di Michele Pellegrino, ed. Franco Bolgiani (Bologna, 2003); Alessandro Parola, Michele Pellegrino: gli anni giovanili (Cuneo, 2003).
10. See Giacomo Lercaro vescovo della Chiesa di Dio (1891–1976), ed. Giuseppe Alberigo
(Genoa, 1991); L’eredità pastorale di Giacomo Lercaro. Studi e testimonianze (Bologna, 1992);
Giuseppe Battelli, “I vescovi italiani e la dialettica pace-guerra. Giacomo Lercaro (1947–
1968),” Studi storici, 45 (2004), 367–417; idem, “Pace e guerra nella Bologna di Lercaro e
Dossetti. Considerazioni sintetiche,” in Chiesa e guerra. Dalla «benedizione delle armi» alla
«Pacem in terris», ed. Mimmo Franzinelli and Riccardo Bottoni (Bologna, 2005), pp. 539–59.

DANIELA SARESELLA

49

FIGURE 1. Cardinal Michele Pellegrino of Turin on Radio Vaticana, n.d. Photo
courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

field of dogma or in that of morals. On the whole, as the historian Guido
Verucci noted, “caution and respect for ecclesiastic teachings” prevailed
in Italy.11 It is true that, in the fifties, those members of the Catholic
world most interested in the ideas of Jacques Maritain or Emmanuel
Mounier were opposed by a hierarchy hostile to any attempt to “update”
Catholicism so that the influence of the contemporary world was
reflected.12
Among the effects of the Council was the reorganization of the Italian
Episcopal Conference (CEI) that had been active since 1952 but enacted
a new statute in December 1965. The following year, Blessed Pope Paul
VI appointed Cardinal Giovanni Urbani, patriarch of Venice, as its president. More regular meetings of the CEI were to take place after this, starting with the first general assembly of Italian bishops held in June 1966.
Urbani died in 1969 and was replaced by Cardinal Antonio Poma, arch11. Guido Verucci, “La Chiesa postconciliare,” in Storia dell’Italia repubblicana, vol. II,
La trasformazione dell’Italia: sviluppo e squilibri. 2. Istituzioni, movimenti, culture (Turin, 1995),
pp. 301–67; here pp. 311–12.
12. See Gerd-Rainer Horn, Western European liberation theology. The first wave (1924–
1959) (Oxford, 2008), pp. 139–65.

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ECCLESIAL DISSENT IN ITALY IN THE SIXTIES

bishop of Bologna, who would hold office for a decade until Cardinal
Anastasio Ballestrero, archbishop of Turin, assumed the presidency.13
In addition to internal mutations in the Church, during the sixties a deep
and irreversible transformation came about in lay society in Italy, thanks to an
acknowledgment of the Church’s role, as promoted by the Council’s teachings. The faithful eventually took on larger responsibilities: a moral turn sanctioned during the Third World Congress for the Apostolate of the Laity held
in Rome in October 1967 and centered on the theme “Il Popolo di Dio nel
cammino dell’umanità” (God’s People on the Path of Humanity).
The demand for “democratic participation” in church life found its
first response in the proliferation of consultancy committees for laypeople
in local churches. Accordingly, the apostolic letter Ecclesiae sanctae of
August 6, 1966 (issued “Motu proprio”) contained norms for implementing some of the decrees of the Council; it allowed, amongst other things,
every diocese to establish a presbyteral council and a pastoral council. The
aim of such councils was to examine and suggest the most appropriate
guidelines for the local churches. A few months later, a similar letter established the Consilium of laypeople whose goal was to promote and coordinate their apostolate.14 Such innovations nurtured the development of
diocesan and parochial pastoral councils in the wake of the recently
resumed tradition of the first Christian communities. They expanded
greatly, despite their uneven distribution in the Italian State. After the initial euphoria surrounding such initiatives, there was a significant decrease
in the participation of the faithful in collective ecclesial organizations.
Lay Catholic Organizations
In those years, even the Italian AC—an organization devoted to the
duties of the apostolate, which boasted 3.6 million members in 1962—
underwent major changes. The first signs of the crisis of the AC can actually be traced back to the years prior to the Council, when the “political”
stance of Luigi Gedda15—one in accordance with the DC—faced demands
13. Francesco Sportelli, La Conferenza Episcopale Italiana (1952–1972) (Galatina,
1994); idem, “Vescovi: la CEI e la collegialità italiana,” in Cristiani d’Italia. Chiese, società,
Stato (1861–2011), ed. Alberto Melloni (Rome, 2011), pp. 841–52. See also Enchiridion CEI
(Bologna, 1999).
14. See Maurilio Guasco, Chiesa e Cattolicesimo in Italia (1945–2000) (Bologna, 2001),
pp. 89–97.
15. Gedda (1902–2000) was an exponent of Catholic Action; he served as president of
the organization from 1952 to 1959. Gedda is well known as the founder, in 1948, of the

DANIELA SARESELLA

51

for religious regeneration from the youth movement. Responding to such
demands in 1959, John XXIII appointed Agostino Maltarello—a close
associate of Gedda—as president but also appointed a vice-president, Vittorio Bachelet, who came from the association’s “intellectual” area (see
figure 2). In 1964, Paul VI, with the help of Msgr. Franco Costa, signaled
a leadership shift by appointing Bachelet as president. Costa and Bachelet
guided the association toward a profound reform that was finally sanctioned by the 1969 statute.16 The four distinct and ultimately autonomous
branches were thus replaced with a truly unified association divided into
two sections (adult and youth groups).
But the actions taken by Costa and Bachelet were intended to curb
support for the DC and end any form of interference in Italian political
life.17 Thus, a large number of Catholics in the sixties demanded the end
of the Church’s political and electoral support for the Catholic Party, support that had started at the beginning of the cold war.18
These were also years of great turmoil among the association’s youth
groups, as the Congress of Verona made clear in August 1960. On that
occasion, the majority of university students belonging to the Italian
Catholic Federation of University Students (FUCI)19 voted on a motion
asking for separation of the religious and secular fields, the end of political
“Civic Committees,” a propaganda organization aiming to contain communism in Italy.
However, not everyone within AC shared this political line. Many—for example Mario
Rossi, president of the Youth Association of AC—wanted AC to deal with religious matters
instead. Rossi resigned from AC in 1954. See Michele Marchi, “Politica e religione dal centrismo al centro-sinistra. Luigi Gedda, i Comitati Civici e l’Azione Cattolica,” Mondo contemporaneo, 1 (2013), 43–89; Luigi Gedda nella storia della Chiesa e del Paese, ed. Ernesto Preziosi
(Rome, 2013).
16. Angelo Bertani and Luca Diliberto, Vittorio Bachelet. Un uomo uscì a seminare
(Rome, 1994), pp. 41–63; Mario Casella, “Introduzione,” in Vittorio Bachelet, Il servizio è la
gioia. Scritti associativi ed ecclesiali (1959–1973) (Rome, 1992), pp. 11–18. Bachelet (1926–
80), professor of public law, was elected in 1976 as vice-president of the Superior Council of
the Judiciary. He was killed by the terrorist organization Brigate Rosse.
17. See Guido Formigoni, L’Azione Cattolica italiana (Milan, 1988), pp. 161–70;
Mario Casella, L’Azione cattolica nell’Italia contemporanea (1919–1969) (Rome, 1992), pp.
201–03.
18. In 1949 the DC voted for Italian adhesion to the North Atlantic Treaty. After
World War II, the DC was regarded as a barrier to the spread of communism in Italy. See
Guido Formigoni, Democrazia cristiana e l’alleanza occidentale (1943–1953) (Bologna, 1996).
19. The FUCI, founded in 1896, was one of the pillars for preparing the Italian
Catholic intellectuals of the twentieth century. See Gabriella Fanello Marcucci, Storia della
Fuci (Rome, 1971); Francesco Malgeri, Fuci, Coscienza universitaria, fatica del pensare, intelligenza della fede (Milan, 1996).

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ECCLESIAL DISSENT IN ITALY IN THE SIXTIES

FIGURE 2. Vittorio Bachelet, c. 1980. Photo courtesy Sito del Cinecircolo Giovanile Socioculturale “V. Bachelet“ di Tolentino.

support to the DC, a move beyond the social doctrine of the Church, and
the repeal of the concordat between the Church and the Italian State.20
The Catholic Scout movement also experienced radical transformation in the sixties. At that time it was composed of two associations: the
all-male Italian Catholic Scouting Association (ASCI, established in
1916) and the all-female Italian Guides Association (AGI, established in
1943). In the years immediately following the Council, appeals for greater
attention to the political dimension and that of participation became more
and more frequent, while requests to overcome the divisions between different groups increased. In 1974 a motion for merging the two groups was
passed, and the Association of Catholic Guides and Scouts of Italy
(AGESCI) was formed, with a statute approved by the CEI in 1978 after
numerous adjustments. The “Pact of Association” drawn up in 1975 proposed a satisfactory and effective synthesis between tradition and innovation, insisting on religious and educational aspects and on the commitment
to participate directly in the growth of the Church.21
20. The concordat was signed in 1929 by Cardinal Pietro Gasparri (the Vatican secretary of state) and Benito Mussolini.
21. See Vincenzo Schirripa, Giovani sulla frontiera: guide e scout cattolici nell’Italia repubblicana (1943–1974) (Rome, 2006), pp. 210–21.

DANIELA SARESELLA

53

Significant developments occurred with the Catholic Association of
Italian Workers (ACLI), an organization founded in 1944 to contain
communist influence in the world of work. Attendees of its tenth congress, held in 1966, revealed disappointment with the politics of the
Catholic party. Even though the ACLI had instructed its members to
vote for the DC in the general elections of 1968, by the time of its
eleventh congress in 1969, held in Turin, the association had stated the
necessity to move beyond political support to the DC and encouraged its
members to vote freely.22 This decision was an unpleasant surprise for the
Vatican and led Cardinal Carlo Poma, CEI president, to write a letter to
the ACLI leader Emilio Gabaglio asking him to rethink the choices made
in Turin.
The congress held in Vallombrosa (near Florence) in 1970 was an
important turning point for the ACLI because, in the wake of the workers’
struggles in the factories, the organization opted for the “socialist hypothesis”—that is, viewing the Christian faith as compatible with voting for the
left and the complete liberation of humankind as the common goal of both
Catholics and Marxists. Fausto Tortora, head of the research department
of the association until 1971, demanded the right for the aclisti (the members of the ACLI) to
rediscover the value of utopia in the Marxist sense of the term, as being
coherent with the growth of class consciousness, as a dialectic aspect in
which the militant avant-garde can already identify the lines of a feasible
political work project.23

Bartolomeo Sorge, S.J., criticized the socialist choices of the ACLI and
accused the aclisti of being “more worried about the revolutionary efficiency
of their ideas than the accordance of the latter with the truth and with
Christian inspiration.” In the light of the criticism already expressed in pontifical documents, Sorge deemed it impossible to accept Marxist methodology in the analysis of society and rejected the materialistic and atheist ide-

22. Vittorio De Marco, Le barricate invisibili. La Chiesa in Italia tra politica e società
(1945–1978) (Galatina, 1994), pp. 195–208.
23. “riscoprire il valore dell’utopia, nel senso marxiano del termine, come strumento
organico alla crescita di coscienza di classe, come momento dialettico in cui alcune avanguardie di lotta potevano già riconoscere le linee di un lavoro politico praticabile”: Fausto Tortora,
“Le Acli e la scelta socialista,” in I cristiani nella sinistra. Dalla Resistenza a oggi (Rome, 1976),
pp. 187–210, here p. 207. See also Domenico Rosati, La profezia laica di Livio Labor. Apologia
di un cristiano senza paura (Rome, 1999), pp. 46–72.

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ECCLESIAL DISSENT IN ITALY IN THE SIXTIES

ology it implied.24 In 1971, when Il Movimento politico dei lavoratori (the
Workers’ Political Movement) was founded, the ACLI felt the need to take
more direct action in the political sphere and created a second Catholic
party that was openly left wing.25 The aim of President Livio Labor was in
fact twofold: to break the political unity of Catholic voters and, at the same
time, contribute to the reshaping of a new strategy for the Italian left.
Even Catholic trade unions were overwhelmed by the urgency to make
radical choices. The Italian Confederation of Workers’ Trade Unions
(CISL), which had followed the pro-Western ideas of Mario Romani26 in
the fifties, abandoned the moderate positions adopted in the past to
respond to the Council’s renewed attention to poverty.27 Moreover, a part
of the CISL, as well as the Metalworkers and Engineering Trade Union
(FIM-CISL), had connections with left-wing groups. Of great significance were the political positions taken by Sandro Antoniazzi, provincial
secretary of FIM-CISL, who advocated a class-based political choice for
Catholic workers. Because of their experience in the factories, these very
Catholic laborers began to criticize the Church’s social doctrine, which
they perceived as inadequate to deal with contemporary issues.28
The increasingly widespread interest in social concerns, and in particular in the problems of developing countries, was promoted not only by the
traditional missionary orders and congregations but also some voluntary
associations. As a consequence of the Council’s increased attention to
poverty, the Italian nongovernmental organization Mani Tese was
founded in 1964 and continues its work to this day. Its aim was to raise
public awareness of the situation in third world countries and to promote
new relationships among peoples based on justice, solidarity, and respect
for different cultures.
24. “più dell’efficienza rivoluzionaria delle loro idee, anziché della rispondenza di queste
alla verità e all’ispirazione Cristiana”: Bartolomeo Sorge, Capitalismo, scelta di classe, socialismo
(Rome, 1973), pp. 143–45. Sorge edited the journal La Civiltà Cattolica from 1973 to 1985.
He is currently editor of Aggiornamenti Sociali, the journal of the Milanese Jesuits.
25. The Movimento Politico dei lavoratori was a small Italian political party founded in
October 1971 by Labor. Its aim was to obtain the consensus of progressive Catholics. In the
elections of 1972, the movement won only 0.36 percent of the vote.
26. Mario Romani (1917–75) was a university professor. He cofounded the CISL with
Giulio Pastore and directed the research center of the Catholic Trade Union until 1967.
27. See Guido Baglioni, La lunga marcia della Cisl (1950–2010) (Bologna, 2011), pp.
218–20.
28. Sandro Antoniazzi, “Cattolici e scelta di classe in Italia,” in Cristiani e internazionalismo (Rome, 1974), pp. 67–74, here p. 73.

DANIELA SARESELLA

55

In addition to Mani Tese, the Federation of the Missionary Lay
Organizations (FOLM) was founded in 1966, later renamed the Federation of Christian Organizations of International Voluntary Service
(FOCSIV). Since 1977, FOCSIV volunteers have worked in countries
around the world to combat poverty and exclusion, as well as defend
human rights.
Moreover, the attention paid by the Council to the plight of the poor
also inspired the creation of associations in Italy to provide social services.
An example was the Abele group that was founded in Turin in 1966;
guided by Cardinal Pellegrino; and dedicated to helping aged individuals,
social outcasts, and drug addicts.29 In 1968, the Comunità di Sant’Egidio
was founded in the Roman neighborhood of Trastevere as an association
of laypeople committed to solidarity with the poor and particularly with
those who were homeless, elderly, or addicted to drugs. The Sant’Egidio
Community became known for its efforts to foster interreligious dialogue,
committed to building peace through contact and collaboration.30 Both the
Turin and the Rome groups were loyal to the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and
both were intensely religious and worked to “transform” the conception of
religiousness. They spurred ecclesiastical institutions to work side by side
with marginalized individuals in society, following the Council’s lead.
Journals and Newspapers
The research started by the Council sparked work in intellectual circles, including examinations of emerging political philosophies that were
confronting new challenges in Italian society. Thus lively intellectual
debates occurred in such journals as Testimonianze and Questitalia, both
founded in 1958.
Testimonianze, whose editor was the priest Ernesto Balducci,31
addressed those in the Catholic clergy and laity who were disappointed by
Gedda’s AC activism and the stiffness they believed had characterized the

29. Candido Cannavò, Pretacci. Storie di uomini che portarono il Vangelo sul marciapiede
(Milan, 2008), pp. 224–27.
30. Andrea Riccardi, Jean-Dominique Durand, and Régis Ladous, Sant’Egidio, Roma e
il mondo (Cinisello Balsamo, 1997); Massimo Faggioli, “The New Élite of the Italian
Catholicism: 1968 and the New Catholic Movements,” The Catholic Historical Review, 98
(2012), 18–40, here 31–34.
31. Balducci (1922–92) was one of the most prominent names in Italian Catholic culture at the time of the Council and in the post-Council period.

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ECCLESIAL DISSENT IN ITALY IN THE SIXTIES

pontificate of Pius XII. The intent of these advocates was to “de-clericalize
theology and to create a theologically qualified Catholic culture.” The
intellectual inspirations for the Florentine journal Testimonianze included
the French theologians Henri-Marie de Lubac, Jean Daniélou, and Yves
Congar, as well as scholars Maritain, Mounier, Gabriel Marcel, and
Georges Bernanos. Their ideas and works informed the contributions to
the journal in regard to maintaining independence from politics, respecting
people, distinguishing between spiritual and secular values, and condemning Western civilization.32
Wladimiro Dorigo33 founded Questitalia in Venice; in 1955 he had
been admonished by the Church for using language “suspected of Marxism.” This journal did not identify itself as a publication that was Catholic
or sponsored by another denomination—indeed, it always denied the legitimacy of such a definition—yet its interests focused on the political organization of Catholics and the role of Catholics in Italy during the years after
the Council.34
In the wake of this renewed religious sensitivity, in 1965 the journal
Momento was created in the Archdiocese of Milan. Stating that it was
based on “testimony and dialogue” as well as the spirituality of Jesuit priest
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,35 Momento was in tune with the new awareness arising from the Council. In its bimonthly issues it displayed three
tendencies: the first following the example of the priest Primo Mazzolari,36
the second supporting communitarian personalism, and the third promoting dialogue with the varied Marxist world.37
32. “sclericalizzare la teologia e creare una cultura cattolica teologicamente qualificata”:
Maria Cristina Giuntella, “Testimonianze e l’ambiente cattolico fiorentino,” in Intellettuali
cattolici tra riformismo e dissenso, ed. Sergio Ristuccia (Milan, 1975), pp. 230–45, here p. 241.
See also Bruna Bocchini Camaiani, Ernesto Balducci: la Chiesa e la modernità (Rome-Bari,
2002), pp. 155–69; Daniela Saresella, Dal Concilio alla contestazione. Riviste cattoliche negli
anni del cambiamento (1958–1968) (Brescia, 2005), pp. 117–44.
33. Dorigo (1927–2006), a partisan between 1943 and 1945, joined the DC after the war.
He left the party in 1958 and founded the review Questitalia, which was published until 1970.
34. Wladimiro Dorigo, “Lettera aperta,” Questitalia, 1 (1958), 1.
35. Marcello Gentili, “La realtà terrestre in Teilhard de Chardin e nel nuovo cattolicesimo,” Momento, 1 (1965), 3–15.
36. Mazzolari (1890–1959) was one of the few priests in Italy who opposed fascism. In
1950 he founded the journal Adesso and symbolized progressive Italian Catholicism until his
death.
37. Angelo Monasta, “Il dissenso cattolico nell’esperienza di quattro riviste: Momento,
Note di Cultura, Note e Rassegne, Il tetto,” in Intellettuali cattolici tra riformismo e dissenso, pp.
320–21.

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57

In May 1964, Florentine Catholics published the first issue of Note di
Cultura. This magazine focused mainly on international problems, with an
approach resembling that of Giuseppe La Pira toward the Vietnam War
and Middle Eastern issues.38 In the same year, Il tetto was founded in
Naples and criticized the political choices of the DC. In June 1967, the
weekly magazine Settegiorni was also founded. Directed by Ruggero Orfei
and Piero Pratesi, it intended to prepare the public for a possible separation
from the DC.
Some groups aligned ideologically with these periodicals criticized the
way in which the Council’s decrees had been put into practice, which they
felt failed to fulfill the Council’s intentions. For instance, many thought
that the Instructions for the application of liturgical reform, which outlined
the use of the vernacular in the Mass and in other rites, did not seem to
grant enough freedom and did not satisfy aspirations for a free and creative
relationship with the transcendent. Some of the faithful decided to organize celebrations without involving parishes, claiming the right to create
new prayers and use other forms of music (such as jazz) instead of traditional church hymns.39
The sixties marked a turning point in the Catholic daily press as well.
As a consequence of the dynamic and innovative action of the Council, the
“crusading” spirit disappeared or weakened in the pages of L’Osservatore
Romano and many of the Roman Curia’s daily newspapers. Raniero La
Valle was appointed director of the Catholic newspaper L’Avvenire d’Italia
of Bologna, whereas Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini (archbishop of
Milan and the future Paul VI) entrusted L’Italia to Giuseppe Lazzati. The
effect of such appointments was short lived. In 1966 Lazzati took up a
position that opposed imperialism and favored peace, but his editorial
policy was judged too radical.40 Using the budget deficit of these periodicals as an excuse, the CEI decided to merge the Bolognese and the
Milanese newspapers. After La Valle resigned as director, the newspaper

38. La Pira (1904–77) was a member of the Constituent Assembly. He became mayor
of Florence; in the fifties he organized meetings between exponents of the different political
and religious philosophies in Florence. During the cold war he visited Russia, China, and
Vietnam.
39. See Michael Hornsby-Smith, The Changing Parish: A Study of Parishes, Priests and
Parishioners after Vatican II (London, 1989), pp. 36–42.
40. On Montini’s politics regarding the problem of peace, see Daniele Menozzi, Chiesa,
pace e guerra nel Novecento. Verso una delegittimazione religiosa dei conflitti (Bologna, 2008), pp.
271–87. See also Frank J. Coppa, “The Contemporary Papacy from Paul VI to Benedict XVI:
A Bibliographical Essay,” The Catholic Historical Review, 92 (2006), 597–608.

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ECCLESIAL DISSENT IN ITALY IN THE SIXTIES

Avvenire was established and administered by the CEI and the Milanese
Curia.41
In 1967 the organization of the congress “Impegno e compiti dei cattolici nel tempo nuovo della cristianità” (Commitment and the Tasks
Facing Catholics in the New Era of Christianity)42 expressed the desire for
political and cultural reflection as well as for the DC to regain its Christian
inspiration, which many thought was fading after twenty years of political
power. Three years later, a new meeting was planned in Fermo that would
consider the legacy of a controversial figure: Romolo Murri, a priest who
had been excommunicated in 1909.43 In 1972 the publishing house Il
Mulino issued Modernismo, fascismo, comunismo. Aspetti e figure della cultura
e della politica dei cattolici nel ’9044 that focused on modernism in the first
part of the twentieth century, a movement that had been condemned by
Pius X as dangerous and heretical.
The establishment of numerous research centers also dates back to the
sixties. A case in point is the International Center of Documentation and
Communication (IDOC) that was founded in Rome in 1956 and was
devoted to the collection of international and interconfessional documents
on human and religious development. In 1972, the center began publishing
the review Idoc internazionale. A keen interest in problems relating to
development in third world countries, social change, and economic transformation led to the creation in 1963 of the Research Center for Emigration by the Rome-based Congregation of the Missionaries of St. Charles.
The Giuseppe Toniolo Center for Economic and Social Studies was
founded in Pisa in 1966, and the following year the Luigi Sturzo Institute
organized its first international conference on the topic “Sociologia contemporanea nell’Europa occidentale” (Contemporary Sociology in Western
Europe).

41. Paolo Murialdi and Nicola Tranfaglia, La stampa italiana del neocapitalismo (RomeBari, 1976), pp. 23–24.
42. L’impegno e i compiti dei cattolici nel tempo nuovo della cristianità, ed. Giuseppe Rossini (Rome, 1967).
43. Romolo Murri nella storia politica e religiosa del suo tempo, ed. Giuseppe Rossini,
(Rome, 1972). At the beginning of the twentieth century, Murri (1870–1944) promoted the
Democratic Catholic movement in Italy. See Romolo Murri e i murrismi in Italia e in Europa
cent’anni dopo, ed. Ilaria Biagioli, Alfonso Botti, and Rocco Cerrato (Urbino, 2004).
44. See Modernismo fascismo, comunismo. Aspetti e figure della cultura e della politica dei
cattolici nel ‘900, ed. Giuseppe Rossini (Bologna, 1972).

DANIELA SARESELLA

59

Ecclesial Dissent
A leading figure of Milanese Catholic dissent—Mario Cuminetti—
wrote that internal conflict within the Church “arose from the effort to put
into practice the theological guidelines of Vatican II.”45 Be that as it may,
there is no clear dividing line between radical interpretation of the Council
and true dissent, since the Council’s reflections empowered many of the
faithful to seek other articulations of their religious identity. Unable to fulfill
their ambition inside the institution, they found other expressions of their
faith in other venues, often at odds with the strict discipline of the Catholic
Church’s teachings. However, as Guido Verucci pointed out, the events of
1968 undoubtedly contributed to “great acceleration and a breakthrough for
that part of the Italian Catholic world that was engaged in the elaboration
of new ways to relate religious faith to the contemporary world.” By 1968,
then, the phenomena and the features of radical ecclesial contestation had
become “real dissent.”46 These factors clashed with the new cultural
impulses of the “long 1960s”: it was the time of political radicalization,
when everything seemed possible and “a new age was dawning.” This climate raised intense expectations in the Catholic world, stressed by equally
dramatic religious radicalization involving laypeople, priests, and nuns.47
In Italy, the youth protests of the late sixties occurred mainly at universities with a religious affiliation. In November 1967 students occupied
the Catholic University of the Sacro Cuore of Milan, protesting the considerable rise in tuition fees. The rector, Ezio Franceschini, cited the need
to balance university accounts,48 but the students answered with the slogan
45. “nacque dallo sforzo di attuare le indicazioni teologiche del Vaticano II”: Mario
Cuminetti, Il dissenso cattolico in Italia (1965–1980) (Milan, 1983), p. 23. See Saresella, “Il
dissenso cattolico,” in Impagliazzo, ed., La nazione cattolica, pp. 265–89.
46. Verucci, “La Chiesa postconciliare,” pp. 328–30: “di grande accelerazione e di rottura per quella parte del mondo cattolico italiano impegnata nell’elaborazione di modi nuovi
di rapporto tra la fede religiosa e la realtà del mondo contemporaneo;” “aperto dissenso.” For
an international overview, see Denis Pelletier, La crise catholique: Religion, societé et politique en
France (1965–1978) (Paris, 2002); Andrew Greeley, The Catholic Revolution: New Wine, Old
Wineskins and Second Vatican Council (Berkeley, 2004); 1968 tra utopia e Vangelo. Contestazione
e mondo cattolico, ed. Agostino Giovagnoli (Rome, 2000).
47. Hugh McLeod, The Religious Crisis of the 1960s (Oxford, 2010), pp. 141–60; see also
Gerd-Rainer Horn, The Spirit of ’68: Rebellion in Western Europe and North America (1956–
1976) (Oxford, 2007), pp. 74–92; Julian Bourg, From Revolution to Ethics: May 1968 and Contemporary French Thought (Montreal, 2007), pp. 257–75; Gerd-Rainer Horn, The Spirit of Vatican II. Western European Left Catholicism in the Long Sixties (1959–1980) (Oxford, 2015).
48. Pietro Zerbi, “Per una biografia di Ezio Franceschini (1906–1983). Letture, ricordi,
documenti,” Aevum, 61 (1987), 521–64, here 535.

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ECCLESIAL DISSENT IN ITALY IN THE SIXTIES

“this is a catholic university, not a private one.” In their opinion, culture
was not “a commodity that could be bought at production cost,” and a
democratic country should allow every citizen access to education.49
Demonstrators argued that they drew their inspiration from the spirit of
the Council, which had set the Church free from the political interests of
the ruling class and had led believers toward the defense of the poor. Student mobilization sparked a harsh reaction from the academic world, and
the rector called in the police to shut down the university.
Similar protests were organized at the University of Trento, founded
in the early sixties at the request of the DC’s left wing. Marco Boato, a
leader of the protest movement, claimed that Lettera ad una professoressa
della scuola di Barbiana—written by the priest Lorenzo Milani,50 who criticized the class-based Italian educational system and advocated access to
knowledge for human liberation—was a more important resource for the
student movement than One-Dimensional Man by Herbert Marcuse.51
The experience of grassroots groups dates back to this period as well.
Such groups were organized by the journal Questitalia, which joined with
the Circolo Maritain from Rimini, Persona e comunità from Lucca, Esprit
from Pescara, and the journal Note e rassegne from Modena to organize the
congress “Credenti e non credenti per una nuova sinistra” (Believers and
Nonbelievers for a New Left) held in Bologna on February 15, 1968.
Young people criticized the political unity of Catholics and the choices
made by the DC. They also opposed the capitalist system and took the
extra-parliamentary left position in politics, judging the PCI as insufficiently secular.52 These grassroots groups, founded in Italy between 1967

49. The students’ document was published in L’Unità on January 2, 1968: “L’università
è cattolica, non private;” “una merce che si acquistava a prezzo di produzione.” A detailed
account of the events can be found in Università Cattolica. Storia di tre occupazioni, repressioni,
serrate (Milan, 1968). Reconstructions of the events are to be found in many books on the
protests of 1968; see Roberto Beretta, Il lungo autunno. Controstoria del sessantotto cattolico
(Milan, 1998), pp. 22–34.
50. Milani was a priest and educator. In Barbiana, near Florence, he founded a school
for the working classes. Opposed by ecclesiastical authorities for his commitment against
compulsory military service, he died at age forty-four in 1967. See Richard Drake,
“Catholics and Italian Revolutionary Left of the 1960s,” The Catholic Historical Review, 94
(2008), 450–75.
51. Marco Boato, Il ’68 è morto: viva il ’68 (Verona, 1979), p. 7.
52. The PCI was never a “lay” party (in 1947, it voted for the introduction in the Italian
Constitution of the Concordat signed in 1929 by Gasparri and Mussolini). In contrast, the
extra-parliamentary left (which started out from the determination to fight the increasingly
reformist character of official communism) opposed the idea of a church-state concordat.

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61

and 1969, fell into two categories: those that opted for an openly political
line and would soon merge into the extra-parliamentary left, and those that
adhered to a religious purpose such as the Assembly of the Ecclesial
Groups and the Base Communities. An international movement rooted
mainly in Latin America, Base Communities saw Christianity as a radical
commitment inspired by the Gospel: their supporters believed that a close
relation with the scriptures—just as was the case at the time of the Reformation—was paramount rather than a commitment to the reform of the
Church. In this period, for the first time in Italian contemporary history,
there were numerous exchanges between grassroots groups (coming from
the Catholic tradition) and the Waldensians.
Both Catholics and non-Catholics joined the groups, sharing the
same desire to expose “the ties the Church has with political and economic
power” and the same ambition for “a Church founded on fraternity and on
the equality of all its members,” both lay and religious. Such communities
closed ranks against the Concordat between church and state, opposed the
teaching of religion in schools and private confessional schools, and promoted initiatives against compulsory military service.53
At that time many Catholics took a stand against the guidelines of the
Church and of the Catholic party. Of great significance was the choice
made by Lidia Menapace, a former Catholic partisan and later active
member of the DC, who decided to resign from the party in 1968.54 In an
article in Settegiorni, Menapace criticized the DC for its dependence on the
ecclesiastic hierarchy.55 In a 1968 meeting with members of “Catholic Dissent” in Reggio Emilia, she argued that all left-wing activists, regardless of
religious affiliation, should work to modify a social situation that appeared
anachronistic and to create a direct, assembly-based democracy.56 On February 29, 1968, even Gian Mario Albani, the Lombardia regional president
of the ACLI, resigned from all of his positions so he could run for the
Senate as an independent on the PCI’s electoral slate. However, he stated
that he wanted to “continue serving Christian workers and all Italian work53. “dalla denunzia dei legami della Chiesa con il potere politico ed economico”; “una
Chiesa fondata sulla fraternità e sull’uguaglianza fra i suoi aderenti”: Verucci, “La Chiesa
postconciliare,” pp. 332–33.
54. “Le dimissioni della Menapace: verso la fine della mistificazione della sinistra DC,”
Questitalia, 11 (1968), 39–44.
55. Lidia Menapace, “Sinistra vecchia e nuova,” Settegiorni, 41 (1968), 18.
56. Francesco Coïsson, “Dissenso cattolico. Il confronto di Reggio Emilia,” L’Astrolabio, 39 (1968), 6–7. See Daniela Saresella, Cattolici a sinistra. Dal modernismo ai giorni nostri
(Rome-Bari, 2011), pp. 285–301.

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ECCLESIAL DISSENT IN ITALY IN THE SIXTIES

ers sympathizing with oppressed peoples all over the world.” He also
wanted to remain loyal to the Christian and humanistic principles that had
always inspired him.57 The crisis experienced by the Catholic party in these
years also was reflected in the resignation from the party of Corrado
Corghi, regional secretary of the DC in Emilia Romagna from 1956 to
1966. In an open letter addressed to party secretary Mariano Rumor,
Corghi stated his aversion to the “tolerant” positions assumed by the DC
toward American policy in third world countries. In his opinion there was
no doubt that “in order to obtain the liberation of Latin America from
neocolonialist slavery it was necessary for Western Europe to review completely its policy towards the USA.”58 In addition, in an interview with the
L’Astrolabio magazine in September 1968, Corghi declared that “an
authentic Christian attitude” implied rebellion against injustice in the
world and struggle for “radical change.” Such a protest, on historical and
political levels, allowed a “unified struggle and action shared by believers
and nonbelievers, because an authentically human revolutionary ideal was
not necessarily in agreement with a religious view or with a lay one.”59
Relations with Marxist World
In those years many of the faithful observed with keen interest the
priests and laypeople who defended the rights of the underprivileged in Latin
America and who even accepted those in left-wing revolutionary movements
as partners and comrades in the struggle. This also meant that they accepted
Marxism as an instrument for examining and understanding the contradictions introduced by the capitalist system.60 Beside the myths of Che Guevara
and Fidel Castro, which they had in common with young people from the
left, these Catholics had the revolutionary priest Camilo Torres as a point of

57. “restare al servizio dei lavoratori cristiani e di tutti i lavoratori italiani nella solidarietà con tutti i popoli oppressi”: Giuseppe De Rosa, “I cattolici dissenzienti,” La civiltà cattolica (1968), 563–65, here 565.
58. The complete letter was published in L’unità, March 3, 1968, 2: “per la liberazione
dell’America latina dalla schiavitù neocolonialista fosse necessario che l’Europa occidentale
compisse una completa revisione della sua politica nei confronti degli Usa.”
59. “un atteggiamento cristiano autentico;” “cambiamenti radicali;” “unità di lotta e di
azione fra credenti e non credenti, perché un ideale rivoluzionario autenticamente umano non
era necessariamente solidale né con una visione religiosa né con una visione laica”: “Una nuova
strategia. Intervista con Corrado Corghi,” L’Astrolabio, 39 (1968), 12–14, here 12. Corghi, on
this occasion, received a letter expressing friendship and esteem from Lucio Lombardo Radice.
See Rome, Archivio Istituto Gramsci di Rome, Carte di L. L. Radice, scatola Dialogo (2).
60. Daniela Saresella, “The Dialogue between Catholics and Communists in Italy
during the 1960s,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 75 (2014), 493–512.

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63

reference. Torres died fighting alongside the guerrillas in Colombia in 1966.
As Catholic tradition has included the concept of a “just war,” there has been
much debate on the legitimacy of resorting to violence. In particular, war,
after the analysis proposed in the Populorum progressio, was considered to be
justified if it was against the causes of imbalances in the world.61
For the youth of the extra-parliamentary left, even for the most radical
of Christians, the Vietnam War represented the most extreme and
deplorable example of imperialistic Western nations extending their policies
and politics into third world countries. Cardinal Lercaro had already taken
a stand against U.S. interference in Vietnam.62 In addition, Ermanno Dossetti,63 who had spoken many times in the lower house of parliament in
defense of the Vietnamese cause, refused to run again in 1968 for the Christian Democrats in the Reggio Emilia constituency. Other people took a
stand against U.S. foreign policy: students from the Catholic University of
Milan collected almost 1000 signatures “to force the Italian government to
exert adequate pressure on the USA in order to stop the bombing in Vietnam,” and the Isolotto community organized a prayer for peace during
Christmas 1967.64 The Isolotto parish in the working-class neighborhood
of Florence attracted publicity because of the harsh clash between parish
priest Enzo Mazzi and Archbishop Ermenegildo Florit of Florence. In fact,
when the community took a stand in favor of the young Catholics of Parma
who occupied the cathedral in September 1968 as a protest of the failed
regeneration of the Church, Florit ordered Mazzi to either resign from
office or revise his position. The priest, surrounded by the sympathy of the
faithful, refused both options and was removed from office by his superiors,
but the controversy spawned a group of dissident Catholics.
It is clear, however, that such turmoil was not a widespread phenomenon in ecclesial circles. Without a doubt, traditional parishes were more
numerous than those that supported the practice of radical faith, just as the
number of young men and women active in groups that adhered to Roman
guidelines was far greater than those in the small groups of “rebels.” But “it
61. Guido Panvini, Cattolici e violenza politica. L’altro album di famiglia del terrorismo
italiano (Venice, 2014), pp. 168–200.
62. See Christopher J. Kauffman, “Politics, Programs and Protests: Catholic Relief
Services in Vietnam (1954–75),” The Catholic Historical Review, 91 (2005), 223–50.
63. Ermanno Dossetti (1915–2008), Giuseppe’s brother, was a member of parliament
from 1963 to 1968.
64. “affinché il governo italiano facesse un’adeguata pressione nei confronti degli USA
perché fossero sospesi i bombardamenti sul Vietnam”: See Il cardinale contestato (Rome,
1968), pp. 150–62, here p. 154.

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ECCLESIAL DISSENT IN ITALY IN THE SIXTIES

is difficult to deny that behind all the incertitude, confusion and ambiguities of dissent there was a collective conscience, which was completely new
for the Church.”65
However, it is evident that, for the Italian and other communities in
the Catholic world, the years immediately following the Council represented “a transitional phase of more or less consistent loss of the old identity
and of search for a new, more complex and difficult, but also more stimulating, identity.”66 Many young people, in the wake of 1968 events, were
gravitating toward the extra-parliamentary left and struggling to reconcile
conflicting messages from the factories and suburbs. Some were even under
the illusion that radical solutions—such as joining terrorist groups like the
Brigate Rosse—were a way to change an unjust world. Catholics and communists shared the common need for an all-absorbing approach to ideals
and to the myth of a life spent in creating a utopia. These young people
thought that devoting their lives to political and social commitment was the
authentic fulfillment of the evangelical message.67 If it is true that some fell
into a form of political activism and immanentism that led them to underestimate the salvific dimension of faith, this did not happen to everyone. On
the contrary, the priest Lorenzo Bedeschi, in a 1968 article published in
Religioni oggi, criticized those who only considered “Catholic dissent” from
“a political point of view,” because the phenomenon should be analyzed in
its “doctrinal sources rather than in its political phenomenology.”68
In 1966 Cuminetti had already noted the risk that Christians engaged
in the temporal world might slip toward “a secularization and a politicization of the Church, to the detriment of the manifestation of its deepest
65. “è difficile negare che dietro le incertezze, le confusioni, le ambiguità del dissenso
si è creato un fatto di coscienza collettiva, nuova per la religione di chiesa”: Gian Enrico
Rusconi and Chiara Saraceno, Ideologia religiosa e conflitto sociale (Bari, 1970), p. 217.
66. “una fase di passaggio del guado, di abbandono più o meno consistente dell’antica
identità e di ricerca di una nuova, più complessa e difficile, ma anche più esaltante, identità”:
Verucci, “La Chiesa postconciliare,” p. 358.
67. Carlo Falconi, La contestazione nella Chiesa. Storia e documenti del movimento cattolico
antiautoritario in Italia e nel mondo (Milan, 1969), pp. 91–120.
68. “Il punto di vista politico non è al centro delle loro preoccupazioni”; “scaturigini
dottrinali più che nella fenomenologia politica”: Lorenzo Bedeschi, “Riflessioni sul dissenso
cattolico,” Religioni oggi, 2 (1968), 1–12, here 10. Bedeschi, engaged in the Italian Resistance
movement and in the liberation of Italy alongside Anglo-American troops, later became a
journalist for the Catholic newspaper Avvenire and professor of contemporary history at the
University of Urbino. He founded the Research Center on the History of Catholic Modernism. See Alfonso Botti, Rocco Cerrato, and Stefano Pivato, “L’itinerario storiografico di
Lorenzo Bedeschi,” Fonti e documenti, 13 (1984), 13–29.

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65

nature.”69 In subsequent years, reflecting on the crisis of the Church, the
theologian feared “the risks of forging new idols, of joining other communities, in which the meter, the point of interest is not God but the Self and
self-preservation.”70 As Testimonianze was marked since its debut by strong
religious feeling, it did not lose this aspect, even though the criticism of the
Western world in the Maritainian vein tended to be expressed in strong
opposition to U.S. policy in Vietnam and Latin America. The risk was that
the process of secularization that had invested Western societies would
spread to the religious world and that criticism of the Church would
become not the search for a new religious dimension but the abandonment
of a spiritual perspective, turning generations of young people away from
the values of the faith.
The “Anti-Council” Movement
Inside the Church, however, not everyone interpreted the Council as
an encouragement to realign Catholic doctrine with a rapidly transforming
society. Then-Msgr. Marcel Lefebvre thought that the Council represented “the overturning of the pontifical teachings that for more than a
century condemned any attempt to match the Church with modernity.”71
In France he thus founded an “anti-Council” movement that assumed a
defiant attitude from 1972 onward that led to the breakdown of relations
with the Holy See.
The Roman Curia, for its part, did not fail to stress its own concern at
the spread of radical interpretation of the guidelines arising from the
Council, expressed by journals such as Testimonianze, Questitalia, Il gallo,
69. “una mondanizzazione e politicizzazione della Chiesa, a scapito della manifestazione della sua natura più profonda”: Mario Cuminetti, “Un ruolo da precisare,” Relazioni
Sociali, 6 (1966), 64.
70. “i rischi di costruire altri idoli, di aggregarsi ad altri templi, ad altre comunità, in cui
la misura, l’interesse non è Dio, ma se stessi, la propria autoconservazione”: Milan, Istituto
Nazionale per la Storia del Movimento di Liberazione, Scritti diversi sulla Chiesa, Mario
Cuminetti, unpublished and undated handwritten notes (presumably from the early seventies), Fondo Cuminetti Mario, fasc. 97.
71. Daniele Menozzi, La Chiesa cattolica e la secolarizzazione (Turin, 1993) p. 201: “il
rovesciamento di quel magistero pontificio che ininterrottamente, per più di un secolo, aveva
condannato ogni tentativo di accordare chiesa e modernità.” See also Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Marcel Lefebvre: une vie (Étampes, France, 2002); Alessandro Gnocchi-Mario Palmaro, Tradizione il vero volto. Chi sono e cosa pensano gli eredi di Lefebvre. Intervista a mons.
Fellay (Milan, 2009); Philippe Levillain, Rome n’est plus dans Rome. Mgr Lefebvre et son église
(Paris, 2010); Giovanni Miccoli, La Chiesa dell’anticoncilio. I tradizionalisti alla conquista di
Roma (Rome-Bari, 2011).

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ECCLESIAL DISSENT IN ITALY IN THE SIXTIES

Il Regno, and the international journal of theology Concilium (the last publishing an Italian edition by Queriniana of Brescia since 1965). Giuseppe
Siri,72 archbishop of Genoa, and Ernesto Ruffini,73 archbishop of Palermo,
became known for their intransigence to change. Moreover, in 1965, while
the Council was still in progress, Florit condemned Milani’s support of
conscientious objection.74 In February 1968, Lercaro was dismissed for his
criticism of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, for his collaboration with the
communist administration of Bologna, and for his radical interpretation of
the concept of the “Church of the poor.”75 In addition, the traditional principles of the Church that were being challenged were reaffirmed: the
encyclical Sacerdotalis coelibatus (June 1967), invoked the sacred nature of
the priesthood and reasserted the promise of celibacy. In the encyclical
Humanae vitae of the following July, a stand was taken against contraception, superseding the guidelines of the majority on the research commission convened by Paul VI to investigate the matter and rejecting many of
the ideas from the Council’s debates.
In Italy the theology journal Renovatio was published in 1966 to
examine the radical interpretations of Concilium, and many groups arose
that were rooted in nineteenth-century intransigentism, such as the association Silenziosi della Chiesa and the Mario Fani circles. The latter was
founded by Gedda as an alternative to the “religious choice” position advocated by the Catholic Action of Bachelet.
But the organization that was most successful in gaining mass support
was Comunione e Liberazione (CL). It was founded in Milan in 1969 after
Gioventù Studentesca split into a progressive wing that merged with the
student movement and a more conservative wing that was tied to tradition
and led by the priest Luigi Giussani.76 CL members were inspired by the
ideas of philosopher Augusto Del Noce77 and believed that their organiza-

72. See Nicla Buonasorte, Siri. Tradizione e Novecento (Bologna, 2006); Siri, la Chiesa,
l’Italia, ed. Paolo Gheda (Genoa-Milan, 2009).
73. Giuseppe Petralia, Il cardinal Giuseppe Ruffini arcivescovo di Palermo (Vatican City,
1989).
74. See Maria Grazia Fida, Educare alla pace (Milan, 2012), pp. 23–28.
75. See Lorenzo Bedeschi, Il cardinale destituito: documenti sul caso Lercaro (Turin, 1968).
76. Giussani (1922–2005) was an Italian priest and theologian; in 1969 he founded the
Comunione e Liberazione movement in Milan. See Alberto Savorana, Vita di don Giussani
(Milan, 2013).
77. Del Noce (1910–89), an Italian philosopher, focused on the crisis of contemporary
civilization and proposed the values of the Christian tradition. See Massimo Borghesi, Augusto Del Noce. La legittimazione critica del moderno (Genoa-Milan, 2011).

DANIELA SARESELLA

67

tion needed to be separate from the Church, although they intended to
reaffirm the value of “Christian civilization.”78 Giussani clashed with dissenters as well as those associated with the Church such as Giuseppe Lazzati,79 former president of the Milanese AC and later rector of the Catholic
University of Milan. In Giussani’s view, Lazzati was too enamored with
contemporary innovations and the Maritainian position on the separation
between the natural and spiritual spheres.
Conclusion
The cultural changes and modernization sweeping Western society in
the postwar period resulted in the new Marxism that criticized the Soviet
Union and shaped the New Left, as well as affected the deliberations of the
Second Vatican Council. The Italian Catholic world in the 1950s was still
deeply conservative, and only a few priests and laypeople dared to challenge
the traditional hierarchical structure. The Council initiated a new era for Italian Catholicism, which was stimulated by the synergy of different cultures.
John XXIII’s encyclical Mater et Magistra (1961), for example, was interpreted as legitimizing political pluralism in countries such as Italy, where the
previous system obliged Catholics to vote for the Christian Democrats. John’s
subsequent encyclical Pacem in Terris (1963) was addressed “to all Men of
Good Will,” to believers and nonbelievers alike, and it legitimized the dialogue between different cultures on issues of peace and justice.
Massimo Faggioli says that
the most important outcomes of the link between the Second Vatican
Council and 1968 are not just in terms of the theological and cultural
change of paradigm but also in terms of the change in the elite of Italian
Catholicism

and emphasizes the role of the new Catholic movements (above all, Comunione e Liberazione e Comunità Sant’Egidio).80 The associations, publications, and affiliations that were established in these years illuminate the

78. See Salvatore Abruzzese, Comunione e Liberazione (Bologna, 2001); Massimo
Camisasca, Comunione e Liberazione: le origini (1954–1968) (Milan, 2001); Maria Bocci, “Il
Concilio indiviso. Da Gioventù Studentesca a Comunione e Liberazione,” in Da Montini a
Martini: il Vaticano II a Milano, I, Le figure, ed. Gilles Routhier, Luca Bressan, and Luciano
Vaccaro (Brescia, 2012), pp. 473–531.
79. See Marcello Malpensa and Alessandro Parola, Lazzati: una sentinella nella notte
(1909–1986) (Bologna, 2005).
80. Faggioli, “The New Élite of the Italian Catholicism,” pp. 37–40.

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ECCLESIAL DISSENT IN ITALY IN THE SIXTIES

transformations occurring in the entire Catholic world. As Richard Drake
notes, the events of the sixties also triggered a confrontation and dialogue
with the new Marxism. Italy, characterized by a strong presence of
Catholics in society as well as a firmly rooted communist political culture,
produced a fruitful exchange of theoretical and political views that might
not have occurred in other national contexts.
Thus Hugh McLeod aptly noted that, in the religious history of the
West, the sixties may be seen “as marking a rupture as profound as that
brought about by the Reformation.” In his view, the 1960s were a “revolutionary era,” a time of cultural revolution and attempts at political revolution.81
In May 1971 Paul VI, concerned about the debate that was shaking
the Catholic world, addressed the relationship between Marxism and
Catholicism in the letter Octogesima adveniens. Wishing to stem the theoretical and political “excesses” that had occurred, he identified ideologies in
socialist culture that he believed were incompatible with faith. The pope
mistrusted those who intended to use this historical-critical methodology
to analyze society and warned against the danger
of accepting the elements of Marxist analysis without recognizing their
relationships with ideology, and entering into the practice of class struggle and its Marxist interpretations, while failing to note the kind of totalitarian and violent society to which this process leads.82

The pontiff’s concern was understandable, because an important part of
the Catholic community was experiencing one of the most radical renovations
in its history. Nonetheless, his exhortations were bound to remain unheard
because of the tide of change: indeed, radical left-wing Catholics played an
important role in Italy’s extra-parliamentary revolutionary groups (such as
Lotta Continua and Avanguardia Operaia),83 and the dialogue between
Marxists and Catholics found an outlet in the establishment of Cristiani per
il Socialismo (Christians for Socialism) in 1973. Significant from a political
point of view was the decision of some well-known Catholics to run as independents for the Communist Party in the general elections of 1976.

81. McLeod, The Religious Crisis, pp. 1–5.
82. “accettare gli elementi dell’analisi marxista senza riconoscerne i rapporti con l’ideologia, entrare nelle prassi della lotta di classe e della sua interpretazione marxista trascurando
di avvertire il tipo di società totalitaria e violenta alla quale questo processo conduce”: Paul VI,
Octogesima Adveniens, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/apost_letters/documents/
hf_pvi_apl_19710514_octogesima-adveniens_it.html.
83. Drake, “Catholics and Italian Revolutionary Left of the 1960s,” pp. 470–75.

The 1960s Los Angeles Seminary Crisis
JOHN T. DONOVAN*
In the 1960s, tension arose between Cardinal James Francis McIntyre,
archbishop of Los Angeles (1886–1979), and the priests of the Congregation of the Mission (or Vincentian Fathers) who were teaching at St.
John’s Seminary in Camarillo. The fact that some seminary alumni
had challenged McIntyre publicly on the question of race relations led
the cardinal to suspect that the faculty was not adequately addressing
church policy on obedience. This was exacerbated with the disclosure of
the relaxation of rules at the St. Louis seminaries—Cardinal Glennon
College and Kenrick Seminary—and by the publication of Seminary
in Crisis, a book by Stafford Poole, C.M. McIntyre asked how the
Vincentians could run seminaries in an inconsistent fashion, to which
the Vincentians replied that they would respect the wishes of the ordinary. Despite the friction, McIntyre kept the Vincentians at St. John’s.
Keywords: Congregation of the Mission; McIntyre, Cardinal
James Francis; Poole, Stafford, C.M.; St. John’s Seminary,
Camarillo; Vincentians
“

T

he study of seminary education is one of the most neglected subfields in the whole underdeveloped area of American Catholic historiography.”1 So noted Philip Gleason of the University of Notre Dame
about thirty years ago. There has been some improvement since then, with
the publication of various seminary histories.2 A less-reported history took
*Dr. Donovan is a lecturer in the history department at California State University, Los
Angeles, email: jdonova@calstatela.edu. Although the author is responsible for errors, he is
grateful to Louis Franz, C.M.; Terrence Halloran; Stafford Poole, C.M.; Martin Schiesl;
Scott Wells; Mark Wild, and the editors and anonymous reviewers of The Catholic Historical
Review for their help. For their assistance with research, the author thanks Jeffrey M. Burns,
formerly of the Archives of the Archdiocese of San Francisco at St. Patrick’s Seminary, Menlo
Park, California; Morgen MacIntosh Hodgetts of the De Andreis Rosati Memorial Archives
at DePaul University; and John Shepherd of the American Catholic History Research Center
and University Archives at The Catholic University of America.
1. Philip Gleason, “Chicago and Milwaukee: Contrasting Experiences in Seminary
Planting,” 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. 149–74, here p. 149.
2. See, for example, Mary Christine Athans, B.V.M., “To Work for the Whole People”:
John Ireland’s Seminary in St. Paul (Mahwah, NJ, 2002), James P. Gaffey, Men of Menlo:

69

70

THE 1960S LOS ANGELES SEMINARY CRISIS

place in the Los Angeles Archdiocese between Cardinal James Francis
McIntyre (1886–1979) and the priests of the Congregation of the Mission
(or the Vincentian Fathers), referred to by the Vincentians as the Los
Angeles Seminary Crisis. This episode has been treated briefly in some
works.3 As of this writing, the papers in the Archives of the Archdiocese
of Los Angeles remain closed on the matter, but the opening of the James
Fischer C.M. Provincial Papers affords some exploration of the question.
Fischer (1916–2005), the Vincentian Provincial of the era, had to contend
with much of the crisis.4
McIntyre (see figure 1) is a central figure in this story. Pope Pius XII
transferred McIntyre to Los Angeles after the death of Archbishop John
Cantwell (1874–1947), doubtless on the recommendation of Cardinal
Francis J. Spellman of New York (1889–1967). To this day, McIntyre
remains a controversial figure in the history of Southern California
Catholicism. In 1997, Msgr. Francis J. Weber’s two-volume biography of
McIntyre appeared.5 Historian Kevin Starr favorably reviewed the work in
the Los Angeles Times, calling it a “locomotive of a biography.” Starr wrote,
“At long last, a much vilified Roman Catholic prelate of the 20th Century
. . . can now have his day in court.” Shortly after Starr’s review appeared,
several individuals wrote to the Times, in part to denounce Weber’s book
(and Starr’s review of it), but they all used their letters to attack McIntyre.6
“It was McIntyre’s misfortune to be an old man, although more or less a
vigorous one, when the winds of change whistled through the Church,”
wrote author John Gregory Dunne. “What he did not think broke, he did
not want fixed.” Putting it more delicately, Jeffrey M. Burns wrote that
McIntyre’s philosophy was “a deep-seated resistance to change in any

Transformation of an American Seminary (Lanham, MD, 1992), Thomas J. Shelley, Dunwoodie: The History of St. Joseph’s Seminary, Yonkers, New York (Westminster, MD, 1993), and
Joseph M. White, The Diocesan Seminary in the United States: A History from the 1780s to the
Present (Notre Dame, 1989).
3. On the seminary crisis, see Stafford Poole, “Ad Cleri Disciplinam: The Vincentian
Seminary Apostolate in the United States,” in The American Vincentians: A Popular History of
the Congregation of the Mission in the United States, 1815–1987, ed. John Rybolt (Brooklyn,
1988), 154; White, The Diocesan Seminary in the United States, pp. 418–19.
4. The Fischer Provincial Papers are housed in the DeAndreis Rosati Memorial
Archives at the John T. Richardson, C.M. Library at De Paul University in Chicago (cited
hereafter as DRMA).
5. Francis J. Weber, His Eminence of Los Angeles: James Francis Cardinal McIntyre (Mission Hills, CA, 1997).
6. Kevin Starr, “True Grit,” Los Angeles Times, June 22, 1997, BR 3; Letters to the
editor, Los Angeles Times, July 13, 1997, BR 14–15.

J OHN T. DONOVAN

71

FIGURE 1. Cardinal James Francis McIntyre, archbishop of Los Angeles, c.
1963. Photo courtesy of Department of Archives and Special Collections,
William H. Hannon Library, Loyola Marymount University.

form. He believed in a well-ordered rational universe that was governed by
an unchanging natural law.” Accordingly, when McIntyre became aware of
changes in the St. Louis seminaries, he was concerned enough to tell San
Francisco Archbishop Joseph T. McGucken (1902–83) that if changes
being made in seminary policy were “the policy of the [Vincentian] community,” the Archdiocese of Los Angeles would “have to look for another
faculty, for we would not be willing to conform to these changes.”7
McIntyre’s controversial tenure in Los Angeles coincided with years of
innovation and growth in the seminaries. Accordingly, he expanded and
revised the Los Angeles seminaries. The original minor seminary—the Los
Angeles College—became a high school, and McIntyre built a new minor

7. John Gregory Dunne, “Angels of LA,” New York Review of Books, May 28, 1998, 17–
23, here 17; Jeffrey M. Burns, “Postconciliar Church as Unfamiliar Sky: The Episcopal Styles
of Cardinal James F. McIntyre and Archbishop Joseph T. McGucken,” U.S. Catholic Historian, 17, no. 4 (1999), 64–82, here 67; Archives of the Archdiocese of San Francisco (hereafter AASF), Cardinal James Francis McIntyre to Archbishop Joseph T. McGucken, January
27, 1965, Archbishop Joseph T. McGucken Correspondence.

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THE 1960S L OS ANGELES SEMINARY CRISIS

seminary: Our Lady Queen of the Angels, which opened in 1954 (next to
the San Fernando Mission).8 Plans emerged to build a new college, adjacent to the graduate-level theological seminary in Camarillo. The college
was incorporated in 1961, and William Kenneally, C.M. (1911–77), was
appointed rector of the college and theologate—positions he held simultaneously. Construction of the new college, also named St. John’s, began in
1961. The firm of Albert C. Martin & Associates won the contract. A
chapel dedicated to St. James was located on the campus, and “[a]n international jury of outstanding architects judged the college among the 10
best designed structures erected in Southern California from 1960 to
1963.” It was dedicated on June 25, 1966—McIntyre’s eightieth birthday
and the forty-fifth anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood. Cardinals Spellman and Jose Garibi y Rivera (1889–1973) of Guadalajara joined
McIntyre for the dedication ceremonies.9
The years of seminary expansion also saw a generational shift. Many
of the young people of the early 1960s were called to service as the “New
Breed.” As priest and author Andrew Greeley (1928–2013) observed, they
knew “neither war nor depression, but only cold war and prosperity.” The
New Breed “has found its patron saint in John Kennedy, who, with his
youthfulness, his pragmatism, his restlessness, his desire for challenge and
service . . . reflected in so many ways what the New Breed wants to be.”10
Fischer described them in this fashion:
The present generation of collegian, seminarian or not, has been described
as the “new breed.” These young men are war babies, often deprived of
strong parental influences in infancy, products of an affluent society which
has not demanded of them the stern disciplines of want or impressed
them with the primitive goals of survival. They are looking for security
and yet looking for some exciting, worth-while [sic] goal on which to fix
their lives. They are no more in rebellion against authority than youth
normally is; in some things they seem more ready to be led. But they are

8. The Los Angeles Times noted the graduation of a class in 1956; see “San Fernando
Seminary to Graduate 54,” Los Angeles Times, June 3, 1956, 16. The article contains the first
picture in the Times of future cardinal Roger Mahony, then the student body president at Our
Lady Queen of the Angels.
9. “Expansion Set by Seminary,” Los Angeles Times, December 8, 1960, C11; “Seminary College To Be Dedicated,” The Tidings, June 24, 1966, 1; “St. John’s Seminary College,”
The Tidings, [Special Section] June 24, 1966, 3, 4; Dan L. Thrapp, “3 Cardinals Attend Dedication of New Seminary College,” Los Angeles Times, June 26, 1966, B; “Seminary College Is
Dedicated,” The Tidings, July 1, 1966, 1, 3; Weber, His Eminence of Los Angeles, I:261–71;
White, The Diocesan Seminary in the United States, 402ff.
10. Andrew M. Greeley, “A New Breed,” America, May 23, 1964, 708.

JOHN T. DONOVAN

73

more critical of their elders for what they consider a lack of honesty than
should be normal. They are frank, generous and idealistic, as note[d] in
the great response to the Peace Corps. They sometimes seem intent on
rushing into insecure positions for the sake of finding something worthwhile [sic] in the risk. . . . All told, they probably have a better education
than the generation of their teachers though they are often lacking in skills
which their teachers considered normal in their own day.11

This “new breed” of seminarian came in the 1960s, which had seemed
an exciting time for the Church: before the decade started, Cardinal
Angelo Roncalli was elected Pope John XXIII, and in 1960 the first
Catholic was elected president of the United States. However, there were
matters troubling to Catholics and all Americans of the day.12 Race
emerged as an issue in the tumultuous 1960s, and the seminary was not
untouched by the matter.13 In 1959, John Howard Griffin (1920–80), a
white writer, contacted Sepia magazine and suggested a story. He proposed
to darken his skin and then travel in the South so that he could have a
better idea of the African American experience. Griffin was in touch with
a dermatologist, who assisted him with medication and a sun lamp. Griffin
shaved his head and succeeded in passing himself off as a black man. Sepia
later published his articles, and he produced the book Black Like Me (New
York, 1961). Griffin’s book was favorably reviewed in the Los Angeles
archdiocesan newspaper The Tidings.14
Griffin was also a convert to Roman Catholicism, and he counted
clergy among his friends. One priest, Peter Beaman (1928–91) of the St.
John’s class of 1955, drove Griffin to St. John’s so that the author could
discuss race with a group of seminarians. Neither Beaman nor Griffin
sought permission to visit the seminary. As the seminarians present had
been peeling strawberries before Griffin’s arrival, the episode came to be
referred to as “Strawberry Sunday,” a name also inspired by the Herman
Wouk novel (and movie) The Caine Mutiny. In some fashion, McIntyre
11. “How the Crisis Came About,” in James Fischer, “The Los Angeles Seminary
Crisis,” March 5, 1965. The report is not paginated, but the quotation can be found on page
7. Copies of the report can be found in the St. John’s Seminary File and the James Fischer
C.M. Provincial File in the DRMA.
12. On Catholicism in the 1960s, see Mark S. Massa, The American Catholic Revolution:
How the ’60s Changed the Church Forever (New York, 2010).
13. On American Catholicism and race, see John T. McGreevy, Parish Boundaries: The
Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth-Century Urban North (Chicago, 1996).
14. John Kennedy, “White Writer Disguised as Negro Faces Hate, “The Tidings, October 8, 1961, 8. See also Joan Cook, “John H. Griffin Dead; White Novelist Wrote Book
‘Black Like Me,’” New York Times, September 10, 1980, D21.

74

THE 1960S LOS ANGELES SEMINARY CRISIS

was apprised of the Griffin/Beaman visit. He contacted seminary rector
Kenneally, but Kenneally—still unaware that the visit had taken place—
denied the story. On learning that Griffin was there, Kenneally notified
McIntyre that Griffin indeed had been on campus.15
Beaman was not the only Los Angeles priest concerned about matters
of race. Two members of St. John’s class of 1960, William H. DuBay and
Terrence Halloran (see figure 2), covered race in their sermons. Beaman,
DuBay, and Halloran referred to themselves as the “Cardinal’s Carpet
Club” —that is, clergy who had been “called on the carpet” by the cardinal.
After “Strawberry Sunday,” DuBay sent a telegram to Pope Paul VI, asking
him to remove McIntyre as archbishop and charging the archbishop with
failure to deal with race in California. Before sending the telegram, DuBay
spoke with Halloran and John Coffield (1914–2005), a member of St.
John’s class of 1941. Both Coffield and Halloran tried to dissuade DuBay
from sending the telegram. Nevertheless, DuBay sent the cable and called
a press conference to publicize his protest. (In later years, DuBay said that
Coffield told him that McIntyre called him to his office to ask if he had
encouraged DuBay. McIntyre warned Coffield not to speak to the press.)
DuBay was later driven to the seminary to renew his vow of obedience and
respect to the cardinal; Halloran also was instructed to renew his vow of
obedience to the cardinal. DuBay’s promise did not settle the matter: he
spoke out again, was transferred, and ultimately left the priesthood.16
“Strawberry Sunday” and the DuBay matter raised concern among the
Vincentians. Kenneally wrote to Fischer, warning, “The DuBay incident
caused many repercussions and . . . requires some delicate handling as far
as the seminary and the [Vincentian] Community are concerned.”17 About
a month later, Kenneally met with Fischer in St. Louis to apprise him of
15. John Leo, “The DuBay Case,” Commonweal, July 10, 1964, 477–82, here 477,
http://www.twhalloran.info/page6G.html, accessed on February 19, 2014.
16. Edward R. F. Sheehan, “Not Peace, but the Sword: The New Anguish of American
Catholicism,” Saturday Evening Post, November 28, 1964, 20–43, here 38; Leo, “DuBay
Case”; idem, “Postscript on L.A.,” Commonweal August 7, 1964, 529; A. V. Krebs, “A Church
of Silence,” Commonweal, July 10, 1964, 467–76; Dennis McLellan, “Msgr. John Coffield,
91; Southland Cleric and Social Activist,” Los Angeles Times, February 6, 2005, B–13; Terrence Halloran, “Memories of John Coffield—Person, Priest, and Prophet,” http://
www.twhalloran.info/page82.html, accessed on February 19, 2014. See also Weber, His Eminence of Los Angeles, II:442–92, 579–81, 613, 618–19. Coffield was also on friendly terms with
Griffin; see John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me, 2nd ed. (Boston, 1977), pp. 184–85. Part
of the story also was related to the author by the late William Ready, C.M.
17. William J. Kenneally to James Fischer, July 12, 1965, Fischer Papers, Box 3,
DRMA.

J OHN T. DONOVAN

75

FIGURE 2. Terrence Halloran, left; Alan White, center (a cofounder of
Catholics United for Racial Equality); and William DuBay, right, 2007. Photo
courtesy of Terrence Halloran.

the situation in Camarillo. “A young Diocesan priest . . . arranged with
some of the students . . . to send Mr. Griffith [sic] . . . author of ‘Black Like
Me’, to talk to a select group of students.” About sixty students were present for Griffin’s presentation. After McIntyre told Kenneally about Griffin’s visit, Kenneally “summoned the students to the chapel . . . and asked
those who had attended the lecture to stand up. Then he explained the
meaning of obedience to this group.” The “ringleader” was identified as a
third-year student of theology “who was considered a risk at any rate. He
was subsequently clipped [expelled] and dropped.” After the faculty met,
other students were told to leave the seminary.18 In an overview of the situation at St. John’s, Kenneally praised McIntyre to Fischer:
The Cardinal has been attacked as being anti- or non-intellectual. But
the Cardinal has built a College at Camarillo on the suggestion of Fr.
Kenneally that this was efficient education. . . . He has never imposed any
restrictions on teaching. But he has consi[s]tently and publicly taken the
attitude that the local clergy must support the policies of the Ordinary,
and that if they are unwilling they should go elsewhere. He has said . . .

18. “Conversation with Fr. Wm. Kenneally, Aug. 15, 1964 in St. Louis,” Fischer
Papers, Box 3, DRMA. Griffin was identified as “Higgins” in the document, but the name
was crossed out, and the name “Griffith” [sic] was written in pen. Some of the expelled students may have applied to other seminaries; see the letter of Archbishop Joseph T.
McGucken to Paul Purta, S.S., March 5, 1965, Seminary Correspondence file, AASF.

76

THE 1960S LOS ANGELES SEMINARY CRISIS
that he wants this attitude ingrained in the students at Camarillo, and
that if they are not willing to go along with it, Fr. Kenneally should dismiss them immediately, even if . . . he has to dismiss the whole theologate at once. The Cardinal believes that the Jesuits at Loyola are his principal opposition and in some manner he links them to Cardinal [Joseph]
Ritter [of St. Louis].19

Despite Kenneally’s praise of McIntyre, there was still room for concern. Fischer asked Kenneally to locate McIntyre’s source of information.
For his part, McIntyre objected to the proposed appointment of Charles E.
Miller, C.M. (1929–2005), to the position of spiritual director, citing complaints that Miller “had taken a position unsympathetic to his policies on
Liturgy in class. This was backed up by Msgr. [Benjamin] Hawk[e]s
[1919–85] and Bishop [Timothy] Manning [1909–89, see figure 3].”
McIntyre also thought Miller might be “lax in discipline”—a reference to
the Griffin matter. (Fischer lamented, “If the C. Miller case becomes
known, liberal Confreres will have far more to howl about.”) Some Los
Angeles clergy complained that St. John’s alumni were “not as submissive as
those from Ireland.” Kenneally reported that after DuBay had again promised obedience, the clergy loudly applauded McIntyre at a meal that followed. “As far as we know, the Cardinal is popular with his clergy since his
[sic] is personally sympathetic to their problems,” adding—in those days
before the Watts riot—“the race and liturgy issues . . . are not so pressing in
Los Angeles.” Fischer noted that he did not want to “assign men to a Seminary where they will feel that they are intellectually coerced.”20
Fischer also fretted when tension also developed between McIntyre
and Nicholas Persich, C.M. (1922–2005). Persich was the rector of Kenrick Seminary (where he taught theology), and he served as a peritus (theological adviser) to Ritter at the Second Vatican Council. McIntyre and
Persich met in Rome during the Vatican Council, and as Stafford Poole,
C.M. (see figure 3), recalled, they got “into an argument (something that
Nick Persich did quite easily).”21 McIntyre’s feelings about Persich became
complicated with an invitation to Harold Persich, C.M. (1928–89), to
offer a retreat for clergy in Los Angeles. (Three Persich brothers—
Nicholas, Harold, and Roy—became Vincentian priests; see figure 3.) The

19. “Conversation with Fr. Wm. Kenneally.”
20. Ibid.
21. Stafford Poole, to the author, January 7, 2013, Fr. Stafford Poole File, DRMA.
Poole also noted that Persich considered apologizing to McIntyre, but Ritter told him to let
the matter drop.

JOHN T. DONOVAN

77

FIGURE 3. Faculty of St. John’s Seminary College with Cardinal Timothy
Manning, archbishop of Los Angeles, academic year 1976–77. Rear row (left
to right): John Edward Sullivan, O.P.; David E. Windsor, C.M.; Bernard
Quinn, C.M.; George Niederauer (future bishop of Salt Lake City and archbishop of San Francisco); Charles J. Barr, C.M. Middle row (left to right): Roy
Persich, C.M.; Robert Jones, C.M.; Cornelius Van Dorst, C.M.; Gregory
Wiedower, C.M.; Stafford Poole, C.M. Front row (left to right): Joseph
Phoenix, C.M.; Cardinal Manning; James Galvin, C.M. Photo courtesy of the
DeAndreis-Rosati Memorial Archives, Special Collections and Archives,
DePaul University, Chicago.

invitation to Harold, who had earned the nickname “Hotsy,” did not sit
well with McIntyre.22 James Richardson, a former rector of St. John’s and
the first Vice Provincial of the newly formed Vice Province of Los Angeles,
warned Fischer:
(1) If you think it is possible that Nick Persich actually does needle Cardinal McIntyre, could you say something effective to Nick to persuade
him to desist? I am speaking, of course, not of ideas but of personalities.

22. Even Persich’s mother called Harold “Hotsy,” ibid. On the Persich family, see
Milos M. Vujnovich, Yugoslavs in Louisiana (Gretna, LA, 1974), p. 76.

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THE 1960S LOS ANGELES SEMINARY CRISIS
(2) Would it be possible for you to accept the responsibility of [admitting
to] making a mistake in appointing Hotsy Persich to give the retreat out
here? I honestly believe that it was a mistake, though a very honest one.
The Cardinal has developed a sensitivity in regard to the seminary and in
regard to that name. . . .23

Given the changes raised during the Second Vatican Council, the
questions of revisions in the liturgy and the matter of obedience troubled
McIntyre. These matters were on the cardinal’s mind when he met on September 3, 1964, with three Vincentians: Fischer, Richardson, and John
Zimmerman. Also present for the meeting were Los Angeles auxiliary
bishops Manning and John Ward (1920–2011). Fischer later prepared a
summary of the approximately one-hour meeting. McIntyre referred to a
meeting of the previous June that convened a group of seminary rectors
and Cardinal John Dearden of Detroit, which had bothered him. He
thought that it was intended to determine “rather extreme changes in curriculum.” Ward remarked that the meeting was called to solicit ideas on
carrying out the Council’s Constitution on the Liturgy, but Fischer
lamented, “This did not seem to have much effect on the Cardinal.” McIntyre then raised the matter of liturgical changes that he had not approved.
The American bishops had petitioned Rome for permission to read the
Epistle and the Gospel during Mass facing the people, yet “many Bishops
. . . went beyond the rescript to allow the Epistle and the Gospel to be read
in English [rather than Latin] facing the people.” He added that he
thought the seminary faculty was unaware of this situation.24
Next, McIntyre turned to the question of obedience. He raised the
DuBay case with the Vincentians and said he intended to write other bishops about the subject of authority:
He again got back to the matter of the Faculty not knowing what the real
conditions at Camarillo were and did not seem to appreciate them. He
asked what we thought about these matters and what we planned to do.

Fischer said that the Vincentians would meet to discuss the matter and
assured McIntyre “that we consider the problem of obedience to be the
23. Richardson to Fischer, August 25, 1964, Fischer Papers, Box 3, DRMA. Emphasis
in original.
24. See “Conversation with Cardinal McIntyre; Present: Bishop Manning, Bishop
Ward, Father John Zimmerman, Father James Richardson, [and] Father James Fischer.
Date: September 3, 1964,” in Fischer, “The Los Angeles Seminary Crisis,” March 5, 1964.
The report is not paginated, but it appears on pp. 20–21.

JOHN T. DONOVAN

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most crucial one” and that he hoped to draw up a policy to meet all needs.
“This arose from a remark the Cardinal made that he wondered how we
could staff seminaries for so many Ordinaries who had such diverse opinions.”25 Fischer added:
[McIntyre] said that he had gotten good cooperation from Father Kenneally, that when he learned that his term of office was running out, he
had put in his word about not getting Father [Nicholas] Persich or someone of his stamp who would be out of harmony with the policies of the
Archdiocese.
The two Auxiliaries [Manning and Ward] were very cagey with their
replies during this conversation. Bishop Ward joked with us about the
Cardinal’s phrase “the liturgy party” afterwards. It was obvious that the
Cardinal was very worried about the situation, but it was somewhat difficult to judge precisely what he was aiming at.26

Given the changes that occurred in the 1960s, McIntyre did have
some cause for concern. Writing about the Catholic seminaries of the
1960s, Poole said:
The reforms of Vatican II had . . . impacts [on seminaries] that were on
the one hand beneficial and progressive, on the other confusing and divisive. The renewal began in optimism and under the control and direction
of higher authority. There followed a period of experimentation and then
turmoil. . . . The old order came under attack as students demanded more
openness, more consultation, and the abolition of whatever they considered to be “irrelevant” to their needs and those of the time. . . . Seminary
faculties were often split between those who favored immediate changes
and those who resisted them or wanted to move more gradually. . . . The
response was dictated by the outlooks of seminarians and faculties, the
attitudes of the local ordinaries, and other local conditions. As a result,
despite the fact of direction by a single community, or even a single
province of the community, Vincentian-directed seminaries were not
uniform in their approach to aggiornamento [updating].27

At least one Vincentian shared McIntyre’s views on the operation of
seminaries. Kenneally, the rector of both the college and theologate semi-

25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. Poole, “Ad Cleri Disciplinam,” p. 151. For an example of tension in a Sulpician-run
seminary in the 1960s, see Jeffrey M. Burns, “Transition in Catholicism in San Francisco,
1950–1970: The Seminary and the Eclipse of Authority,” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, 109, no. 1 (1999), 19–37.

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THE 1960S LOS ANGELES SEMINARY CRISIS

naries in Camarillo, was also was McIntyre’s peritus at the Second Vatican
Council. (Kenneally had studied in Rome where he met Karol Wojtyła, the
future Pope St. John Paul II.) During the Council, Kenneally wrote from
Rome, “I am trying to keep the Cardinal reasonably happy and am trying
to confine his speeches to the prepared text.” But of his service at the
Council, Weber bluntly said, “[Kenneally] did not serve the Cardinal well.”
Nevertheless, McIntyre entrusted Kenneally with undertaking a visit of
various European seminaries. Kenneally produced an eight-page report, in
which he wrote, “Our American diocesan seminaries . . . are more
advanced than their European counterparts in all [areas] except purely
speculative and research learning.” McIntyre had the report circulated
among the American hierarchy.28
About the same time as the distribution of the Kenneally report, the
tension between McIntyre and the Vincentians worsened. The St. Louis
Review, the paper of the St. Louis Archdiocese, announced that there
would be changes in seminary policy. Nicholas Persich said that bells
would no longer be rung before students had to attend meals or assemblies,
that daily recitation of the rosary would be optional, and that students
would be given more opportunities to socialize with other seminarians.
Persich said that there would also be efforts at “revamping our curriculum”
and that seminarians also would be given opportunities to work in parishes
on weekends and to assist with religious instruction. He said that easing
the rules would force seminarians to accept more responsibility: “It is not a
relaxation [of rules] at all. We think it demands more of the students.”29
Father Persich said the entire updating program followed several meetings
of Vincentian seminary administrators from various parts of the country,
and also fits into standard practices being developed by the new Midwest
Association of Theological Schools, being formed with the major seminary department of the National Catholic Educational Association.30

Persich added that similar changes might be implemented at Vincentianstaffed seminaries in Denver, Houston, and San Antonio. “There is no

28. Kenneally to Fischer, October 17, 1963; McIntyre to “My dear Bishop,” January
15, 1965; William J. Kenneally, “Simple Reflections On a Little Survey,” January 1965, p. 8,
all in the William J. Kenneally file, DRMA. See also McIntyre to McGucken, January 14,
1965, AASF, and Weber, His Eminence of Los Angeles, II:503.
29. Donald Quinn, “Seminary Rules Revised Here in First Step Toward Renewal,” St.
Louis Review, January 22, 1965, 1, 8. A copy of the report was also included in Fischer, “The
Los Angeles Seminary Crisis,” pp. 33–36.
30. Ibid.

J OHN T. DONOVAN

81

doubt,” he said, “that all this makes the seminary more open to outside influences. But we have a new breed of individual. Their needs are different than
we had when we grew up.” Spellman passed the reports along to McIntyre.31
McIntyre called another meeting—this time with Fischer, Richardson, and Manning. The four met on January 26, 1965. “The Cardinal said
that he was angry” about the news release, which he gave to Fischer, and
had him “read it entirely through for Father Richardson.” Fischer again
tried to reassure McIntyre that it was “our Community policy. . . to do
what the local Ordinary wanted.” McIntyre countered that this was the
same answer given by Zimmerman in the September meeting and that it
was not satisfactory. Nevertheless, McIntyre conceded that he was happy
with the faculty in Camarillo.32
McIntyre was not the only bishop surprised by the changes at Kenrick.
Someone—perhaps McIntyre or Spellman—alerted Archbishop Egidio
Vagnozzi, the Vatican’s apostolic delegate to the United States. Vagnozzi
wrote Fischer a letter of inquiry. In his reply, Fischer told Vagnozzi that
the document “Toward a Renewal of Seminary Rule” had been sent to the
St. Louis Review, and the paper published the article over the protests of
the rector (Persich). Fischer closed the letter by saying, “Naturally, this
modification of certain disciplinary practices . . . has had the complete
encouragement and approbation of His Eminence Cardinal Ritter.”33
Fischer and Richardson met with a group of the Vincentian faculty at
St. John’s, including Kenneally, John Burger, Alvin Burroughs, Newman
C. Eberhardt, Louis Franz, and Francis Pansini. Various “ideas were
bandied about” in the course of the gathering. One faculty member
expressed the opinion that some of the seminarians were “waiting out the
Cardinal in the hope of changes in the Seminary,” adding that they were
“well informed on what is going on not only at Kenrick but in other seminaries.” The Western Association of Colleges intended to send “a special
investigating committee” to examine the question of alleged lack of academic freedom in Camarillo. The chief concern expressed was “the lack of
any real lecture program.” There was also some concern about a false assertion that the magazines America and Commonweal had been banned in the
31. Ibid.
32. “Interview of Cardinal McIntyre with Father James Fischer and Father James
Richardson (Bishop Manning being present for most of it) January 26, 1965,” in Fischer,
“The Los Angeles Seminary Crisis,” pp. 22–23.
33. Archbishop Egidio Vagnozzi to Fischer, February 5, 1965; Fischer to Vagnozzi,
February 10, 1965, Fischer Papers, Box 3, DRMA.

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seminary. The latter accusation appears to have come from one Roger
Kuhn, a high school teacher who denounced the seminary to the accreditation committee. (McIntyre thought Kuhn was “the driving force behind
Father DuBay.”)34
The following day, Fischer and Richardson met to discuss their
options. Yielding to McIntyre’s demands, they believed, would result in
the expulsion of the Vincentians from the St. Louis seminaries. (Fischer
added that the idea would violate “my own convictions.”) Another idea was
to ask Superior General William Slattery, C.M., for a letter assuring
McIntyre that the community would run seminaries in accordance with the
wishes of the local bishop. Richardson suggested that there be “no changes
until the Council was over.” The notion that McIntyre intended to replace
the Vincentians with diocesan clergy was considered, and the possibility
was raised that he was using “the Vincentians to attack the liberals.” If
either or both scenarios were true, they concluded that they were in an
“impossible situation.”35
Richardson decided the time had come to apprise Slattery about the
“serious crisis in the [Los Angeles] Vice-province”:
Cardinal McIntyre . . . has threatened to remove all of the confreres from
the seminaries of the archdiocese unless he obtains a satisfactory assurance of the seminary policy of the community. His Eminence was greatly
disturbed by announcements in the Catholic press about changes in the
discipline at the St. Louis seminaries. This threat was made directly to
Father Fischer . . . and myself by the Cardinal in his office a week ago.36

He added, “It is a matter of the utmost importance to the community out
here in California.”37 Fischer informed Richardson of a meeting on “the
Los Angeles situation.” Fischer found the Vincentians “far more sympathetic . . . than I had anticipated and there were no hard opinions voiced.”
As far as he could tell, most of the community still wanted to work in the

34. “Meeting of Fathers Fischer, Richardson, Kenneally, Pansini, Eberhardt, Burger,
Burroughs, and Franz at Camarillo, January 26, 1965,” in Fischer, “The Los Angeles Seminary Crisis,” p. 40. See also McIntyre to McGucken, March 3, 1965, McGucken Correspondence, AASF. Kuhn was a member of an organization called Catholics United for Racial
Equality; see Weber, His Eminence of Los Angeles, II:576.
35. “Conversation between Father Fischer and Father Richardson on the Events of the
Preceding Day, January 27, 1965,” in Fischer, “The Los Angeles Seminary Crisis,” pp. 41–42.
36. Richardson to the Very Rev. William M. Slattery, C.M., February 1, 1965, Fischer
Papers, Box 3, DRMA.
37. Ibid.

JOHN T. DONOVAN

83

archdiocese. Incredibly—perhaps as a peace offering—“Nick [Persich] very
seriously proposed that he be sent to Camarillo” to prove that he could
work with McIntyre.38
Kenneally weighed in on the seminary crisis, aligning himself with
McIntyre. On February 10, he presented a lengthy memo. “His Eminence,
Cardinal McIntyre, turns out to be a champion for the retention of the traditional Vincentian method of conducting seminaries,” he wrote. “He has
expressed himself repeatedly as eminently satisfied with the administration
and faculty of St. John’s.” To Kenneally, McIntyre disapproved only of “the
novelties, the innovations, and the imports” lacking “official sanction” from
Rome. He feared that without the Los Angeles seminaries, “our Vice
Province would die of slow strangulation.” He also pointed out that McIntyre had stopped sending seminarians to the North American College in
Rome “because they have chosen . . . to introduce similar innovations.”39
To resolve the situation, Kenneally offered two suggestions. First, he
suggested that the Los Angeles become a separate Vincentian province. In
this way, clergy from more liberal seminaries would not be appointed to St.
John’s. The second suggestion was simply to operate seminaries on “the
traditional Vincentian method of conducting Diocesan seminaries.” Of the
latter, he said McIntyre would insist upon a policy incumbent on “the
whole Congregation. Any tergiversation here would be fatal.” If the situation was not resolved, McIntyre would be subject to negative publicity, and
his critics (“who are legion”) would use the forced departure of the Vincentians as ammunition against him.40
Richardson forwarded Kenneally’s statement to Fischer. He wrote
that Vincentians had lost seminaries in the past, but he urged that “an allout effort” be made to remain in the Los Angeles seminaries. Of Kenneally’s suggestion that Los Angeles become a separate province, Richardson wondered if this would require Vincentian seminarians be trained “out
here (e.g. attending classes at Camarillo).” He also thought the community
should be made aware of the situation “without delay.”41

38. Fischer to Richardson, February 2, 1965, Fischer Papers, Box 3, DRMA.
39. William J. Kenneally, “The Threatened Loss of the Archdiocesan Seminaries of
Los Angeles,” Fischer Papers, Box 3, DRMA. The document was “presented” on February
10, 1965, but also bears a date of February 13, 1965. It was also copied into Fischer, “The Los
Angeles Seminary Crisis,” pp. 50–53.
40. Ibid.
41. Richardson to Fischer, February 11, 1965, in Fischer, “The Los Angeles Seminary
Crisis,” 45–49.

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THE 1960S LOS ANGELES SEMINARY CRISIS

Fischer was unhappy with the Kenneally memo. In a lengthy letter, he
chastised Kenneally for saying very little in previous meetings over the
crisis. He then asked Kenneally what he meant by “traditional Vincentian
policies,” as Kenneally had left these undefined. As for his suggestion that
all Vincentian seminaries be operated like Camarillo, Fischer said, “the
Superior General will not and should not impose this ‘traditional Vincentian policy’ on the whole Community.” He also thought that training Vincentian students with Diocesan students could be problematic. Fischer
considered Kenneally’s memo “a naked challenge” to his leadership.42
Fischer also telephoned Richardson to read part of his letter to Kenneally. Richardson wondered if Fischer
was hinting that Fr. Kenneally was dealing secretly with the Cardinal
behind our backs. I told him that I was not making any such accusation,
but that the impression which was being given . . . was that Fr. Kenneally
had been behind the whole thing. Rich [Richardson] said that he was not
concerned about impressions.

Richardson told Fischer that he had about forty letters from bishops on the
Kenneally report on European seminaries. Fischer asked Richardson if
Rome might draw the conclusion that “Fr. Kenneally was directing the
show,” but Richardson replied it was a “legitimate exercise of an individual’s right to communicate with the Superior General.” Toward the end of
the conversation, Richardson said he thought Kenneally’s memo could be
advantageous for the Vincentians, as McIntyre might “have the assurance
he would be dealing with men he knows and respects, and that he might
take their word for it that his policies would be continued.” At the end of
a memo on the conversation, Fischer wrote, “I concluded that I should not
have written the letter [to Kenneally].”43
In his letter of February 11, Richardson proposed “a moratorium on
provocative publications . . . as much as possible.”44 By this time, he may
well have known that such a work was in progress. Poole, a faculty member
at Cardinal Glennon College, had begun writing on seminaries before the

42. Fischer to Kenneally, February 14, 1965, in Fischer, “The Los Angeles Seminary
Crisis,” pp. 54–58; “Excerpt from the Provincial Council Meeting Minutes—Feb. 20, 1965,”
in Fischer, “The Los Angeles Seminary Crisis,” pp. 58–61.
43. “Note to the Letter of Fr. Fischer to Fr. Richardson, Feb. 14, 1965,” in Fischer
Papers, Box 3, DRMA.
44. Richardson to Fischer, February 11, 1965, in Fischer, “The Los Angeles Seminary
Crisis,” p. 47.

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85

Los Angeles crisis had surfaced. Born in March 1930 in Oxnard, California, Poole was raised in North Hollywood. He entered the Los Angeles
College intending to study and work for the archdiocese, but after studying
with the Vincentians, he chose to enter the community. In 1947 he
boarded a train at Los Angeles Union Station with other seminarians for
the trip to St. Mary of the Barrens Seminary in Perryville, Missouri. In
addition to his seminary work, Poole earned a master’s degree in Spanish
literature and a doctorate in history at St. Louis University. Ordained in
1956, he said his first Mass in St. Charles Borromeo parish in North Hollywood, but was assigned to college seminary in St. Louis. His seminary
work helped him to reflect on the training of clergy.45
In January 1964, Poole published an article in America magazine.46
Three publishers then contacted him to suggest that he write a book on
seminary education. Poole wrote to Msgr. John Tracy Ellis (1905–92) to
ask if he would read a draft of the first chapter.47 Ellis—who happened to
be preparing a contribution of his own on seminary education—agreed to
read it.48 Around the same time, Ellis had accepted an invitation to deliver
a sermon at a Mass marking the anniversary of the opening of Mount Angel
Seminary in Oregon. “Incidentally,” Ellis wrote Poole, “it was only when
the formal printed invitations for the event at Mount Angel arrived . . . that
I learned that Cardinal McIntyre is presiding at the Mass. I trust that I shall
not too greatly upset His Eminence in what I have to say!” (Unhappily,
Ellis’s talk did not go over well with the cardinal, but McIntyre’s hearing
may have prevented him from fully understanding what Ellis had said.)49
By July 1964, Poole had completed a draft of the book Seminary in
Crisis. This was no easy task, as he was being transferred from Cardinal
45. “N. Hollywood Man Becomes Priest Today,” Los Angeles Times, May 27, 1956
(“San Fernando Valley Section”), 3; See also the “Vita Auctoris,” in Stafford Poole, “The
Indian Problem in the Third Provincial Council of Mexico (1585)” (PhD diss., St. Louis
University, 1962), p. 267.
46. Stafford Poole, “Tomorrow’s Seminaries,” America, January 18, 1964, 86–90.
47. Washington, DC, American Catholic History Research Center and University
Archives (hereafter ACUA), Poole to John Tracy Ellis, April 19, 1964, John Tracy Ellis
Papers (hereafter Ellis Papers).
48. See John Tracy Ellis, “A Short History of Seminary Education,” in two parts, in
Seminary Education in a Time of Change, ed. James Michael Lee and Louis J. Putz (Notre
Dame, 1965), pp. 1–81.
49. Ellis to Poole, April 23, 1964, Ellis Papers (ACUA); John Tracy Ellis, Catholic
Bishops: A Memoir (Wilmington, DE, 1983), pp. 100–02. Ellis also alluded to McIntyre’s
reaction to the sermon in a review of Seminary in Crisis; see “Church Historian Approves Professor’s Survey of ‘Seminary in Crisis’,” The Pilot, June 5, 1965, 8.

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Glennon to St. Mary’s in Perryville, and was further complicated by his
father’s illness.50 Poole sent Ellis a copy of a paper he had written for The
Priest.51 Poole also told Ellis:
An old acquaintance of yours, Father John Byrne, recently wrote an article
on seminaries for the Saint Louis Archdiocesan newspaper.52 It brought
him the disapproval and shock of our rector [James Stakelum, C.M.] here
at Cardinal Glennon College (Jack is a part-time teacher here), but it won
the enthusiastic praise and support of Cardinal Ritter. Ironically, I had the
same sort of falling out with our rector as a result of my America article.53

Seminary in Crisis built on the themes addressed by Poole in his previous
work. He expressed concern about the number of priests leaving the ministry
as well as the number of priests suffering from alcoholism and mental illness,
some of whom showed evidence “of difficulties which could have been discovered in the seminary.”54 Calling the seminary system “the Achilles’ Heel
of American Catholicism,” Poole recommended that seminaries be incorporated into universities. He praised the Diocese of Winona in Minnesota,
which established a house for college seminarians on the grounds of St.
Mary’s College and thus allowed seminarians to study with lay students.55
For some reason, a copy of the galley proofs of Seminary in Crisis was
sent to Paul Purta, S.S., the rector of St. Patrick’s Seminary. Purta alerted
McGucken, and McGucken warned McIntyre:
[T]he rector of our Seminary, Father Purta, has given me the galley
sheets of a book that is coming out by one of the Vincentians, Father
Stafford Poole, C.M. He tells me that this is one of three books that will
shortly appear on the subject of aggiornamento in the structure of our
seminaries.56 Since I have only read about half way [sic] through Father

50. Poole to Ellis, June 12, 1964, Ellis Papers, ACUA.
51. Stafford Poole, “The Ideal Seminary . . . Some Afterthoughts,” The Priest, 20, no.
10 (1964), 869–73.
52. John T. Byrne, “Seminaries Once Were ‘Little Monasteries’—Most Still Are,” St.
Louis Review, August 14, 1964, 1, 4.
53. Poole to Ellis, August 30, 1964, Ellis Papers, ACUA.
54. Stafford Poole, Seminary in Crisis, (New York, 1965), pp. 20–21. Poole had drawn
from Robert J. McAllister and Albert Vandervelt, “Factors in Mental Illness among Hospitalized Clergy,” Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 132, (1961), 80–88.
55. Poole, Seminary in Crisis, pp. 29, 84.
56. The other two books were James Michael Lee and Louis J. Putz, Seminary Education in a Time of Change (Notre Dame, 1965) and James M. Keller and Richard Armstrong,
Apostolic Renewal in the Seminary in the Light of Vatican Council II (New York, 1965); see
White, The Diocesan Seminary in the United States, pp. 412–13.

JOHN T. DONOVAN

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Stafford Poole’s book, perhaps I should not venture an opinion. At this
point, however, my impression is that he takes the stand of the ultra liberal writers as representatives of the general opinion and of our people—
not to mention the Bishops!57

Richardson was scheduled to meet with McIntyre, but the meeting
was moved up due to the release of Poole’s book. McIntyre had done his
homework; as Richardson wrote, “the Cardinal had discovered that Staf
[Poole] had been at the L.A. Junior Seminary (I didn’t know that) and that
he is eight years ordained, [and] that he was vice-rector of Cardinal Glennon College.”58 Following the discussion of Poole’s book, Richardson tried
to assuage the cardinal’s feelings. He presented a letter from Slattery,
which asserted that the Vincentian policy was to implement the desire of
local bishops in the operation of their seminaries. McIntyre reiterated that
the statement was not acceptable. (He then called Manning in for the
remainder of the meeting.) The cardinal added that neither Nicholas Persich nor Poole should ever be assigned to the Los Angeles seminaries.
Richardson offered to write “a supplement” to a letter that Fischer was to
write to Slattery, but McIntyre countered, “I will write it myself.” Richardson told McIntyre that he would accompany Fischer to Rome, to which
McIntyre replied, “Good and the sooner the better.” Of the Kenneally
survey on European seminaries, McIntyre told Richardson that he had
received about forty letters from bishops. He expressed the hope that the
question of seminaries would be raised in the fall 1965 session of the
Council. “With regard to Father Poole,” McIntyre later wrote McGucken,
“I have had another conference with Father Richardson. . . . I disagreed
with his interpretation . . . and I prepared a memorandum which Father
Richardson will send to Father Fis[c]her.” McIntyre closed by stating,
“The question is complex . . . and I feel it requires a definite decision of
policy at this time. The community cannot be on the fence.”59
For his part, Fischer started to make inquiries among various bishops
about the Kenneally study. He found few positive reports. Fischer reported
that Archbishop John Cody of New Orleans “spoke of Cardinal McIntyre
as being too conservative and he alluded to all the harm Cardinal Ritter
had done by jumping the gun with the implementation of liturgical
57. McGucken to McIntyre, February 24, 1965, AASF.
58. “Interview of Cardinal McIntyre with Father James Richardson, February 26,
1965,” in Fischer, “The Los Angeles Seminary Crisis,” pp. 65–66.
59. Ibid. See also McIntyre to McGucken, March 2, 1965, McGucken correspondence,
AASF.

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THE 1960S LOS ANGELES SEMINARY CRISIS

reforms.” Nicholas Persich said that Ritter laughingly told him, “I guess
we’ll never convert Cardinal McIntyre.” Archbishop Robert Lucey of San
Antonio thought Kenneally a “brilliant scholar,” but he added, “I think he
went pretty far out in order to please the old man.” Bishop Ignatius Jerome
Strecker of Springfield-Cape Girardeau shared McIntyre’s view that
younger clergy were less deferential than they should be, and he told Fischer that he did not want to send seminarians to the St. Louis seminaries
any longer. “He did not blame this on the Vincentian Fathers—he said this
twice—but on the younger clergy who were exerting a wrong influence on
the students and on the Cardinal [Ritter].”60
In the ensuing months, the Vincentians remained in a strained relationship with McIntyre. In April, Richardson reported that McIntyre
“expressed his satisfaction” with the seminary but warned that he could not
tolerate “[c]ertain practices . . . introduced into other seminaries.” He also
reported to Slattery that Kenneally had dinner with McIntyre, and he took
the liberty “to urge him to speak plainly to His Eminence” about the seminaries. Kenneally telephoned Richardson later to say, “we are safe.”61 But
he added that the cardinal had warned:
[H]e is preparing his own priests so that they could take over the diocesan seminaries; that he would not allow in his seminaries what is permitted elsewhere. . . . Father Fischer presented His Eminence with a list of
the confreres in the Western Province, more than 170, who have degrees
and experience in teaching; and assured His Eminence that from this
number as many as 150 would be suitable for the Los Angeles
seminaries.62

McIntyre recommended that the Vincentians prepare a list of rules for
seminaries that he could provide the Board of Consultors. He renewed his
concern about consistency in the application of rules in various Vincentianrun institutions. McIntyre “expressed his willingness to cooperate with us

60. “Interview of Cardinal Ritter with Father Nicholas Persich, February 3, 1965”;
“Interview of Cardinal Ritter with Father Fischer—March 5, 1965”; “Interview of Archbishop Cody with Father James Fischer, January 29, 1965”; “Interview Bishop Zuroweste of
Belleville, Ill. with Father James Fischer—February 5, 1965”; “Interview of Archbishop Lucey
of San Antonio with Father James Fischer—February 16, 1965”; “Interview of Bishop
Markovsky of Houston with Father James Fischer—February 17, 1965”; “Interview of Bishop
Strecker with Father Fischer, March 8, 1965”; “Interview of Bishop Marling with Father Fischer, March 8, 1965” in Fischer, “The Los Angeles Seminary Crisis,” pp. 117–23.
61. Richardson to Kenneally and William J. Mahoney, C.M., April 10, 1965; Richardson to Slattery, April 13, 1965; Fischer Papers, Box 3, DRMA.
62. Ibid.

J OHN T. DONOVAN

89

in providing faculties,” Richardson wrote. The cardinal further told
Richardson and Fischer words to the effect that “the archdiocese always
needed a large number of priests with advanced degrees who can manage
and teach in the diocesan high schools.”63 Richardson added:
I am greatly surprised that we came through this well. You may remember that I expressed my belief that the Cardinal would go ahead with his
threat to remove us—unless we had some distinctly different answer than
the one that had been given him before. It is not at all clear to me just
why Cardinal McIntyre had softened in his requirements of us. But it is
clear that I was mistaken about the outcome to be expected, and I wish
to admit most freely and humbly that I was wrong.64

The Los Angeles crisis was not yet completely resolved, however. In
an April meeting of the National Catholic Education Association (or
NCEA), a reporter for Newsweek spoke with Donald J. Ryan, C.M., rector
of the St. Louis high school seminary. Ryan was quoted as saying, “It’s
almost a byword that the seminaries lose their best men.”65 Ryan denied
making the remark. Richardson wrote:
I hope you have not had any more crises in Los Angeles. You saw the
article in Newsweek [sic], I take it. The Religion editor buttonholed Don
Ryan and Staff Poole for most of the convention. Don Ryan says that he
never said what he was reported to have said. . . .66

Although McIntyre remained concerned about the seminaries, he
turned his attention to the Carrie Estelle Doheny Foundation. Carrie
Doheny (1875–1958)—the widow of Edward L. Doheny of Teapot Dome
fame—had endowed the foundation and helped Catholic charities. (She
may have had some affection for the Vincentians, as Bishop Joseph Glass,
C.M. [1874–1926], had assisted with her conversion to Catholicism and
presided over her wedding.)67 On Holy Saturday—April 17, 1965—
Richardson was asked to drop by the chancery office to see the cardinal.
McIntyre also invited Manning and Hawkes. The cardinal had written to
the members of the Doheny Foundation to recommend that the archbishop of Los Angeles be given a seat on the foundation’s board of trustees.

63. Ibid.
64. Ibid.
65. “Spirit of Sixth Avenue,” Newsweek, May 3, 1965, 85.
66. Richardson to Fischer, May 4, 1965, Fischer Papers, Box 3, DRMA.
67. Stafford Poole, “‘An Active and Energetic Bishop’; The Appointment of Joseph
Glass, C.M., as Bishop of Salt Lake City,” Vincentian Heritage Journal, 15, no. 2 (1994), 119–
62, esp. 124, 156–57.

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THE 1960S LOS ANGELES SEMINARY CRISIS

(William Ward, C.M., was one of the trustees, and two libraries named
after the Dohenys were part of St. John’s Seminary; see figure 4.) After the
foundation rejected his request, Richardson wrote, “His Eminence told me
that he is taking this as an attitude of hostility to himself on the part of the
Congregation of the Mission.” Richardson protested that the rejection was
not “a personal act” on the part of Ward. The following September, attorney Olin Wellborn III died. Wellborn had represented Doheny and had
been a member of the foundation’s board. McIntyre instructed a lawyer
representing the archdiocese to recommend that the foundation become a
corporation, with the archbishop as a permanent member. Richardson
confided in Slattery,
Mrs. Doheny made it clear to Father Ward . . . that she did not wish this
archbishop, namely Cardinal McIntyre, to be a trustee, because . . . he
would not be a suitable person to discharge this office.

Richardson wrote on the side of the communication, “Much of this
letter is confidential, especially this part.” In October, McIntyre again suggested to Richardson that he propose that the Doheny Foundation should
incorporate. “I listened respectfully to His Eminence, but, of course, made
no commitments since I felt I had no right whatsoever to do so.”68
In 1966 Richardson wrote Fischer, “On the whole Camarillo situation
. . . the Cardinal has not indicated a wish to have us out of there.” The only
concerns he expressed were “the fear of modernization” or “a sort of vindictive innuendo relative to the Foundation business.” That same year,
Louis Franz, C.M., was appointed rector of the college seminary. For the
time being, Kenneally remained at the theologate.69
Two years later, the post of spiritual director was assigned to diocesan
clergy: George J. Parnassus (1927–2013) was appointed to the college, and
James D. O’Reilly (1916–78) was appointed to the theologate. There was
some complaining in the college about the Parnassus appointment. Fischer
wrote,
[Parnassus] has been a thorn in the side of Fr. Franz since he will not
accept the Rector[’]s decisions concerning class schedules, etc. He even
. . . insisted on taking over the rooms which had been reserved as a
Bishop’s room.

68. Richardson to Slattery, September 30, 1965; Richardson to “My Very Dear Confrere,” October 27, 1965; Fischer Papers, Box 5, DRMA.
69. Richardson to Fischer, March 12, 1966; Richardson to “Dear Confreres,” August
15, 1966; Fischer Papers, Box 3, DRMA.

JOHN T. DONOVAN

91

FIGURE 4. The Edward R. Doheny Memorial Library (top) and the chapel at
St. John’s Seminary, Camarillo. Photos courtesy of St. John’s Seminary.

Some of the faculty expressed the hope that “Fr. Parnassus would be a failure and that the Cardinal would not be around much longer.”70 There were
no complaints about O’Reilly, perhaps due in part to his academic credentials: he may have been the only diocesan priest (of any diocese) to have
obtained a doctorate from Cal Tech in Pasadena, where he wrote a dissertation on the sun.71
The late 1960s saw changes in California Catholicism. The Diocese
of Monterey-Fresno was divided in 1969, and Manning was appointed the

70. Richardson to McIntyre, May 17, 1968, St. John’s Seminary Papers, Box 3; Memo
of Fr. Fischer, Fischer Papers, Box 3, DRMA. On Parnassus, see “Monsignor George Parnassus, Longtime St. Victor Pastor, Dies,” The Tidings, August 23, 2013, 6.
71. James Donald O’Reilly, “A Study of the Physical and Chemical Composition of
Homogeneous and Inhomogeneous Models of the Sun” (PhD diss., California Institute of
Technology, Pasadena, 1950).

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THE 1960S LOS ANGELES SEMINARY CRISIS

first bishop of the Diocese of Fresno. This was done at McIntyre’s suggestion, in part to see how Manning would handle the responsibilities of
administering a diocese. In January 1970 McIntyre opted to retire, and
Manning was appointed coadjutor archbishop of Los Angeles cum jure successionis (“with the right of succession” to McIntyre). In 1973 Pope Paul VI
named Manning a cardinal. McIntyre did some pastoral work at St. Basil’s
parish, but he suffered a stroke in 1976, and he died in 1979 at age ninetythree. When Manning stepped down as archbishop in 1985, Rome
(doubtless at Manning’s suggestion) tapped Mahony, then bishop of
Stockton, to succeed him. Mahony was the first St. John’s alumnus to
become archbishop of Los Angeles.72
Of course, there were changes for the Vincentians, too. Kenneally
was asked again by McIntyre to study seminaries in Europe. He carried
out the assignment but was then transferred to St. Thomas Seminary in
Denver. While there, he wrote (at McIntyre’s request) a paper defending
Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humane Vitae, which reaffirmed the Church’s
ban on contraception. He returned to his native Los Angeles to serve at
St. Vincent’s church, where he died in 1977. Richardson was elected
Superior General of the Congregation of the Mission in 1968. He held
the post for twelve years and then volunteered to serve in Kenya. His
health declined, and he returned to the United States to serve as spiritual
director at St. Thomas Seminary in Denver. He retired to Perryville,
where he died on July 8, 1996.73 Nicholas Persich taught until 1996 and
then retired to Perryville. He died in August 2005. After stepping down
as provincial, Fischer taught in seminaries in Colorado, Illinois, Missouri,
and Texas, and later worked as a chaplain at the University of Arkansas
and Southeast Missouri State University. He also died at Perryville, three
months after Persich.74

72. Weber, His Eminence of Los Angeles, II:641–65.
73. Kenneally to Fischer, July 3, 1967; Kenneally to Fischer, July 12, 1967; McIntyre
to Cardinal Leo Joseph Suenens [of Mechelen-Brussel] Belgium, July 12, 1967; [Fischer?] to
Kenneally, undated draft; Kenneally to Fischer, July 30, 1967; Memo by Kenneally, October
28, 1968; William J. Kenneally, “Some Simple Reflections on the Magisterium of the Church
and on the Encyclical Humanae Vitae,” October 28, 1968; in the Kenneally file, DRMA; “Fr.
W. J. Kenneally, Former Rector, Dies,” The Tidings, February 18, 1977, 2; on Richardson,
see “Former St. John’s Seminary Rector Dies at 87,” The Tidings, July 26, 1996, 16.
74. “Rev. Nicholas Persich,” http://www.semissourian.com/story/print/1116441.html
accessed on August 9, 2012; “Rev. James A. Fischer,” http://www.suntimesnews.com/Perry
ville/obits/2005obits/Novjamesfischer.htm accessed on August 6, 2005.

JOHN T. DONOVAN

93

Poole continued to teach and write about seminaries.75 McIntyre had
made it clear that he did not want Poole or Nicholas Persich to teach in
Camarillo. Nevertheless, after the cardinal retired, Manning permitted
Poole to join the faculty at St. John’s Seminary College, where he taught
western civilization classes, as well as elective courses in modern European
and Mexican history. In 1980, Manning appointed Poole rector of the college. In announcing Poole’s appointment, a writer for The Tidings called
Poole’s Seminary in Crisis “a pioneering work in seminary renewal.”76 One
of Poole’s classmates, Charles Miller—whom McIntyre suspected of playing a role in the 1964 “Strawberry Sunday” affair—served as rector of the
theologate. (Miller, a professor of liturgy and homiletics, was even tapped
to write a weekly column for The Tidings.) Miller and Poole celebrated the
twenty-fifth anniversary of their ordination to the priesthood as rectors of
Los Angeles seminaries.77
Poole stepped down as rector, and Roy Persich, C.M., was appointed
interim rector. After Poole stopped teaching, he continued to write and
published extensively on colonial Mexico.78 In perhaps his most controversial work, he challenged the belief that the Virgin Mary had appeared to
an Indian named Juan Diego in 1531 at Tepeyac—the apparition venerated as Our Lady of Guadalupe. (To facilitate his research, Poole even
studied Nahuatl, the Aztec language.) Poole concluded that Juan Diego
did not exist and, with other scholars, discouraged the proposed elevation
of the figure to sainthood. About the time Poole published Seminary in
Crisis, Commonweal published another Poole article, “The Diocesan Priest
and the Intellectual Life.” Poole’s piece drew the ire of Vagnozzi, who
denounced Poole to Rome. For his writing on Our Lady of Guadalupe, he
was again denounced to Rome. Poole remains an important scholar in the
history of colonial Mexico.79

75. Stafford Poole, “American Seminary Education,” America, September 18, 1965, 288–
89; idem, “Seminary Education: A Time for Realism,” Homiletic and Pastoral Review, 68 (1967),
128–34; idem., “Requiem for Seminaries?”, American Ecclesiastical Review, 161 (1969), 245–50.
76. “Seminary to Receive New Rector,” The Tidings, May 2, 1980, 1.
77. Francis J. Weber, Magnificat: The Life and Times of Timothy Cardinal Manning
(Mission Hills, CA, 1999), p. 444; “Seminary Rectors Celebrate Jubilees,” The Tidings, May
1, 1981, 5.
78. On Poole’s contributions, see Susan Schroeder, “Seminaries and Writing the History
of New Spain: An Interview with Stafford Poole, C.M.,” The Americas, 69 (2012), 237–54.
79. Stafford Poole, “The Diocesan Priest and the Intellectual Life,” Commonweal, April
9, 1965, 78–81; idem, “Ad Cleri Disciplinam,” p. 154; idem, Our Lady of Guadalupe: The Origins
and Sources of a Mexican National Symbol, 1531–1797 (Tucson, 1995). On the resulting
firestorm over the canonization of Juan Diego—the Indian to whom the Virgin Mary was

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THE 1960S LOS ANGELES SEMINARY CRISIS

Seminary in Crisis was a prophetic work. The cost of operating schools
rose, and the number of men entering the priesthood has dropped off significantly in the last fifty years. Dioceses began to close and consolidate
seminaries. Vincentian policy mandated that one of their priests was to
serve as rector of any school they staffed. In 1974 a disagreement between
Manning and the Vincentians at Our Lady Queen of the Angels in San
Fernando led to the removal of the rector, Walter Housey, C.M., and the
appointment of Msgr. John Reilly to that post. As a result, the Vincentians
withdrew from San Fernando. In 1994 Mahony decided to close Our Lady
Queen of the Angels (his alma mater), which then had 155 students.80
The Vincentians gradually changed the policy on non-Vincentian rectors, in part because of personnel shortages. The Congregation of the Mission surrendered the rectorship of the St. Louis seminaries and closed St.
Thomas in Denver in 1995. (The Archdiocese of Denver later reopened
St. Thomas under the patronage of St. John Vianney.) In the 1980s, diocesan clergy served as rectors of the college seminary in Camarillo, including
Bishop Donald Montrose, Msgr. Sylvester Ryan (later auxiliary bishop of
Los Angeles and bishop of Monterey), Rafael Luevano (of the Diocese of
Orange), and Edward Clark (later auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles). In like
fashion, diocesan clergy served as rectors of the theologate: after Miller
stepped down, George Niederauer (later bishop of Salt Lake City and
archbishop of San Francisco); Jeremiah McCarthy (of the Diocese of
Tucson); Gabino Zavala, J.C.L. (later auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles);
Msgr. Helmut Hefner; Msgr. Craig Cox; and Msgr. Marc Trudeau
became rectors.81
In August 2002, Mahony created a seminary task force, which consisted of clergy, religious, and laity. In November 2002 the task force pro-

reported to have appeared—see idem, “Did Juan Diego Exist? Questions on the Eve of Canonization,” Commonweal, June 14, 2002, 9, 11; Idem, “History Versus Juan Diego,” The Americas, 62 (2005), 1–16; idem, The Guadalpan Controversies (Stanford, 2006). See also Timothy
Matovina, “The Origins of the Guadalupe Tradition in Mexico,” The Catholic Historical
Review [CHR], 100 (2014), 243–70; Stafford Poole, “A Response to Timothy Matovina,”
CHR, 100 (2014), 271–83; and Matovina, “A Response to Stafford Poole,” CHR, 100
(2014), 284–91. See also John L. Allen Jr., “Maybe He Isn’t Real but He’s Almost a Saint,”
National Catholic Reporter, January 25, 2002, 3.
80. John Dart, “Archdiocese to Close High School Seminary,” Los Angeles Times, October 27, 1994, B1, B3. There is also some correspondence in the Los Angeles College/Queen
of Angels Seminary File in the DRMA.
81. Pamela Schaeffer, “Vincentians Give Up Running Seminaries,” National Catholic
Reporter, August 25, 1995, 3–4.

JOHN T. DONOVAN

95

posed closing the college seminary as a four-year institution. Built to
accommodate about 300 students, the seminary had shrunk to an enrollment of fewer than 100. With the rising costs, Mahony decided in 2003 to
close St. John’s Seminary College. (The last rector was Kenneth Rudnick,
S.J.) Men choosing to study for the priesthood tend in recent years to be
older and usually have earned a college degree. In addition, the cost of subsidizing the college seminary had climbed, and the archdiocese faced a $4.3
million deficit. Although the archdiocese tried to sell the land to a developer, the city of Camarillo resisted rezoning the area.82 The profit from the
sale of the land ($40 million) went into the funds to keep the theologate
open. A program was established in which college-age men considering the
priesthood live together in a house and take classes at public institutions.83
Even with the closure of the college, the future of the theologate is
uncertain: one idea proposed by the seminary task force was to close the
seminary and build a campus near Loyola Marymount University (LMU).
The members of the task force wrote:
The Seminary Task Force believes that a shift in the seminary formation
of candidates for the priesthood to the “university model” presented [as
one option] will probably occur in the future. But since we do not now
know all the programmatic and financial implications of such a shift, our
recommendation is to close St. John’s Seminary College and retain a sixyear program in Camarillo, but with a view of moving toward a “university
model” in the future, if the six-year “stand alone” seminary model does not
prove to be viable for programmatic, financial or pastoral reasons.84

The task force left open the same conclusion that Poole had reached about
forty years earlier. Doubtless, the archdiocese would have to weigh the cost
of purchasing land for housing (as well as constructing buildings or modifying existing structures) for seminarians near LMU as one of the considerations in making such a decision.
82. Letter of Msgr. Marc Trudeau, rector of St. John's Seminary, to John T. Donovan,
January 7, 2016, St. John's Seminary file, DRMA.
83. Erika Hayasaki and Steve Chawkins, “Church May Close Seminary,” Los Angeles
Times, November 23, 2002, B–22; Mike Nelson, “Archdiocesan Seminary Program Slated for
Restructuring,” The Tidings, November 29, 2002, 3; Fr. Joel Henson, “St. John’s ‘Teach Out’
Program,” The Tidings, May 23, 2003, A2; Ellie Hidalgo, “A New Approach with a Lot of
Promise,” The Tidings, October 24, 2003, 7; Mike Nelson, “Seminary College Property Will
Be Sold to Shea Homes,” The Tidings, May 7, 2004, 3; Maria Luisa Torres, “Juan Diego
House Celebrates a Decade of Ministry,” The Tidings, October 11, 2013, 7; Steve Chawkins,
“Developer to Buy Part of Camarillo Seminary Land,” Los Angeles Times, May 6, 2004, B6.
84. Nelson, “Archdiocesan Seminary Program.”

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THE 1960S LOS ANGELES SEMINARY CRISIS

To many of those who attended Our Lady Queen of the Angels or St.
John’s Seminary College, there was naturally some sorrow in the decision
to close the institutions.85 The system that remains is smaller than that
envisioned by McIntyre or Kenneally. Hiring lay faculty for a seminary
would have been unusual in the past, but like other seminaries, St. John’s
boasts lay faculty and women religious among its teachers.86 At this writing, St. John’s remains open, training clergy for much of the southwestern
United States, and a Vincentian remains on the faculty.

85. Some of the students in the college seminary wrote Mahony to protest the decision
to close the institution; see Arthur Jones, “Cost Cutting Targets Seminary,” National Catholic
Reporter, January 17, 2003, 14.
86. The hiring of lay teachers would not have been unheard of, however: At least one
layman—Charles Conroy—taught at the first minor seminary, the Los Angeles College.

Review Article
Yet More Light on Vatican Council II
JARED WICKS, S.J.*
Bibliographie du Concile Vatican II. By Philippe J. Roy. [Atti e Documenti,
A. Sezione Pontificio Comitato di Scienze Storiche, 34.] (Vatican
City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2012. Pp. 477. €35,00. ISBN 97888-209-8892-0.)
Les membres du Coetus Internationalis Patrum au Concile Vatican II. Inventaire des interventions et souscriptions des adhérents et sympathisants. Liste
des signataires d’occasion et des théologiens. By Philippe Roy-Lysencourt.
[Instrumenta Theologica, XXXVII.] (Leuven: Peeters, 2014. Pp. 484.
€54,00. ISBN 978-90-429-3087-2.)
Separati ma fratelli. Gli osservatori non cattolici al Vaticano II (1965–1965).
By Mauro Velati. [Istituto per le scienze religiose, Serie: Testi e
ricerche di scienze religiose, nuova serie, 52.] (Bologna: Il Mulino,
2014. Pp. 743. €55,00. ISBN 978-88-15-2477-3.)

T

his review article continues a series of earlier presentations of scholarly
publications on the Second Vatican Council.1 Presented here are (1)
a one-volume bibliography of works published through 2011 on the
Second Vatican Council; (2) an inventory of the oral and written interventions at the Council of the Coetus internationalis patrum, a minority oppositional group; and (3) a comprehensive study of the non-Catholic delegated observers and guests who attended the Council.

*Father Wicks is scholar-in-residence at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, OH, email: jwicks@jcu.edu.
1. Jared Wicks, “New Light on Vatican Council II,” The Catholic Historical Review, 92
(2006), 609–28; idem, “More Light on Vatican Council II,” The Catholic Historical Review,
94 (2008), 75–101; idem, “Further Light on Vatican Council II,” The Catholic Historical
Review, 95 (2009), 546–69; idem, “Still More Light on Vatican Council II,” The Catholic Historical Review, 98 (2012), 476–502; and idem, “Light from Germany on Vatican Council II,”
The Catholic Historical Review, 99 (2013), 727–48.

97

98

YET MORE L IGHT ON VATICAN COUNCIL II

An Essential Instrument:
A Bibliography of 4000 Works on the Second Vatican Council
Philippe Roy provides a valuable tool for many types of study of the
Council. For such bibliographical work, he prepared well through his dissertation of 2011 at Laval and Lyon on the international minority group of
Council Fathers (which will be discussed later). His mentor at Laval, Gilles
Routhier, established a basis for Roy’s bibliography through informative
reports on Council literature beginning in 1997 in Laval théologique et
philosophique. The author made good use of the regular bibliographies given
in Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses,
and Revue d’Histoire Ecclesiastique. He contacted more than seventy Council
scholars who supplied him with lists of their own and others’ works. The
coverage extends through works published in 2011, with a further volume
planned to register the many works, especially on the Council’s reception,
stimulated by the fiftieth anniversaries in 2012–15 of the Council’s opening,
completed documents, and passage to the reception phase.
The bibliography has six major parts: (1) working tools, (2) published
sources, (3) histories of the Council, (4) persons active at the Council, (5)
studies of the sixteen Council documents, and (6) reception of the Council.
Each part is thoughtfully subdivided—for example, with the third part
divided into sections on the pre-preparatory proposals of Council topics in
1959–60 by bishops, Catholic university faculties, and the curial congregations; on developments in 1960–62 as the preparatory commissions prepared the initial drafts of documents; on general studies of the unfolding
of the Council’s four periods and three intersessions; and on specific
aspects of the whole event relevant to different continents. Persons active
at the Council fall into thirteen categories, with listings, for example, on
the popes, the Fathers, episcopal conferences, commissions and secretariats, periti, and non-Catholic observers.
In the subdivisions filled out with ample listings, the works are
ordered alphabetically according to their authors, with a total of 4183
entries. Some works are, however, rightly listed in two or more subsections.
The placement of entries in the alphabetical order of the contributing
authors seems at times questionable, notably in the parts on the archives,
Council Fathers, and periti, since researchers usually look for material on
persons of interest without initial concern for those who wrote on them.
The final name-index of thirty 2-column pages becomes an essential tool
for locating treatments of individual Council participants. The same
lengthy index is also a striking witness to the Council being a “grand mobi-

J ARED WICKS, S.J.

99

lization” of hundreds of active participants as well as authors from the
Council period to the present day who describe and analyze the conciliar
actions and texts.
Reflection on the archives of the bishops and periti, and especially on
the published inventories of some archives, reveals a remarkable degree of
archival organization on the Belgian bishops and theologians of the Council. In contrast, at least as of 2011, the accessible papers of German participants were minimal, although the list does include the model inventory of
the archived Council papers of Cardinal Julius Döpfner of Munich, one of
the four Council Moderators appointed by Pope Paul VI.2 The United
States is absent from this section; one can hope that the planned further
volume will list at least the papers of Cardinal John Dearden of Detroit and
Archbishop Marcos McGrath, C.S.C., of Panama; inventories for these
can be accessed at the Web site of the University of Notre Dame Archives.
In reviewing Roy’s listing of the Council Acta (pp. 37–40), students of
the Council meet the familiar documentary volumes of the pre-preparatory, preparatory, and conciliar phases, but the list reminds us that publication of the Acta continued into the 1990s. Directors of libraries holding
the Acta et Documenta of the two preparatory phases should note the three
volumes, in four parts, of the papers of the subcommissions of the Central
Preparatory Commission that were published in 1988–94. The Acta Synodalia began with twenty-five volumes and an index to document the four
working periods of the Council, all published by 1980.3 But this work went
on, directed by Msgr. Vincenzo Carbone, Council archivist, to bring out
further volumes of Council records.4 One of these, published in three parts
in 1989–91, gives minutes of meetings of the leadership groups of cardinals, including the valuable contribution in 1963 of the Commission for
Coordinating the Council’s Work. Then in 1996–99 the Acta of the Council Secretariat were issued in a volume of four parts, which includes pre2. Erzbischöfliches Archiv München Julius Kardinal Döpfner. Archivinventar der Dokumente zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil, ed. Giudo Treffler and Peter Pfister, [Schriften des
Archivs des Erzbistums München und Freising, 6], (Regensburg, 2004).
3. An online edition of the Acta Synodalia has begun at the following site: http://
www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2015/05/the-acta-synodalia-of-vatican-ii-1st.html,
accessed August 1, 2015.
4. A lacuna in Roy’s Bibliographie is the absence of Carbone, who published articles on
the Council Archive; the publication of the Acta; and persons such as Cardinal Domenico
Tardini, Vatican secretary of state, and Pericle Felici, general secretary. These appeared in
Italian journals such as Monitor Ecclesiasticus, Lateranum, and Rivista di storia della Chiesa in
Italia.

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YET MORE LIGHT ON VATICAN COUNCIL II

cious pieces of correspondence generated by concerns of the Fathers and by
leaders of the Council commissions.
The section on persons active at the Council lists studies concerning
some sixty-three Council Fathers and twelve groups of Council members
such as African bishops, Australian bishops, Belgian missionary bishops,
and Lateran University alumni (pp. 116–31).5 The most-studied Fathers
are Cardinal Léon-Joseph Suenens of Mechelen and Bishop Emiel-Jozef
De Smedt of Bruges; they each are the subject of ten studies. Suenens’s
fellow Moderators, Döpfner and Cardinal Giacomo Lercaro of Bologna,
each appear in six listings, whereas no listing mentions the fourth Moderator, Cardinal Gregor Petrus Agagianian. A major lacuna is the influential
Jesuit Cardinal Augustin Bea, the author and subject of several publications before 2011, especially on his promotion of the Council’s ecumenical
aim, as well as Christian-Jewish issues and religious liberty.6
The list of studies of Council periti (pp. 131–46) offers thirty-six treatments of Yves Congar, fifteen of Henri de Lubac, fourteen on Joseph
Ratzinger, and twelve of Karl Rahner. Group work by periti is registered in
four works on Belgian experts and one each on Spanish, French, and
German periti.7 Only eleven studies appear in Roy’s bibliography on the

5. Corrections: Albert Prignon, rector of the Belgian College, was not a Council member
(no. 941); the “Roman theologians” of no. 943 were professors, especially at the Lateran University; Michele Maccarone, church history professor at the Lateran University, was not a
Council Father (no. 1003); John Quinn became a bishop in 1967 after the Council (no. 1006);
and Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber was not at the Council, as he died in 1952 (no. 1012).
6. The Bibliographie offers only no. 3083, a study by Emmanuel Lanne on Bea’s contribution to Unitatis Redintegratio, in Irénikon 55 (1982), 471–99 (corrected pagination). But
Bea lectured widely in 1960–61 on the status of baptized non-Catholics and published his
views for a wide readership in La Civiltà cattolica, to the consternation of his Jesuit confrere
Sebastian Tromp. Bea’s Council activities were treated in the 1981 symposium on the centenary of his death, Atti del Simposio Card. Agostino Bea (Rome, 1983). Further studies include
Augustin Kardinal Bea. Wegbereiter der Einheit, ed. Maria Buchmüller, Marietta Held, and
Friedrich Buchmüller (Augsburg, 1972); Stjepan Schmidt, Augustin Bea. The Cardinal of
Unity (New Rochelle, NY, 1982; repr. as Agostino Bea, il cardinale dell’unità, [Rome, 1987])
in the ten chapters of part III; Jan Grootaers, “Le cardinal Bea et son énigme,” in Actes et
acteurs à Vatican II (Leuven, 1998), pp. 277–86; and Jerome-Michael Vereb, “Because He Was
a German!” Cardinal Bea and the Origins of Roman Catholic Engagement in the Ecumenical
Movement (Grand Rapids, MI, 2006).
7. Belgians: nos. 1034, 1050, 1051, and 1169; Spanish: no. 1077; French: no. 1124;
German: no. 1156. Surveys of the experts’ work and influence are noted as nos. 1140, 1166,
and 1171. Corrections: The Bibliographie mistakenly refers to Archbishop Ermenegildo Florit
of Florence as a peritus in no. 1041, as well as De Smedt in no. 1052. Also, the priest Angel
Antón, listed in no. 1102, is not on the roster of periti in Acta Synodalia. Indices. Additions to

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non-Catholic delegated observers and guests—a list that will be amplified
notably by the monographic study by Velati (discussed later).8 The final
category of active persons is that of secretaries of the commissions, listing
only Joseph Rousseau, O.M.I., the secretary of both the Preparatory and
Conciliar Commissions on Religious (no. 1193). Such figures—chief operations officers of the commissions—have a substantial presence elsewhere
in the volume—for example, in entries concerning Jesuit priest Sebastian
Tromp, secretary of the Preparatory Theological and Conciliar Doctrinal
commissions, and then-Msgr. Johannes Willebrands, secretary of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity.
Among the major parts of the Bibliographie, the one on the sixteen
Council documents is the largest (pp. 149–363). An outstanding service is the
listing of the symposia and their papers published in 2003–05 for the fortieth
anniversary of particular documents. The four Constitutions were treated in
no less than fifteen such symposia that are listed on each Constitution in the
relevant subsection before individual works are given alphabetically by their
author.9 Three such symposia treated the Decree Unitatis redintegratio,
whereas one took up the Decree Optatum totius and one each treated the Declarations Dignitatis humanae, Gravissimum educationis, and Nostra aetate. The
last major part of the Bibliographie, on the reception of the Council, adds six
more such symposia to commemorate the fortieth anniversary.10
In the reports on studies of each Vatican document, the reader has an
easy overview of the works reported on most documents, but this is not the
case for Lumen gentium. The list of more than 800 entries underscores the
the periti section can come from articles not naming them in the title—for example, the Benedictine Cipriano Vagaggini in no. 1088, as well as Bernard Häring and Domenico Capone,
who are the Redemptorists treated in no. 1472.
8. Additions to the listed works would include texts by Thomas F. Stransky such as
“Paul VI and the Delegated Observers/Guests to Vatican Council II,” in Paolo VI e l’ecumenismo (Brescia and Rome, 2001), pp. 118–58, and “The Observers at Vatican II. A Unique
Experience of Dialogue,” Centro pro unione Bulletin, no. 63 (2003), 8–14. A major bibliographic task that remains to be done is a listing of published works and archived reports by
the observers on the Council and its documents. A lamentable category mistake is the listing
of two articles on the Catholic Melkites among studies of the non-Catholic observers (nos.
804, 807), instead of among studies of Council Fathers.
9. Four symposia are discussed at the head of the section on the Gaudium et spes subsection (pp. 163–65), to which no. 1515, listed under its editor’s name, should be added.
10. Pp. 365–68 present five general symposia published in 2005, to which no. 3997
may be added, on the Council’s reception in moral theology. Three general symposia—nos.
3406, 3408, and 3410, published in 2010 and 2011—already view the Council from a fiftyyear distance.

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importance of the Constitution on the Church, but their sheer number
overwhelms a reader approaching the list with interest in a particular chapter or numbered paragraph. It is unfortunate that subdivisions were not
created such as general studies followed by sections on each of the eight
chapters of Lumen gentium.
A most interesting set of works on the Council comes in the final part
on the Council’s reception—namely, the 115 published works under the
heading “Traditionalism” (pp. 408–16). Here we benefit from the compiler’s own research on the Coetus internationalis patrum (to be discussed
later). In this section of the Bibliographie, only about 15 percent of the listings indicate works written by outsiders critical of the organized resistance
mounted by the Coetus.11 Some indicative titles from the traditionalist dissent from the Council are Dominque Bourmand’s Cent ans de modernisme.
Généologie du Vatican II; Louis Coache’s Vers l’apostasie générale; Michael
Davies’s 3-volume Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre; and Denis Marchal’s Monseigneur Lefebvre, vingt ans de combat pour le sacerdoce et la foi, 1967–1987.
Looming large in this section are twenty-seven works by Archbishop
Marcel Lefebvre, C.S.Sp., and the ponderous biography Marcel Lefebvre,
un vie by Bernard Tissier de Mallerais.12
The few flaws indicated in the text and notes of this presentation do
not at all negate the initial descriptions with which it started. The Bibliographie compiled by Roy is indeed an essential instrument and a valuable
tool for further work on the Council.
The Coetus internationalis Patrum: Leaders, Adherents, Sympathizers
The compiler of the Bibliographie also has brought out a detailed roster
of the oppositional group that was especially active during Periods III and
11. A preface to the Bibliographie by the co-moderator of Roy’s dissertation, JeanDominique Durand of University of Lyon, notes on p. 9 that the “hermeneutics of rupture,”
addressed by Pope Benedict XVI in December 2005, is most extensive today in integrist
milieux, much given to contrasting the church “of all ages” with the modernist Church after
the Council. But, he adds, their church “of all ages” is really that of the nineteenth century—
an insightful statement.
12. Dominique Bourmand, Cent ans de modernisme. Généologie du Vatican II (Étampes,
France, 2003), 490 pp.; Louis Coache, Vers l’apostasie générale (Paris, 1969), 278 pp.; Michael
Davies, Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre, 3 vols. (Kansas City, MO, 1979–99), 393, 471, and 474
pp.; Denis Marchal, Monseigneur Lefebvre, vingt ans de combat pour le sacerdoce et la foi, 1967–
1987 (Paris, 1988), 160 pp.; and Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Marcel Lefebvre, un vie (Étampes, France, 2002), 719 pp. The translation of the last-named work is Marcel Lefebvre. The
Biography (Kansas City, MO, 2004), xv, 670 pp.

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IV of the Council.13 From research for the author’s dissertation on the
Coetus, his 2014 publication gives the results of the early work of writing a
“group history”—namely the identification of the membership, which had
different levels of adherence and support. This work gives for each Council
Father attached to the Coetus a list of references in the Acta Synodalia that
document that Father’s interventions, whether oral or written, on drafts of
Council documents and his further association with the group’s aims by
adding his signature to interventions by the leaders or other prominent
adherents of the Coetus.
The Coetus did not formally register its membership and was not so
organized that it left an archive. Only partial lists of adherents exist, probably naming those Council Fathers who should receive studies of the
schemas, recommended amendments (modi) for submission, and conveyed
news about meetings and invited speakers on schemas under discussion.
After the author’s meticulous study of the Acta Synodalia, he studied in several personal archives the correspondence and papers left by leaders of the
Coetus. The Council Fathers adhering to the aims of the Coetus fall into
distinct categories. Five leaders constituted the “directing committee” of
the Coetus.14 Nine cardinals sympathized with the group but seldom gave
public signs of adherence.15 Fifty-five Council Fathers signed several times
13. The Coetus appears regularly in Ralph Wiltgen, S.V.D., The Rhine Flows into the
Tiber: The Unknown Council (New York, 1967; Rockford, IL, 1985), pp. 148–50, 178–80,
247–51, 278. See also Luc Perrin, “Le Coetus Internationalis Patrum et la minoranza conciliare,” in L’evento e le decisioni. Studi sulle dinamiche del concilio Vaticano II, ed. Maria Teresa
Fattori and Alberto Melloni (Bologna, 1997), pp. 173–87, and Joseph Framerée, in History of
Vatican II, vol. III: The Mature Council. Second Period and Intersession, September 1963–September 1964, ed. Giuseppe Alberigo and Joseph Komonchak (Maryknoll, NY, 2000), pp. 170–
75. A favorable account is the second half of Roberto de Mattei, The Second Vatican Council.
An Unwritten Story (Fitzwilliam, NH, 2012), beginning with the birth of the Coetus on pp.
305–10. The last-named work is discussed in Wicks, “Still More Light,” pp. 498–502.
14. The “directing committee”: Bishop Luigi Maria Carli (Segni, Italy); Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer (Campos, Brazil); Archbishop Geraldo de Proença Sigaud, S.V.D.
(Diamantina, Brazil); Lefebvre (Dakar, Senegal, until January 23, 1962, then Superior General of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit until October 29, 1968); and Abbot Jean Prou,
O.S.B. (Solesmes, France; Superior General of the Benedictine Congregation of France since
1959). Sections on each are in Les membres du Coetus Internationalis Patrum au Concile Vatican II, pp. 21–76, which give a brief biography and a list of references in the Acta Synodalia
to Council interventions by each.
15. The cardinals privately sympathetic to the group: Michael Browne, O.P. (Dominican Master General until 1962); Giuseppe Ferretto (secretary of the College of Cardinals);
Manuel Gonçalves Cerejeira (Patriarch of Lisbon, Portugal); Arcadio Maria Larraona, C.M.F.
(prefect, Congregation of Rites, and president of the Council Commission on the Liturgy);
Alfredo Ottaviani (secretary, Holy Office); Agnelo Rossi (archbishop of Sao Paolo, Brazil);

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the oral or written interventions by one of the leaders or had their own
interventions signed by the leaders.16 A much larger group of 839 Fathers
gave occasional support, of which 530 signed a Coetus intervention only
once.17 The presentation adds twenty-two periti who served in various
ways the leadership or membership of the Coetus.18
The main targets of interventions by the Coetus were Council schemas
that they considered destructive of the tradition they had banded together
to defend. At the end of a short history of the group (pp. 9–18), the author
speaks of the Coetus as dissatisfied with the schemas leading to Presbyterium ordinis, Perfectae caritatis, Optatum totius, and Ad gentes, but their
opposition to these during their genesis was only occasional. In contrast,
the Coetus promoted a “virulent opposition” to the drafts eventually promulgated as Sacrosanctum Concilium, Unitatis redintegratio, Lumen gentium,
Christus Dominus, Dei Verbum, Nostra aetate, Dignitatis humanae, and
Gaudium et spes. A notable impact of the Coetus lies in the number of non
placet votes registered against Nostra aetate, Dignitatis humanae, and
Gaudium et spes.19

Ernesto Ruffini (archbishop of Palermo, Italy); Rufino Jiao Santos (archbishop of Manila, the
Philippines); and Giuseppe Siri (archbishop of Genoa, Italy). Sections in Les membres du
Coetus Internationalis Patrum, pp. 77–153, give on each a short biography, a list of Council
interventions, and a summary of their respective modes and degrees of support of the Coetus,
as well as indications of some of their Tuesday conferences sponsored by the Coetus.
16. Treating each of these “fellow travelers,” Les membres du Coetus Internationalis
Patrum gives, on pp. 157–438, a short biography, a list of Council interventions, and an
analysis of the particular Council Father’s adherence to the Coetus, with indications for some
of a conference given Tuesday evenings under Coetus sponsorship.
17. Les membres du Coetus Internationalis Patrum, pp. 439–62, lists these Council
Fathers, with indications of the intervention or interventions that they signed.
18. Les membres du Coetus Internationalis Patrum, pp. 463–77. The principal theologian was the priest Victor-Alain Berto, the personal peritus of Lefebvre during Council Periods II and III. The priest Raymond Dulac succeeded Berto during Period IV, after the latter
suffered a stroke. Dom Georges Frénaud, O.S.B., and Dom Paul Nau, O.S.B.—both monks
of Solesmes—assisted Prou. Most of the other theologians mentioned assisted the Coetus only
at particular times.
19. In the penultimate vote after acceptance of the modi, the completed text on the
Church’s relation to non-Christians, especially the Jews, was accepted on October 15, 1965,
by 1735 votes of placet, against 250 of non placet (Acta Synodalia, IV/4, p. 824). At the final
vote at the Public Session of October 28, when it was clear that Paul VI approved and was
going to promulgate Nostra aetate, the votes of placet were 2221 against 88 of non placet. Similarly, in the penultimate vote on the text on religious liberty on November 19, 1965, the votes
placet were 1954, contrasting with 249 of non placet (AS IV/6, p. 780), but at the Public Session of December 7, these shifted to 2308 of placet against 70 of non placet for Dignitatis
humanae. Finally, regarding the text on the Church in the modern world, the penultimate

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The Coetus began with a small “study group” under the aegis of Lefebvre during Period I of the Council in 1962. The stimulus came from indicators that numerous schemas of the Preparatory Commissions faced
opposition from Council members positively influenced by the preconciliar
liturgical, biblical, ecumenical, and lay-apostolate movements. The group
took shape during Period II when Lefebvre gathered a planning group to
schedule Tuesday afternoon conferences, often by cardinals, to offer to the
Fathers in attendance an evaluation of schemas under discussion.
In November 1963 the group acquired a rexograph machine for
preparing circulars; this enabled a wider distribution to the Council
Fathers. Discreet support came from Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, and,
through Cardinal Ernesto Ruffini, the group’s positions were heard from
the table of the Council’s presidents. Cardinal Giuseppe Siri of Genoa and
Bishop Luigi Carli of Segni became conduits to the Italian Episcopal Conference. Siri’s backing was quite discreet, but Carli was an open advocate
of positions of the Coetus in thirteen oral and thirty-six written interventions on the schemas. Two Brazilians had central roles: Archbishop Geraldo de Proença Sigaud, S.V.D., and Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer,
who had the support of Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Brazilian professor,
antimodernist, and anticommunist lay warrior.20
A major Coetus activity during the Council’s second and third intersessions was the preparation of critical studies of the schemas; these were distributed by mail for treatment in the next period. Between Council periods,
meetings for preparing these studies were held at the Benedictine monastery
of Solesmes, as its abbot, Jean Prou, was an active leader of the Coetus.
vote on December 6, 1965, gave it 1736 votes of placet against 251 of non placet (AS IV/7, p.
641), which, on December 7, became 2308 of placet and 70 of non placet. December 7 also
was the day on which Paul VI accepted and promulgated the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium
et spes.
20. Complementing the account in his 2014 volume, Roy published “La préhistoire du
Coetus internationalis Patrum. Une formation romaine, antilibéral et contre-révolutionaire,” in
La théologie catholique entre intransigeance et renouveau. La reception des mouvements préconciliaries à Vatican II, ed. Gilles Routhier, Philippe J. Roy, and Karim Schelkens (Louvain-laNeuve and Leuven, 2011), pp. 321–54. The article describes the theological and formational
directions received by the Coetus leadership (except that of Prou) and periti, in the years 1920–
30, especially in the French Seminary in Rome and at the Gregorian and Lateran universities.
In that decade, the Roman theological and spiritual formators were zealous in propagating
antimodernist convictions, and they worked to prepare their students for militant efforts on
behalf of an integrally Catholic society against liberalizing currents in theology, politics, and
culture. This became, at the Council, the “cause” motivating the leaders and membership of
the Coetus.

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The group began Period III with more effective organization in
Rome, as it now had working space, secretarial help of two Claretian
priests, and a mimeograph machine furnished by the Claretian curial cardinal Arcadio Larraona. At an office near St. Peter’s Basilica, Council
Fathers could pick up the more frequent circulars and the modi prepared by
the group’s periti to affix to a vote placet iuxta modum on the texts then
being completed on the Church and ecumenism.
In discussing the text on the Church’s relation to the Jews during the
third Council period, Castro Mayer handed in a written intervention
urging a distinction between the ancient Jewish people, from whom much
comes to Christianity, and the Jews of the present day who reject the Messiah and are seen by St. Paul as left by God’s justice with hardened hearts.21
For Period IV the Coetus circulated the mimeographed booklet Super
schema declarationis de libertate religiosa animadversiones criticae, a copy of
which Carli submitted as an attachment to his own critical comments
before the period on the emended text on religious liberty.22 In the aula on
September 22, 1965, Proença Sigaud voiced opposition against treating the
Church’s relation to the modern world in a “Constitution,” which at most
should be in a “Message” (Nuntius). For Proença Sigaud, the schema shows
adoption of a phenomenological method that eschews objective truth and
immutable metaphysical principles. In Proença Sigaud’s view, the Church
already had a monumental work on the Church in the present-day world—
the twenty volumes of discourses of Pope Pius XII—that the Council
should be consulting, instead of taking up the dangerous “Teilhardian”
ideas of the schema.23
The Coetus gained the adherence of nearly one-fourth of the Fathers
for two of its many submitted petitions. At the start of the third period of
1964, Proença Sigaud submitted a petition to Pope Paul VI signed by 510

21. AS III/3, pp. 161–62, citing Acts 3:13, 5:20; Rom 10:3, 11:7.
22. Acta Synodalia, IV/1, pp. 683–92. Carli claims that the present-day system of religious liberty has its basis in laicism, religious indifferentism, and agnosticism, against which
the Council has to declare immutable, eternal principles drawn from the encyclicals of popes
Leo XIII and Pius XII. Earlier, the two Brazilian leaders of the Coetus, Proença Sigaud and
Castro Mayer, had sent in a lengthy critique of the same schema when it was still chapter V
of the schema on ecumenism (AS III/3, pp. 648–57). During Period IV, Lefebvre spoke
against the schema in the aula on September 20, 1965, claiming that its doctrine came from
Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Voltaire, who sought to destroy
the Catholic Church. When nineteenth-century liberal Catholics took up the position of the
schema, they were condemned by Leo XIII (AS IV/1, pp. 792–94).
23. AS IV/2, pp. 47–50.

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Council Fathers, which asked the pope to lead the Council in consecrating
the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. During the fourth period, the
Coetus submitted an amendment to the atheism section of the schema on
the Church in the modern world, proposing that the text formally condemn communism. One account is that 454 Fathers signed on to this proposal, whereas another version counts 505 signatures of Council Fathers.24
The lists gathered in this volume reveal two significant facets of the
Council. The Coetus opposed the Council’s departure from and movement
beyond salient features of antimodernist Catholicism. This opposition
shows that the Council’s rapprochement with aspects of modern liberalism
was real—a reality, however, that the Coetus judged to be an erroneous and
dangerous rupture. Second, although accounts of the Council and its documents naturally highlight the cardinals and other members constituting
the majority, the full picture requires attention as well to the opposition led
by the Coetus internationalis Patrum. Beyond the names and recorded interventions that are meticulously set forth in the present volume lies an
important church historical outlook that was overcome by the principal
Council doctrinal and pastoral developments, but that outlook did not die
out. It lives on in small but articulate sectors of present-day Catholicism.
A Comprehensive Presentation on the Non-Catholic Observers
at the Council
The positive ecumenical climate surrounding the Council owed much
to the presence and actions of the non-Catholic observers and guests,
about whom we now have an informative account by Velati.25
By 1960, the admission of invited observers from outside the body
holding an assembly was an established practice of the World Council of
Churches, with Catholic observers attending meetings of the WCC division of Faith and Order at Lund in 1952, Oberlin in 1958, and St. Andrews

24. The number 454 is given by Perrin, “Le Coetus Internationalis Patrum,” in L’evento
e le decisioni, p. 179. But de Mattei gives 505, of which thirty arrived too late for submission
to the responsible commission. See de Mattei, The Second Vatican Council. An Unwritten
Story, p. 476.
25. Velati’s 2014 work follows two earlier works: Una difficile transizione. Il cattolicesimo
tra unionismo ed ecumenismo (1952–1964) (Bologna, 1996) and Dialogo e rinnovamento. Verbali
e testi del segretariato per l’unità dei cristiani durante la preparazione del concilio Vaticano II (1960–
1962) (Bologna, 2011). The latter was discussed in Wicks, “Still More Light,” pp. 477–89.
Firsthand testimony about the observers is given by Stransky, the associate from the first hour
of the Unity Secretariat, in “Delegated Observers,” and “The Observers at Vatican II.”

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in 1959, as well as meetings of the WCC Central Committee at Rhodes in
1959 and St. Andrews in 1960. In late 1961 five Catholic “delegated
observers” attended the WCC Third General Assembly in New Delhi.
Looking ahead to the Council, Geoffrey Fisher, archbishop of Canterbury, commissioned Canon Bernard C. Pawley to take up residence in
Rome in April 1961 and gather accurate information about the Council’s
preparations.26 Another early observer was Edmund Schlink of Heidelberg
University, sent in early 1962 by the Evangelical Church of Germany to
establish contacts for gathering information, especially through the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. Schlink brought issues of doctrine
and theology into his conversations at the Secretariat and issued fifty-nine
reports to the leadership of his church from early 1962 to early 1966.27
Inviting and Receiving Observers to the Second Vatican Council
Bea’s Secretariat prepared a votum for the Central Preparatory Commission regarding invitations to Orthodox and Protestant churches to send
delegated observers to the Council and for the Secretariat to invite a
number of ecumenical guests. After the Central Commission approved this
in November 1961, Pope John XXIII indicated his assent in the “Bull of
Indiction” of the Council (December 25, 1961) by referring to the hopes
expressed by many non-Catholic entities that they might be able to follow
the Council from close at hand and to the Secretariat’s responsibility for
making this possible.28
Based on a decision of far-reaching influence, invitations to send delegated observers were sent to the prelates of the autocephalous Orthodox
and ancient Oriental churches and to the heads of the multinational confederations of Protestant bodies. As the Secretariat attended to this
responsibility, it began to deal with the leaders and organizations with
which the later bilateral dialogues were organized. The ecumenical guests
26. On Pawley’s early activities in Rome, see Velati, Separati ma fratelli, pp. 42–62.
Pawley’s first year of observing led to his book An Anglican View of the Council (New York,
1962), published in England as Looking at the Vatican Council (London, 1962). Pawley gave
details on Council preparations, listing the topics assigned to the ten Preparatory Commissions and two Secretariats on pp. 66–83 and treating the ecumenical hopes expressed by the
“prophets of the Council” like Bea, Congar, theologian Hans Küng, and Archbishop Lorenz
Jaeger of Paderborn on pp. 86–97.
27. Velati, Separati ma fratelli, pp. 64–74.
28. On the decision to invite observers: Velati, Separati ma fratelli, pp. 74–81, and
idem, Dialogo e rinnovamento, pp. 174–86, 298–314.

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109

included initially the observers who reported to the World Council leadership; two monks of Taizé, Roger Schütz and Max Thurian; and the theologians G. C. Berkouwer and Oscar Cullmann.29
The preference of the Secretariat was for observers and guests who had
theological backgrounds and some experience with the developing ecumenical movement, although it was naturally left to the churches and confederations to choose their delegates and observers to the Council. For the
Secretariat, which would have almost daily contacts with the observers,
several members and periti were prepared by taking part in the Conference
catholique pour les questions oecumémiques, which had been meeting
annually since 1952 and had established a pattern of discreet but fruitful
exchanges with the World Council of Churches.30
By the time the Council ended in 1965, 148 delegated observers and
twenty ecumenical guests of the Secretariat had been present for at least a
short time. Only twenty-four observers or guests attended all four Council
periods.31
Among the bodies represented by delegated observers were thirteen
Orthodox and ancient Oriental churches, although the Orthodox presence
was small before Periods III and IV.32 The Russian Orthodox diaspora was
29. Velati, Separati ma fratelli, pp. 79–123, tells of the initial make-up of this component of the Council, with informative notes on the observers and ecumenical guests at the
Council’s Period I. Early interest in the Council among Lutheran theologians was discussed
in the volume coordinated by Kristen E. Skydsgaard, The Papal Council and the Gospel. Protestant Theologians Evaluate the Coming Council (Minneapolis, 1961), including essays by later
Lutheran observers Wolfgang Dietzfelbinger, George Lindbeck, and Skydsgaard.
30. On the pioneering activities of this Conference, founded by Johannes Willebrands
and Frans Thijssen, see Peter De Mey, “Précurseur du Secrétariat pour l’unité: la travail
oecuménique de la ‘Conférence catholique pour les questions oecuméniques,’” in Routhier et
al., eds., La théologie catholique, pp. 271–308, and “Johannes Willebrands and the Catholic
Conference for Ecumenical Questions (1952–1963),” in The Ecumenical Legacy of Johannes
Cardinal Willebrands (1909–2009), ed. Adelbert Denaux and Peter De Mey (Leuven, 2012),
pp. 49–77.
31. See the table listing churches that sent representatives, their observers, and their
guests in Vatican II. The Complete History, ed. Alberto Melloni, Federico Ruozzi, and Enrico
Galavotti (Mahwah, NJ, 2015), pp. 194–97.
32. The churches sending representatives included the Armenian Apostolic Church
(Catholicosates of Etchmiadzin and Cilicia), the Assyrian Church of the East, the Bulgarian
Orthodox Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church (Patriarchate
of Moscow and Synod of Karlowitz), the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the Orthodox Church
of Georgia, the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar, the
Syrian Orthodox Church of India, the Greek-Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, the SyrianOrthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

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YET M ORE LIGHT ON VATICAN COUNCIL II

represented by guests from the Institute of St. Serge (Paris) and St.
Vladimir Seminary (New York) who provided an Orthodox theological
presence in the persons of Nicolas Afanassieff and Pavel Evdokimov from
Paris during Period IV, and Alexander Schmemann from New York for all
four periods. The Greek Orthodox theologian Nikos Nissiotis was an
active member of the World Council group after Period I. A key Orthodox
figure was the French-Romanian theologian André Scrima, who attended
Periods III and IV as personal representative of the Ecumenical Patriarch
Athenagoras of Constantinople.
Twelve Anglican and other Protestant entities sent groups of delegated observers, including a number of alternates who, in many cases,
remained at the Council for only short periods.33 Guests were also invited
from bodies that did not send delegated observers such as the Lutheran
Church Missouri Synod, the U.S. National Baptist Convention, and the
World Pentecostal Conference.
The number of observers and guests grew with each Council period:
from forty-four in 1962 and sixty-eight in 1963 to eighty-two in 1964 and
106 in 1965. Each of them received the same Council draft texts as the Council Fathers, and they were welcome to attend the General Congregations and
Public Sessions, where they had translators into French, English, and
German of the Latin announcements and speeches by the Fathers. Like most
of the Council’s members, they were not admitted to sessions of the conciliar
commissions, but they had regular Tuesday afternoon meetings organized by
the Secretariat to discuss texts slated for present and coming debate, with
input at times by Council periti who had helped draft these texts.
Observers and Guests Interacting with the Council
Emblematic of the Tuesday meetings were six sessions held early in
the Council’s Period II while the Council Fathers were discussing the
revised schema De ecclesia.34 At the meetings twenty-five observers or
guests made critical and constructive comments, with some drawing on
33. Those sending observers included the World Alliance of Reformed and Presbyterian Churches, the International Association for Liberal Christianity, the Church of South
India, the Evangelical Church of Germany, the United Church of Christ in Japan, the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), the Anglican Communion, the Australian Council of
Churches, the International Council of Congregationalists, the Methodist World Council,
the World Convention of the Churches of Christ (Disciples), the Protestant Federation of
France, and the Lutheran World Federation.
34. On these lively meetings: Velati, Separati ma fratelli, pp. 270–83.

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111

statements on ecclesiology that had circulated during the mid-1963 Faith
and Order World Conference held in Montreal.35 During these meetings,
associates of the Secretariat took minutes and, on occasion, forwarded
notable points to Council Fathers for possible inclusion in their interventions. At one point the Lutheran observer Kristen Skydsgaard called a draft
passage on the people of God “pale” because it made no reference to the
drama of sin and forgiveness, which makes God’s mercy to sinners a part
of the Church’s definition. On October 21, 1963, the observers were
pleased to hear this point developed in the aula address of Cardinal Albert
Gregory Meyer of Chicago.36
The observers’ discussions became especially vigorous during the last
weeks of Period II concerning the schema of the ecumenism decree, on which
twenty of them intervened in the Tuesday meetings on the text.37 A notable
contrast between the aula speeches of the bishops on ecumenism and some of
the observers’ interventions was that several of the latter could draw on ten or
more years of ecumenical experience in the World Council of Churches.
Nonetheless, the Tuesday discussions revealed unanimity of appreciation and
even warm delight over the schema, even though some of this rested on what
were then two appended chapters on the Jews and on religious liberty.
An intervention by the WCC observer Lukas Vischer made a deep
impression, as he called for a more modest text on the mystery of Christian
divisions being included in God’s plan, a topic that the schema treats simplistically.38 A theme emerged over how Catholics evaluate other Chris-

35. In circulation were the Faith and Order preparatory reports on Christ and the
Church, ed. Paul S. Minear [Faith and Order Paper, no. 38], (Geneva, 1963) and the Report
of the Conference, “The Church in the Purpose of God,” in The Fourth World Conference on
Faith and Order. Montreal 1963, ed. Patrick C. Rodger and Lukas Vischer (New York, 1964),
pp. 41–49.
36. Meyer’s intervention is in AS II/3, pp. 146–48, and from it and similar critiques
came the designation of the Church as sancta et simul purificanda in LG 8, shortly after the
famous assertion that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church. Similarly, Skydsgaard also contributed to the revision of the Decree on Ecumenism the technical term ecclesial
communities as a Catholic designation of bodies originating in the Reformation. See Jared
Wicks, “The Significance of the ‘Ecclesial Communities’ of the Reformation,” Ecumenical
Trends, 30 (2001), 170–73.
37. Velati, Separati ma fratelli, pp. 304–18. The aula discussion lasted from November
18 to December 2, 1963, with encouragement coming on November 21, when the Fathers
accepted chapters I–III of the schema as the basis for further work by casting 1966 placet votes
and only 86 non placet votes.
38. Velati, Separati ma fratelli, p. 309, citing Visher’s words on “the complexity and
obscurity of history.”

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YET MORE LIGHT ON VATICAN COUNCIL II

tians on a scale of descending degrees of sacramental, ministerial, and doctrinal fullness, which contrasts with how the others understand themselves.
For the Lutheran George Lindbeck, the generous spirit of the draft contrasts with the “ecclesiological egotism” imbedded in its references to other
ecclesial bodies.
These and other critical remarks spurred the Dutch Catholic theologian of the Secretariat, Frans Thijssen, to remind the observers during the
Tuesday meeting of November 18, 1963, that the ecumenism draft rested
on the Catholic ecclesiology expressed in the developing dogmatic constitution De ecclesia. In both texts the Catholic Church is meditating on itself
in a fresh way—but based on its own vision of the Church. Some of the
observers’ criticisms of this vision seem contrary to the rules of fair play in
dialogue, for it is a fundamental principle even in the World Council of
Churches, adopted at a Toronto meeting in 1950, that a member church
is not required to give up its own ecclesiology and need only recognize elements of the true church, not the Church in the full sense, in the other
members. A positive but distinctively Catholic view of ecumenism was
emerging, which, as the observers were sensing, did not fit with aspects of
their confessional identity and recent ecumenical practice. It is no surprise
that they did not share this view.39
The observers’ comments on De oecumenismo in the Tuesday meetings
and other encounters were recorded by the officials and periti of the Secretariat, who received in some cases copies of the observers’ prepared written
remarks on the schema. These notes and texts took on added importance
when the same associates of the Secretariat began the work of revising the
draft to prepare the text on which the Council Fathers would vote in the
following Council Period. According to the norms of such work, the main
sources of revisions had to be the oral and written comments of the Council members, but inevitably contributions by the observers would also be
considered. This is a topic for further research in the papers of the Secretariat preserved in the Vatican Secret Archive. This is no small matter,
since, in addition to De oecumenismo, the same pattern of observers’ comments on a schema and its subsequent revision in the Secretariat continued
during the genesis of the Council declarations on the non-Christian religions and on religious liberty.

39. Velati, Separati ma fratelli, pp. 311–14, citing Lindbeck and Thijssen, adding Vischer’s statement that although the schema rests on Catholic ecclesiology that other churches
do not share, this does not render it “unecumenical.”

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113

The 2014 study by Velati draws on the ample available sources to tell
of the observers’ reaction to, and limited but real participation in, a whole
series of Council events, decisions, and texts. Because of space, only a few
aspects can be mentioned here: the January 1964 encounter between Paul
VI and Patriarch Athenagoras in the Holy Land; the discussions during
Period III on saints and the Blessed Virgin Mary (in chapters VII and VIII
of De ecclesia), on religious liberty, and on the Jews; the evaluations following the promulgation of Unitatis redintegratio; the evaluations by observers
of the stormy final days of Period III; the more intense involvement of
some observers during Periods III and IV when the Church/world relationship took center stage; the engagement of observers on the draft on the
Church’s missionary activity; the enthusiasm and criticism of observers
regarding the promulgated Dei Verbum; the prayer service of the observers
with Paul VI as well as the observers’ moving letter to the Council on
December 4, 1965; and, finally, the preparation and actions in Rome and
Constantinople for the common action on December 7, 1965, to erase
from memory the mutual excommunications of 1054.40
More could be said about the new configurations of the churches’
interrelationships that began to emerge in 1965 after promulgation of the
Decree Unitatis redintegratio.41 But better to record here some insights
about the Council that the observers expressed as it ended.

40. Velati, Separati ma fratelli, pp. 331–35 (Holy Land embrace of pope and patriarch),
pp. 390–99 (on saints and Mary), pp. 400–10 (religious liberty, 1964), pp. 411–20 (Jews and
non-Christians), pp. 431–54 and pp. 482–86 (completing and appreciating UR), pp. 488–502
(furor as Period III ends before calm returns), pp. 455–75 and pp. 546–67 (observers’ experiences on Church/world issues, especially in the WCC, leading to contributions to Gaudium
et spes), pp. 567–78 (similarly on Church’s missionary activity), pp. 594–98 (final amendments
of De revelatione and initial views of DV), pp. 620–29 and 637–38 (prayer service on December 4, 1965, at St. Paul’s, after the observers’ common letter), and pp. 629–39 (consigning the
1054 excommunications to oblivion). The minutes of the observers’ discussion of chapter
VIII of De ecclesia, on Mary, on September 22, 1964, have been published in Cesare
Antonelli, Il dibattito su Maria nel Concilio Vaticano II (Padua, 2009), pp. 517–32, relating
statements by Cullmann, Scrima, Schlink, and Nissiotis. From the final days, there is Oscar
Cullmann’s farewell address to the Secretariat, “The Rome of the Obervers at the Vatican
Council,” in Vatican II. The New Direction (Oxford, 1968), pp. 102–06. A small correction is
that the decision regarding De libertate religiosa in late 1964 was not to “not promulgate” it
(Velati, p. 491), but instead to not vote on the draft’s adequacy as a basis of further work.
41. Velati, Separati ma fratelli, pp. 431–39 (events before completion of UR) and pp.
502–18 (the “Joint Working Group” of the Catholic Church and the WCC; a preparatory
bilateral commission with the Lutheran World Federation; steps toward an AnglicanCatholic dialogue; SPCU contacts with Constantinople). For a wide-angle view of these and
further developments up to 1978, see Jared Wicks, “Collaboration and Dialogue. The Roman

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YET MORE LIGHT ON VATICAN COUNCIL II

For many observers, their presence and action at the Council was a
beginning that they sensed had to continue in forms of dialogue and
mutual exchange that were then being discovered. All the observers saw
major significance in the Decree on Ecumenism, since its analyses and
mandates embodied a radical change from previous Catholic hostility
toward and distance from the ecumenical movement earlier in the twentieth century. Although the Catholic notion of ecumenical engagement differs from that of Protestants and of the World Council of Churches, this
does not impede common action. Clearly, the Catholic entry into the
movement, with all the resources of the Church, was going to make ecumenical thought and activity decisively different in the post-Council era.42
Reflecting on many non-Catholic responses to the Council, Schlink
warned against narrow and selective perceptions. Many were attending so
much to the Declaration on Religious Freedom and the Decree on Ecumenism that they were missing, according to Schlink, the wide-ranging
reform of Catholic life charted by the Council’s eight other decrees. The
Methodist Albert Outler said that the Council’s prescriptions for the
Catholic Church challenged American Protestantism’s ecclesiastical
immobilism and theological superficiality. Cullmann and others repeatedly
commented on the biblical concentration marking many of the documents,
which they believed was a major change that should impress Protestant
Christians.43 Still, Schlink pointed out that although the Council promoted a heightened role for scripture in Catholic life, the Council did not
explicitly acknowledge a critical and normative function of scripture over
magisterial teaching, which revealed a fundamental difference between

Catholic Presence in the Ecumenical Movement during the Pontificate of Paul VI,” in Paolo
VI e l’ecumenismo (Brescia and Rome, 2001), pp. 215–67. An early Lutheran-Catholic theological dialogue in the United States took place in Baltimore on July 6–7, 1965, and continues, twelve “rounds” later, to this day. The topic at Baltimore was “The Status of the Nicene
Creed as Dogma of the Church,” and the participants included two Lutheran Council
observers (George Lindbeck and Warren A. Quanbeck) and four Catholic periti of the Council (William W. Baum, Godfrey Diekmann, John Courtney Murray, and George H. Tavard).
42. For general views and especially evaluations of the impact of Unitatis Redintegratio,
see Velati, Separati ma fratelli, pp. 689–92, 694–95, 709–13.
43. Velati, Separati ma fratelli, p. 675 (Schlink), pp. 692–93 (Outler), p. 679 (Cullmann). A notable exception to Schlink’s perceptions is the sharply critical survey of practically
all the Council documents by Vittorio Subilia, a Waldensian and delegated Council observer
of the World Alliance of Reformed and Presbyterian Churches. See his 300-page volume La
nuova cattolicità del Cattolicesimo. Una vutazione del Concilio Vaticano II (Turin, 1967; also
publ. as Le nouveau visage du catholicisme. Une appréciation réformée du Concile Vatican II
[Geneva, 1968]).

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115

Catholics and Lutherans in understanding the Gospel, which future dialogue must address.44
The Observers’ Reports, Diaries, and Publications as Sources of
Council History
A less public activity of the observers during the Council, but one of
considerable importance, was their sending of regular reports to their
church leadership on Council developments. Velati followed this trail
industriously by visiting a large number of archives to recover the observers’
insights into the Council as it unfolded.45 A resource of singular importance that Velati exploits to the full is the collection of frequent letters
during the Council from Vischer to the WCC leadership. Vischer’s reports
destined for circulation among the WCC divisions were written in English, but those to the general secretary, Willem Visser ’t Hooft, on more
sensitive matters were written in German.46
44. Cited by Velati, Separati ma fratelli, pp. 668–69, followed by Bea’s response to
Schlink on the role of the Magisterium in serving the Word of God rather than assuming a
place above it (DV 10). Consequently, the first phase of the world-level Lutheran-Catholic
theological dialogue treated “The Gospel and the Church,” leading to the “Malta Report” of
1972, available in Growth in Agreement, ed. Harding Meyer and Lukas Vischer (New York
and Geneva, 1984), pp. 168–99.
45. See Separati ma fratelli, p. 13, where Velati expresses thanks for access to the Council papers in Geneva (of WCC, Lutheran, and Reformed observers); Basel (of Cullmann);
Pasadena (of David Du Plessis); Dallas (of Outler); Haverford (of Douglas Steere); Syracuse
(of James Luther Adams); Cambridge, MA (of George Hunston Williams); Bensheim (of
Schlink); Paris (of reports to the Protestant Federation of France); Strasbourg (of Skydsgaard
and Vilmos Vajta); London (of Anglican observers); Canterbury (of Pawley); Durham, NC
(of Robert Earl Cushman); Nashville (of Jesse Bader); Leiden (of L. J. Van Holk); and St.
Louis (of Oswald Hoffmann). Il concilio inedito. Fonti del Vaticano II, ed. Massimo Faggiolo
and Giovanni Turbanti (Bologna, 2001)—a catalog of the personal papers of the Council participants—lists sixty-two observers and guests, giving details such as publication information
on the Council papers of observers or the location of their papers.
46. The unpublished 3-volume collection, kept in the World Council archive, is Reports
on Second Vatican Council by Lukas Vischer and Nikos Nissiotis, containing more than sixty
reports sent by Vischer. A first sifting of the collection led to Velati’s substantial article, “Gli
osservatori del Consiglio ecumenico delle chiese al Vaticano II,” in L’evento e le decisioni. Studi
sulle dinamiche del concilio Vaticano II, ed. Maria Teresa Fattori and Alberto Melloni (Bologna,
1997), pp. 189–257. A recent study is by Michael Quisinsky, “The Ecumenical Dynamic of
Vatican II—Lukas Vischer between Geneva and Rome,” Cristianesimo nells storia, 34 (2013),
273–314. With Vischer’s permission, Wicks published from the Reports his letter to Geneva
after his November 14, 1964, private audience with Paul VI just a week before the promulgation of the Vatican II Decree on Ecumenism. See Jared Wicks, “Collaboration and Dialogue. The Roman Catholic Presence in the Ecumenical Movement during the Pontificate of
Paul VI,” in Paolo VI e l’ecumenismo, Appendix 1, pp. 259–62.

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For the history of the Council, the archived observers’ reports reflect
perceptions that combine nearness to the event with involvement yet,
because of their status as observers, achieve a critical distance. It raises the
question about the contributions of these reports to the standard historiography of the Council. In 1997 Vischer posed this question when he
reviewed volumes I and II of History of Vatican II, the project directed by
Giuseppe Alberigo. He related that his own perceptions of the Council’s
preparation, Period I, and first intersession differ from the presentation of
these two widely cited and studied volumes. This particular observer sent
twenty-five detailed reports to the Genevan WCC leadership during
Period I and received confidential reports from the Secretariat on developments during the 1962–63 intersession. The History volumes relate well
many inner-Catholic events and concerns, but Vischer found them inadequate on the ecumenical environment, relations with other churches, and
the early contributions of the observers. He believed that they missed the
wider Christian perspective that should mark historical work on a Council
that had fostering Christian unity as one of its main goals.47
The works of Velati, especially his book of 2014, have begun to fill a
lacuna in Council historiography, albeit in a monograph in Italian now set
beside the widely translated and consulted histories of the Council.
Beyond the reports of observers to their leadership, their published
books and articles deserve the attention of historians, especially the
observers’ works appearing in 1966–68, when their reflections could treat
the final events of December 7–8, 1965, along with the completed corpus
of Council documents. Valuable is the brief text of Lutheran observer
Skydsgaard, who made constructive contributions to Council documents
and singled out in early 1966 the ultimate, but often hidden, aim of the
Council: to serve the Gospel of Christ’s grace.48
Other observers and guests at the Council gave interviews and lectures
that soon appeared in books, such as the Congregationalist observer

47. “Storia del Concilio Vaticano II. Reactions and Comments by an Observer at the
Council,” The Ecumenical Review, 49 (1997), 348–53. Vischer contributed a chapter to the
final volume of the History, that is, “The Council as an Event in the Ecumenical Movement,”
in History of Vatican II, ed. Giuseppe Alberigo and Joseph A. Komonchak, vol. 5: The Council
and the Transition, the Fourth Period and the End of the Council, September 1965–December 1965
(Maryknoll, NY, and Leuven, 2006), pp. 485–539.
48. “The Last Intention of the Council,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 3 (1966),
151–54.

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117

George B. Caird and the Lutheran guest Cullmann.49 Others remained at
their typewriters to compose global accounts of the Council based on their
observations during the Council, such as the Anglican Bishop of Ripon
John Moorman, the Methodist Albert Outler, and the Lutheran Edmund
Schlink.50 This is a very selective list, which does not encompass interviews
of and articles by the observers on the whole Council that appeared in various periodicals.
This extensive material—both the observers’ reports to their churches
and more public accounts disseminated shortly after the Council—constitutes a significant sector of testimony to the Council’s work and an important articulation of the influential early reception of the Council that calls
for integration into standard history writing about the Council.

49. Caird, Our Dialogue with Rome. The Second Vatican Council and After (Oxford,
1967), and Cullmann, Vatican Council II. The New Direction, especially “The Reform of Vatican Council II in the Light of the History of the Catholic Church” (pp. 64–101).
50. Moorman, Vatican Observed: An Anglican Impression of Vatican II (London, 1967);
Outler, Methodist Observer at Vatican II (Westminster, MD, 1967); and Schlink, Nach dem
Konzil (Göttingen, 1966), and the English translation, After the Council (Philadelphia, 1968).

Book Reviews
GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
Does Church History Matter? By Robert F. Rea. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic. 2014. Pp. 231. $20.00. ISBN 978-0-8308-2819-7.)
This book argues for the relevance of church history to the concerns of contemporary Protestant congregations. Robert F. Rea targets his argument to “Biblefocused” Christians, who consider the Bible to be the “inspired, infallible, and sufficient” basis for Christian life (p. 74). Although Rea endorses this view of
scripture, he notes that it can easily become a basis for dismissing historical theology on the grounds that it is part of man-made “tradition” and thus lacks divine
inspiration or authority. For Rea, this is a mistake, as, rightly understood and interpreted, church history deepens one’s capacity to engage and apply scripture. Taking
the Bible seriously, in other words, implies taking church history seriously.
In part 1, “How We Understand Tradition,” Rea defines history as “the study
of the past in order to understand the present and to improve the future” (p. 23).
Specifically Christian history is marked by the “presence, actions, will, and heart of
God” (p. 24). Meanwhile, “tradition” broadly understood is a “synonym for church
history, Christian history, or historical theology” (p. 29). These overlapping definitions of history and tradition underscore a key point: tradition is inevitable. The
simple act of professing Christianity helps to propagate a religion 2000 years in the
making. Thus, even groups that dismiss tradition as a determining factor in Christian life and practice are still recipients and transmitters of tradition. Part 2,
“Expanding Circles of Inquiry,” argues that strengthening one’s Christian identity
requires moving beyond one’s immediate faith community to engage the Body of
Christ more broadly. This engagement deepens our understanding of the consensus
fidelium that unites a Body of Christ that is not only transdenominational and transcultural, but also transtemporal. Learning to see the present through the lens of
past thinkers sharpens our insight into the present state of faith communities and
helps us integrate them more fully with the Body. The third and final part, “Tradition Serving the Church,“examines how learning from the great exegetes of the
past helps Bible-focused Christians to interpret and apply scripture more effectively
and gives them powerful tools for addressing contemporary issues in church life.
Rea is at his best when explaining to the Bible-focused Christian why neglecting to engage church history impoverishes church life. He explodes the notion that
the Bible is a self-interpreting text and makes a compelling case for why careful
attention to the past is vital to the vibrancy of contemporary Christian communities. Yet occasionally there are puzzling gaps in Rea’s argument. For instance: in
118

BOOK REVIEWS

119

arguing for the need for more diverse and nuanced biblical exegesis, he traces how
emphasis on the literal sense of scripture has changed over the centuries without
addressing how conceptions of the literal sense have changed. What the literal sense
meant to St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, or Martin Luther differs significantly from what it means to Rea’s bible-focused Christian. Neglecting to mention
this is curious, given how it would strengthen Rea’s case for the need to nuance biblical interpretation.
Elsewhere, what Rea takes for granted belies the extent to which he remains
embedded in a particular milieu. At one point Rea depicts the 1980s as a critical
decade for U.S. Christianity in which public moral failures of prominent Christian
leaders and broad cultural acceptance of moral relativism fundamentally altered the
cultural and religious landscape (pp. 108–09). This is bound to puzzle those outside
of particular fundamentalist/evangelical circles. Christian leaders in the United
States have been involved in damaging public scandals since the advent of mass
media: what makes the scandals of the 1980s uniquely determinative? Why are the
1980s the watershed moment for moral relativism as opposed to, say, the 1960s?
More basically, what does Rea mean by moral relativism? By using these tropes
without qualification, Rea risks alienating potential conversation partners from
other sectors of U.S. Christianity unfamiliar with how he deploys them.
These caveats aside, Rea is to be commended for making a cogent argument
for the importance of historical theology to an audience that typically neglects it.
Fairfield University

JEREMY SABELLA

The Orthodox Church in the Arab World, 700–1700: An Anthology of Sources. Edited
by Samuel Noble and Alexander Treiger. [Orthodox Christian Series.]
(DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press. 2014. Pp. x, 375. $35.00 paperback. ISBN 978-0-87580-701-0.)
The Christian communities of West Asia are in the news almost daily, as they
live out the latest bleak episode in their long history. Thanks to the obdurate
sadism of so-called Islamic State, for some of them it could be their last. This history is almost unknown in the West, as are the culture and distinctive beliefs of
these communities or their stirring experiences of living under Muslim rule and
devising means to survive.
In the early centuries after Christ, Christians in the Eastern provinces of the
Roman Empire developed doctrines along their own lines, particularly concerning
the nature of Christ. When the early church councils prescribed the mode in which
his humanity and divinity came together, significant numbers in the East vehemently dissented. Then, just as the main points of doctrinal difference had been
identified, these Eastern provinces were overrun by the new power of Islam. From
the seventh century onward Eastern Christians continued as client communities,
experiencing pressure to convert, adverse social and economic relations, and sometimes active persecution. The story of how they survived and rallied, and particu-

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BOOK REVIEWS

larly how they responded to the challenge of Islam, deserves a full telling. Equally,
the theologies they worked out in the context of the strict monotheism promoted
by Muslims include masterpieces of apologetic that show both continuity with
patristic precedents and also responsiveness to the questions and criticisms they
met on a daily basis.
The main Christian communities that have continued for most of their history
under Islam are commonly known as Nestorians, Jacobites (Copts, in Egypt), and
Melkites. As Islamic rule became established, and Arabic became the normal language of conversation and scholarly writing, so they moved from their former languages of Greek and Syriac (a form of the language that Jesus had used) to Arabic.
In this new context they had to find new idioms and terminologies, as well as a new
logic in which to express their beliefs. The results, although definitely recognizable
as descendants of their patristic forebears, show sensitivity to the new context set
by Islamic religious discourse. Exploring their theological world is a stimulating
and instructive experience. This book goes some way to make this possible.
Recognizing the impossibility of covering the whole range of surviving writings from 1300 years of Christian religious thinking expressed in Arabic, the two
editors decided to bring together selected works from the first millennium of the
Melkite tradition, those churches that remained loyal to the Christological formula
defined at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and endorsed by the emperor (hence
their name Melkite, “the king’s followers”). They have collected writings from
twelve Arab authors, many translated expressly and a few others taken from earlier
publications, to present a sample of how this church continued in conditions where
communication with the Byzantine mother church and its culture was no longer
practicable, and where Christian authors fashioned distinctive explanations and
arguments to answer questions from other denominations and from Muslims alike.
The book starts with a relatively brief but surprisingly comprehensive introduction in which the Melkite Church and something of its culture are set out.
Anyone who wants an impression of Christian life in the Islamic world, particularly
in the first five or so centuries before mass conversion cut its numbers, will find a
full and satisfying account here.
There follow translations of twelve works, some of them complete and others
substantial excerpts. They range from a document from the latter eighth century
that is regarded as the earliest Christian theological writing in Arabic to the
account of a journey from Syria to Moscow in the seventeenth century. The translators include some of the leaders in the field, and although the Arabic originals are
(understandably) not included, their translations can be taken as reliable and
authoritative.
The twelve works reflect the huge range of ideas and attitudes that characterize thinking of Melkites (and to some extent Christian Arabs). Among them are
expositions of Christian teachings about the Trinity and the humanity and divinity
of Christ, hagiographical accounts of martyrdoms, histories, itineraries, disputa-

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121

tions with Muslims, and undisguised polemics. The latter show most vividly that
the Melkite Church was not cowed by the rule and culture of Islam, whereas all the
works attest to churches maintaining an authentic character and voice, even while
their numbers were declining.
A major feature in many of the works is their awareness of Islam and response
to it. The earliest, from the latter eighth century, which is untitled but called here
An Apology for the Christian Faith, expresses this by incorporating phrases from the
Qur’an into its explanations of the Trinity and Christ in an implicit statement that
there is no contradiction between Melkite theology and Islamic scripture.
Theodore Abū Qurra, the early-ninth-century bishop of Harran in northern Syria,
follows a more deliberate method of demonstrating by means of logical formulations acknowledged by both Christians and Muslims the soundness and indeed sufficiency of Christian doctrines. At the other extreme, Paul of Antioch, bishop of
Sidon probably around 1200, makes bravura use of selections from the Qur’an,
which he occasionally edits, to prove that the scripture supports Christian teachings, that it was only intended for a localized Arabic-speaking readership, and that
it can only be read intelligently when it is used with the Bible. Despite what its
translator says (p. 219), this letter stands out from other Christian Arab works for
its undermining of the whole panoply of Islam, which is called appropriately by the
editors “highly provocative and subversive” (p. 31).
The very confident attitude toward Islam displayed by the works translated
here was, of course, as much intended for fellow Christians as for Muslims. Christian authors frequently wrote to prove to waverers and the fearful that Christianity
was not only the intellectual equal of Islam but also a richer and more complete revelation that it would make no sense to abandon.
In this, these Melkite authors were no different from Nestorians or Jacobites,
all aware of Islam and conscientiously trying to show the sufficiency of their own
delineation of faith. It is important to keep in mind that this collection is only a
fraction of the works produced by Christians living under Islamic rule. Others from
other denominations are equally rich and sometimes more profound. Nevertheless,
these translations give a valuable insight into a world that is largely hidden from
view. They are as welcome as they are readable.
University of Birmingham

DAVID THOMAS

Profeti e profetismi: Escatologia, millenarismo e utopia. Edited by André Vauchez.
[Conifere, Vol. 7.] (Bologna: Edizioni Dehoniane. 2014. Pp. 484. €49,00
paperback. ISBN 978-88-10-56008-2.)
Although perhaps not as fashionable as they were around the turn of the last
millennium, the intertwined subjects of prophecy, eschatology, and apocalypticism
remain a vital part of scholarship on the Western tradition, ranging from antiquity
through the Middle Ages and into the modern (or even postmodern) era. The
“pursuit of the millennium,” to speak, harkening back to Norman Cohn’s ground-

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breaking work on the problem of millenarianism and its revolutionary potentialities, continues among historians, sociologists, political scientists and others. Far
from being marginal, prophetic voices, apocalyptic predictions, and eschatological
speculations provide a fascinating opportunity to interrogate all sorts of texts,
events, and figures that relate to a wide range of political, intellectual, and social
issues, some conservative and others subversive, framed in religious but also secularized forms of theorizing about the future.
This volume of essays edited by André Vauchez (an Italian translation of the
original publication, Prophètes et prophétisme [Paris, 2012]) makes for a welcome
addition to the ongoing dialogue about what Vauchez calls the “three principal
forms of prophecy” (eschatology, millenarianism, and utopianism), viewed here as
“cultural constructs, with a strong symbolic character, that need to be taken seriously since they illustrate the role played by the imagination in human society” (p.
17). The collection includes contributions by Jean-Robert Armogathe, Sylvie
Barnat, Jean-Pierre Bastian, Philippe Boutry, Pierre Gibert, Balerio Petrarca, and
Isabelle Richet. These studies designedly stretch across the entirety of Western
apocalyptic discourse from the Bible to the late-twentieth century. They also widen
the geographic scope of their inquiry into various iterations of prophecy and millenarianism, including chapters on Africa, Latin America, and North America
(meaning, in effect, the United States).
Scholars conversant in the premodern apocalyptic tradition will encounter
many familiar texts and names in this collection, starting with the Christian roots
of prophecy and messianic thought in the Hebrew tradition to the highly influential patristic thinker Augustine of Hippo (whose stultifying effect on millennial
speculation was considerable, albeit not absolute), followed by medieval monastic
authors including Hildegard of Bingen and Joachim of Fiore, and Reformation-era
firebrands like Thomas Müntzer (along with, inevitably, Michel de Notre Dame,
better known as Nostradamus). Moving into the period from the French Revolution to the twentieth century, one encounters a less typical line-up of intellectuals
and social critics, thinking in explicitly and implicitly eschatological terms: the
French essayist Charles Péguy; the Jewish-born German philosopher Walter Benjamin; and the eminent Catholic scholar Yves Congar. The final three chapters on
areas outside of Europe introduce even less familiar—at least, to those who work
mainly on European apocalypticism—figures from millenarian traditions in Africa
and Latin America such as the Congolese religious leader Simon Kimbangu, along
with North American eschatological impresarios like William Miller and Joseph
Smith.
Despite such forays into colonial contexts of millenarianism, Europe remains
at the center of this volume: 357 out of 445 pages deal with events and persons
from the field of European history. Indeed, given the salience of apocalyptic themes
in recent forms of fundamentalist Islamic ideology, including that of the so-called
Islamic State, one wishes that the collection would have included an essay on
Islamic apocalyptic traditions, developing outside the immediate textual orbit of
Western prophecy and eschatology, whether Christian or secularized, but surely

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just as much a product of colonial and postcolonial experiences. Regardless,
Vauchez and the volume’s authors have made a valuable contribution to our understanding of an apparently inescapable human desire to understand ourselves and
our place in history through the imagining of possible futures, whether irenic or
forged in violence.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

BRETT WHALEN

Outreach and Renewal: A First-Millennium Legacy for the Third-Millennium Church.
By James McSherry. [Cistercian Studies Series, No. 236.] (Trappist, KY: Cistercian Publications; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press. 2011. Pp. x, 276.
$34.95 paperback. ISBN 978-0-87907-236-0.)
It is a common misunderstanding that when Christians refer to “tradition” to
assume that it is simply the mass of passively inherited material, the status quo,
which is then either embraced defensivly as “the unchanging truth” or arrogantly
rejected as “passé.” The current culture wars within the Catholic Church are due,
in large part, to this simplistic confusion of the past, yesterday’s concerns, and what
we have encountered with the work of the Spirit in the community of faith that is
Tradition. By contrast, since Christianity claims a link with the living God, which
is not bounded by the confines of human inheritance, the relationship of Christians
to their past is far more complex. Parts are reaffirmed, parts are changed, some
ideas and practices are wholly new—a result of our existential creativity, parts are
jettisoned as either simply the mistakes perceived with hindsight or as no longer
approprate; and all needs to be received with crtitical attention as to whether or not
it is, in our historical moment, worthy of being part of our witness to the living
God. In this process, the historical theologian has a unique role: for the experience
of Christians in other times and cultures can be held before us as a mirror. In this
mirror of the past, our present can see where it is better than long ago; where learning is appropriate; and, indeed, where elements of discipleship, long forgotten, can
be used as inspiration for our future. It is this dynamic view of historical theology
that animates this book.
It looks back to patterns of discipleship and mission from the early centuries
of the Latin churches—in particular, the centuries that saw the rise of monasticism
in the West—and draws insights for a renewal of the Catholic Church in our own
time (and although the work is focused on Catholicism, most of the ideas would be
just as relevant for most branches of Western Christianity today). The places that
James McSherry goes for his examples are quite well off the beaten tract: the works
of St. Augustine and John Cassian; the hagiography of early monastic figures such
as Martin of Tours; the world of the Carolingian renaissance; and, most extensively, the legacy of insular Christianity from the Celtic-speaking Western fringe
of early-medieval Europe. In these sources—perhaps it would be better to speak of
mirrors—he finds an openness to diversity, to the goodness of the creation, and to
the dignity of the individual that is needed in our times and all too often sidelined
within the structures of the Catholic Church today.

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It would be easy to find fault with this book in its broad sweep through centuries, in its details of interpretation of particular events or texts in the past, or,
indeed, in the way that it looks on the “positive side” of many past developments.
For example, it looks at Cassian without noting the psychological price that Western Christianity has paid for parts of his approach to the human person. Likewise,
McSherry views St. Patrick without noting the problems connected with his eschatology and views the Céli Dé as a reforming group—and, as such, a good thing—
without noting problematic nature of their world-denying spirituality. But these
are problems that belong to the world of the history of theology, whereas McSherry
wishes to put forward a vision for the future that he sees as rooted in the past.
Viewed in this way, this book is stimulating—but the warning that we must never
imagine ourselves simply passive receivers of the past remains: we must use all our
inheritance (be that the Bible or later texts, be that earlier or later experience) but
must do so in a spirit of critical dialogue. No moment is perfect; in every moment
there must be an fresh search for a glimpse at the significance of the divine mystery
for our existence.
University of Nottingham

THOMAS O’LOUGHLIN

Heaven Can Wait: Purgatory in Catholic Devotional and Popular Culture. By Diana
Walsh Pasulka. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2014. Pp. x, 207.
$29.95. ISBN 978-0-19-538202-0.)
This book gives a certain appearance of being a scholarly treatment of the doctrine and popular reception of purgatory from the Middle Ages to the present, but
the appearance turns out to be illusory. Pasulka approaches her subject with enthusiasm, but unfortunately the theology of sin, forgiveness, and satisfaction has
escaped her. There is no mention of contrition or repentance in her book. She
speaks, on the one hand, of “absolving afterlife sin” and performing penance after
death as a means of avoiding hell; and, on the other hand, of pilgrims effecting
their salvation while still alive by visiting St. Patrick’s Purgatory (pp. 40–42).
In her introduction, she sets the stage by referring to the decline of interest in
purgatory since the Second Vatican Council, claiming that the Council itself supported the de-emphasis. Then, rather than giving a general history of purgatory,
she concentrates mainly on medieval Ireland and modern America (from the nineteenth century onward). For the Middle Ages, she spends most of her time on stories of St. Patrick’s Purgatory (located on an island in Lake Derg in County Donegal), as if this constituted the main or only idea of purgatory in the Middle Ages.
She does not treat standard devotions, like offering Masses and other prayers for
the delivery of souls from punishment.
Chapter 1 is titled “When Purgatory Was a Place on Earth,” and chapter 2 is
subtitled “Moving Purgatory Off the Earth,” which indicate Pasulka’s belief that
there was a gradual progression from thinking of purgatory as earthly to regarding
it as nonearthly. However, it is important to know that purgatory was generally
seen to be in an “infernal” location—that is, under the earth. St. Thomas Aquinas

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was typical in considering the hell of the damned to be in the lowest position, with
the limbo of infants above it, purgatory above that, and the limbo of the fathers
(which was emptied when Jesus “descended into hell”) the highest (3 Sent. d. 22 q.
2 a. 1 sol. 2). But in addition to the common or general purgatory, a soul by divine
dispensation could be purified or partially purified in a specific place in the upper
world, which would serve as a “special purgatory.” In the most popular book of the
Middle Ages, Jacopo da Varazze’s Legenda aurea, St. Patrick’s Purgatory is
regarded in two ways: first, as an entrance to the common purgatory (Feast of St.
Patrick), and then as a special purgatory (Feast of All Souls). Furthermore, the idea
of the subterranean levels of “hell” (including the temporary hell of purgatory)
lasted into the seventeenth century (e.g., Suarez, Opera 4:627–28).
In chapter 3, Pasulka treats John England, first bishop of Charleston, and his
1840 article “On Certain Superstitions Imputed to Catholics: Concerning the
Fable of St. Patrick’s Purgatory, and Some Other Foolish Inventions of the Protestant Press,” which may or may not include his response to an 1824 attack on the
doctrine (her notes are sketchy, and she provides no bibliography). Chapter 4 deals
with views of purgatory between 1830 and 1920, branching out to France and England as well as looking at America. The fifth and last chapter treats of “purgatory
apostolates” that have developed after the Second Vatican Council to bring back
the devotion as it existed before the Council. Pasulka’s treatment is not systematic:
she says she has studied eighteen such apostolates, but she does not list them. She
spends a good deal of time discussing her interviews with Susan Tassone, “[t]he
most popular author of contemporary purgatory devotional literature” (p. 18), but
she names only one of her works, Praying with the Saints for the Holy Souls in Purgatory, without giving details (it was published by Our Sunday Visitor in 2009).
However, her accounts are interesting, and often touching, showing, as Pasulka
says, people “mourning for a doctrine that was once part of the lives of all
Catholics.” The doctrine has certainly evolved, and there is clearly room for more
study on the subject.
University of California, Los Angeles

HENRY ANSGAR KELLY

Sources for Monastic Life in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. Edited by
Carolyn Marino Malone and Clark Maines. [Disciplina Monastica, Vol. 10.]
(Turnhout: Brepols. 2014. Pp. 393. €115,00 paperback. ISBN 978-2-50355011-4.)
This volume contains the papers presented at the “Medieval Customaries and
Monastic/Regular Life: Approaches from Across the Disciplines” colloquium held
at Château de la Bretesche, France, on June 10–13, 2007, with an introduction by
the editors. The book is the tenth volume of Brepols’ Disciplina Monastica. The
main objective of this series is to present the current state of affairs regarding
medieval and early-modern monastic scholarship from an interdisciplinary point of
view, including historians of different expertises as well as archaeologists and philologists. The volume is divided into three sections: (1) Customary Texts as Sources

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for Monastic Life; (2) Customary Texts and Monastic Architecture; and (3)
Monastic and Regular Life as Revealed in Customs, Rules, and Other Texts. In
section 1 there are three papers. Isabelle Cochelin studies manuscripts of customaries before 1100, in order to attract attention to these sources for the study of
everyday life in the Middle Ages. Catherine Bonnin-Magne’s paper deals with the
relationship between Cluniac customaries and the diffusion of the cult of Cluniac
saints. Pius Engelbert describes his progress on the edition of William of Hirsau’s
Constitutiones Hirsaugenses. In section 2 Anne Baud and Christian Sapin present
the state of the archaeological research in the Abbey of Cluny. The authors use earlier Cluniac archaeological data, written sources, and their own archaeological discoveries to describe the current knowledge of the early stages of Cluny’s construction and to show the problems to be faced in the next excavations. In the same
section, Carolyn Marino Malone shows the relationship between the peculiar
architecture of Saint-Bénigne de Dijon’s abbey church and the development of specific, although Cluniac-based, liturgies during the eleventh century. The last paper
of this section, written by Sheila Bonde and Clark Maines, deals with the way the
customs and the architecture of the Augustinian convent of Saint-Jeans-desVignes (Soissons, France) developed from 1098 to 1783.
Éric Palazzo’s paper, the first in section 3, presents his current research into
the function of sensory images in the medieval monastic liturgy. Alain Rauwel’s
paper describes the appearance of communities of Augustinian canons in the earlytwelfth century in Bourgogne, the epicenter of Cluniac and Cistercians monastic
reforms. He states that Augustinian canons are another way of manifestation of
monastic spirituality, not an alternative to it. Bert Roest, in the last paper of the
book, studies the conformation of Clarissan congregations from the twelfth century
to the early sixteenth. According to him, it grew from many different women’s convents, some very small and poor needing local charity to survive, others rich and of
royal foundation. Rules, customs, and constitutions of these houses were also very
different in their origins and never achieved uniformity during the Middle Ages.
This volume combines successfully a variety of papers coming from specialists
of different branches of the medieval and early-modern studies of the regular life.
It also presents a strong contemporary trend in medieval studies that tries to combine written sources with data coming from other scholarly fields of research. It is
a highly recommended reading for scholars interested in the history of the regular
life, especially Cluniac monasticism, Augustinian canons, and Clarissan studies. It
is also a profitable book for those interested in the history of everyday life and the
history of medieval architecture.
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas
y Técnicas
ALFONSO HERNÁNDEZ RODRÍGUEZ
Buenos Aires, Argentina

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Benedictine Men and Women of Courage: Roots and History. Rev. ed. By Ann Kessler,
O.S.B., with Neville Ann Kelly. (Seattle: Lean Scholar Press. 2014. Pp. xxviii,
481. $26.95 paperback. ISBN 978-0-9904497-0-6).
There is no up-to-date and reliable one-volume history of Benedictine
monasticism. Writing the history of a 1500-year-old institution, which has taken
shape in thousands of monasteries on six continents, is a daunting prospect. It
probably exceeds the capacity of any single scholar and the confines of a single
volume. The task is not made any easier by the current diffusion of Benedictine
monasteries to Southeast Asia, South America, and Africa, and the numerical
decline of most European and North American monasteries. Ann Kessler, who was
professed as a Benedictine in 1947, earned her doctorate in history at the University
of Notre Dame, and taught for many decades at Mount Marty College, attempted
this task in the first edition of this book (1992), which now appears in a new edition, which she has revised with the help of Neville Anne Kelly.
The result, not surprisingly, is mixed. Positively, the book is nicely printed,
well organized, and supplied with a thorough index. It gives attention to Benedictine women and to the Benedictine presence in Australia. In the chapters Kessler
says she enjoyed most (10–12), on Benedictines in the United States and Australia,
she demonstrates considerable skill as a storyteller, as she draws on her archival
research and interviews. She gives particular attention to the French Benedictines’
vicissitudes in France during the Revolution and the antireligious governments of
the early-twentieth century.
On the negative side, the book, particularly the first half, needed some factchecking and stylistic polishing. For example, Antony of Egypt left no Greek sermons (p. 3); Julian of Norwich lived long after, not before, the civil war between
King Stephen and the Empress Matilda (p. 105); Philibert Schmitz was Belgian,
not French (p. 105); the position to which Odilo of Cluny appointed his successor
Hugh is missing (p. 57); and the statement that “each of the first four Cluniac
abbots independently named his own successor, whether or not possessed of suitable qualifications” (p. 55), seems odd in that four of the first six abbots are venerated as saints, and Cluny experienced phenomenal growth under them. There are
unfortunate sentences such as “[i]t had been a perfectly cloudless day, but while
sorrowfully rising for prayers, lightning flashed” (p. 18). There is scarcely any mention of Benedictines in German-speaking lands in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries.
Nevertheless, Kessler’s book does provide a generally reliable survey of Benedictine history, which will provide people new to the subject with an overview. It
would have served them better if it had included an annotated reading list for each
chapter.
Monastery of the Ascension
Jerome, ID

HUGH FEISS, O.S.B.

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The Cistercian Arts from the 12th to the 21st Century. Edited by Terryl N. Kinder and
Roberto Cassanelli. Translated by Joyce Myerson. [McGill-Queen’s Studies
in the History of Religion, Vol. 71.] (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University
Press. 2014. Pp. 432. $75.00. ISBN 978-0-7735-4412-3.)
The Cistercian Arts is a magnificent compilation of scholarship that is truly
synoptic. Here the splendors of architecture and art, which have traditionally drawn
the attention of scholars, can be seen and apprehended, but they also can be seen
together across a vastly extended range of Cistercian creativity. The reader can
explore medieval Cistercian churches as well as learn about medieval mills and
granges. The scholar is introduced to manuscripts, and medieval sacra vasa and
seals. Furthermore, this summa of Cistercian productivity extends geographical
boundaries so that information and illustrations are provided on Cistercian architecture in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland, Hungary, and the Baltic regions.
Above all, this synopsis allows the reader to see the entire field of Cistercian creation over time, since it encompasses not simply the medieval period but also the
period between the order’s inception in 1098 and the present day. As Terryl N.
Kinder says in her introduction, “this diversity represents the creativity of many
people from widely different cultures and places and centuries, revealing a rich
panoply that makes up the Cistercian order over time” (p. 9). Finally, the book is
synoptic in that it allows the reader to see the fruits of the many different types and
nationalities of experts who have contributed to this magnum opus. Essays by academic art and architectural historians are integrated with those by theologians,
practicing architects, as well as Cistercian monks and nuns, all of different backgrounds and nationalities. Thus the reader is introduced to the sheer diversity of
Cistercian studies.
In this context the chapters on Cistercian granges, hydraulics, mills, and
forges are particularly valuable because they allow the reader to appreciate the
achievements of the order in religious architecture, in the context of monks who
were able engineers, industrialists, and businessmen. On another level, the chapters
on St. Bernard of Clairvaux allow the reader to judge how far his principles, as
expressed through his life and writings, infused the life and productions of the Cistercians for the next 900 years.
Such considerations inevitably lead to big questions. How far can an organization that has spread on a global scale and endured hundreds of years, and has
included many types and nationalities of members, be seen to be cohesive and to be
following unquestionably the precepts of its original founders? Within this book it
is possible to see how soon the rules of simplicity and austerity were broken and
how soon the tide of opinion turned against Bernard’s strongly worded comment
on lavish ecclesiastical architecture and decoration in the Apologia ad Guillelmum
abatem of 1125. We learn of extravagant Cistercian sacra vasa even in the twelfth
century. We learn that, far from being cheap, the grisaille glass used in Cistercian
churches was extravagantly expensive: “the appropriate agents from Cistercian
monasteries wilfully and intentionally ordered the glassmakers under their employ

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to undertake this extra step and incur greater cost, because the Cistercian monks
had an aesthetic preference for clear glass” (p. 211). The many illustrations allow
us to see that medieval Cistercian architecture, far from being homogenous, was
diverse, following the stylistic preferences of the builders of the different localities
in which it was built. The chapters “Cistercian Nuns and Art in the Middle Ages”
and “Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Cistercian Architecture in the
German-Speaking Regions” leave us in no doubt that, for these Cistercians, simplicity was not a central precept.
This book shows the reader that the constant qualities that have driven all
Cistercian productivity over the years are energy and ingenuity. It represents an
excellent introduction to the Cistercian order, as rich and multifarious as the creations of the order itself.
London, England

LESLEY MILNER

Un’altra fede. Le Case dei catecumeni nei territori estensi (1583–1938). By Matteo Al
Kalak and Ilaria Pavan. [Biblioteca della Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa—Studi, Vol. 27.] (Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore. 2013. Pp. xvi, 234.
€28,00. ISBN 978-8-8222-6250-9.)
Case dei catecumeni, or Houses for Catechumens, were a prominent feature in
the social and religious life of early-modern Italy. They provided places of support
and isolation for Jews who sought Christian baptism. Such houses operated in many
Italian cities and reflected both the generally chauvinistic attitude of the Catholic
Church and of gentiles toward Jews and the particular political and social realities of
their immediate locations. Matteo al Kalak and Ilaria Pavan have collaborated in the
publication of a study of such works in the cities of Modena and Reggio under the
government of the Este family and the later postrevolutionary governments of those
areas down to 1938. This volume is composed, in fact, of two studies. Al Kalak has
provided a careful analysis of the operations of these works in the early-modern
period prior to the Napoleonic revolutions in Italy, whereas Pavan sheds valuable
light on those operations under the governments of modern Italy.
The seventeenth- and eighteenth-century history of Christian work with
Jewish catechumens and neophytes, those preparing for or recently baptized, in
Modena and Reggio holds much in common with the experience of other Italian
cities. Al Kalak examines the houses of catechumens in a broader context of charitable foundations that provided material support to those in need. In this case, assistance was offered to Jews who, by their acceptance of Christianity, separated themselves from their communities of origin. That support also constituted a means of
forced isolation by which church leaders prevented any contact between catechumens and their families or community leaders. Although forced baptisms were customarily forbidden, the indigence of many of the converts suggests something other
than a free religious choice on their part. The number of conversions in these two
cities was never very large and never threatened to undermine the Jewish community

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in any substantial way. The Este rulers were known for their relatively benign attitude to their Jewish subjects. By the seventeenth century, the Este provided for the
opportunity for Jewish family members of the catechumens and other leaders of the
Jewish communities to question catechumens directly on the validity and justice of
their conversions. The Church, meanwhile, used conversions as an opportunity to
celebrate ritually what it saw as a Christian triumph over Jewish religion. Jews that
were to be baptized were splendidly appareled as they walked in procession from
their residence to the cathedral, where they were initiated into the Church. The
audience for these triumphs was as much Christian as Jewish.
The revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries did not end the
work of the Case dei catecumeni. These houses continued to operate. During the
1796–1814 revolutionary period, the Jewish communities enjoyed greater legal protections while still facing traditional hostility from gentiles. Pavan demonstrates
how the civil authorities played a significant role supervising the entrance of Jews
into the catechumenate and Jewish families and community leaders played a more
prominent role in the examinations of candidates to protect Jews and the Jewish
communities. With the restoration on the Este family in 1814, the pendulum
swung back and older practices that favored traditional Christian attitudes toward
the Jews reappeared. Pavan recounts several chilling examples of the government
upholding canon law on the forced separation from their families of Jewish children
baptized without parental consent. The Case dei catecumeni faced both political and
economic challenges after the establishment of the Kingdom of Italy that led to
their closure.
The broad chronological sweep of this volume will make it of interest to students of early modern and modern Italy, scholars of Christianity, and historians of
the Jews.
John Carroll University

PAUL V. MURPHY

Orthodox Constructions of the West. Edited by George E. Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou. [Orthodox Christianity and Contemporary Thought.]
(New York: Fordham University Press. 2013. Pp. xii, 365. $125.00 clothbound, ISBN 978-0-8232-5192-6; $35.00 paperback, ISBN 978-0-82325193-3.)
Resulting from a 2010 conference dedicated to historical and theological
aspects of the schism between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, this
volume aims to trace Orthodox constructions of the West through time. It comprises a series of theological, philosophical, social-scientific, and, less so, historical
studies, which lend it a certain degree of welcome interdisciplinarity. Nevertheless,
the focus is primarily on the modern period from the nineteenth century to today.
Some studies are more specialized and focused on one or two thinkers (such as
those on Dumitru Staniloae, Georges Florovsky, Vladimir Lossky, Chrestos Giannaras, and John S. Romanides); others trace the fluid constructions of the West as

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they appear in official pronouncements of churches (for example, the Romanian
and Russian Orthodox Churches) or the thinking of several theologians (such as
Patriarch Dositheos of Jerusalem in the seventeenth century and Russian ecclesiastics who were influenced by Slavophile thinking). Ultimately, the West of the
volume’s title and of the studies is overwhelmingly the Roman Catholic West and
only occasionally the Protestant one. Geographically speaking, the volume covers
primarily Eastern Orthodox thinking as it appeared in the Byzantine and Ottoman
Empires; in modern Greece, Romania, and Russia; and in the Orthodox diaspora
in France and the United States.
There are three themes running through this volume. First is what could be
called Eastern Orthodoxy’s reactiveness with regard to the West. In study after
study it becomes evident that the agenda of any explicit or implicit exchange
(whether polemical or not) has been set by the (mostly Roman Catholic) West,
beginning at least in the fourteenth century and continuing until today. Thus,
whether the topic is papal primacy, the use of Scholasticism in theological analysis,
or, more recently, the imposition of what are seen in some Orthodox countries as
secularizing and dechristianizing measures by the European Union, the Eastern
Orthodox, whether individual thinkers or official churches, have been forced into
formulating a position. They do not appear to have posed the question or to have
initiated the dialogue. The second theme permeating almost all the studies is the
extent to which Western thinking, thinkers, and trends actually influenced the
anti-Western formulations of the Orthodox, be they theologians, philosophers, or
historiosophists. This is clearly seen, for example, in the thought of fourteenthcentury Byzantine admirers of St. Thomas Aquinas, as well as in the output of
Aleksei Khomiakov, Staniloae, Florovsky, Lossky, Giannaras, and Romanides, all
of whom experienced the West personally (directly) or vicariously (indirectly). The
third theme, and one that the editors especially highlight in their very helpful introduction, is that of the hidden and/or implicit common elements in the theological
trajectories of the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic positions on a variety of
topics that are considered fundamental to the split (for example, on papal primacy
or the filioque). Along these lines, as several essays show, it was historical experiences (the Crusades, Western missions, and the advent of forms of modernity and
secularization associated with the West) that largely affected and magnified into
seemingly irreconcilable polemics what under different circumstances would or
could be seen as theological nuances. As Robert Taft shows in a deftly written
essay, the two sides, if they wish to progress on the road to reconciliation, should
distinguish between dogma and theology, and exercise self-criticism and selfrestraint when it comes to understanding the past and present relations of the two
churches. Especially in its coverage of theological issues, the volume assumes substantial prior knowledge of theological debates and thus is mostly addressed to specialists in that field. That said, anyone with an interest in the East-West schism
and new approaches to it from a variety of disciplines will certainly profit from
reading it.
Southern Connecticut State University

NIKOLAOS CHRISSIDIS

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ANCIENT
Christianity in Roman Africa: The Development of Its Practices and Beliefs. By J.
Patout Burns and Robin M. Jensen. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing. 2014. Pp. liii, 670. $55.00. ISBN 978-0-8028-6931-9.)
Early Christianity had a strong and vivacious presence in North Africa, and its
most famous theologians exercised a fundamental influence in the formation of the
Western Catholic tradition. The Islamic conquest of the region in the seventh century ended this period and contributed to Africa’s unique history among the former
Western provinces of the Roman Empire, for contrary to the Iberian Peninsula,
Christians never regained the upper hand in the Maghreb. Unsurprisingly, as a
residual effect of France’s colonial presence, French academics have long dominated scholarship on Christian North Africa. In recent decades, however, a flurry
of publications on late-antique North Africa in English and German has eroded
this quasi-monopoly. The work under review continues this trend and thus participates in a healthy internationalization of the field. In engaging with past French
scholarship and deploying both archaeological and literary evidence for an English
readership, it fills an important gap in current scholarship.
This collaborative book is an impressive work of synthesis covering all major
topics of relevance to understanding the daily lives of North African Christians in
the first seven centuries of their history. Three historical chapters provide the larger
framework within which to understand the period (up to Diocletian, Constantine
to the Vandals, and Vandals and Byzantines) and a fourth chapter summarizes
archaeological findings that can illuminate this history. A hundred and fifty-three
high-quality color plates (grouped together in the middle of the book) accompany
the archaeological discussion, all judicious selections of architectural plans, building
remains, inscriptions, significant architectural details (such as reliquaries, baptismal
fonts, tombs, and stone benches for the clergy in the nave), and the evocative
mosaics for which Christian Africa is known. The bulk of the book documents fundamental aspects of Christian life: baptism (chapter 5); “The Celebration of Word
and Eucharist” (chapter 6); the treatment of sinners (chapter 7); the clergy (chapter
8); “Marriage, Virginity, and Widowhood” (chapter 9); “Death and Burial” (chapter 10); “The Cult of the Martyrs” (chapter 11); and praying, fasting, and almsgiving (chapter 12). The authors’ method consists in presenting evidence on each topic
from Tertullian, St. Cyprian, and St. Augustine, which they take as representative
of the second, third, and late-fourth and early-fifth centuries, respectively. Each
chapter concludes with brief sections of “Correlation of Archaeological and Literary Evidence,” unfortunately too often less than a page in length, and “Correlation
of Theology and Practice.” A final chapter on “The Church and Its Holiness,”
which also includes sections on the “Donatist” Tyconius and Optatus of Milevis,
concludes the book.
The volume is a mine of information on a wide variety of historical, theological, and archaeological topics. It conjures images of what the life of Christians

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must have been in North Africa in this period. The thematic organization of the
core chapters, which allows a clear presentation of change over time for each topic,
is one of the book’s strengths. Chapter 6, for example, shows clear evidence for the
transformation of the evening “love feast” (agapē) into a morning Eucharistic ritual
during Tertullian’s time, which had become customary by Cyprian’s bishopric. The
downside is the repetitions that this thematic organization causes, in the presentation of each topic’s historical context, for instance. This might betray the assumption that few will read the book from cover to cover and that its authors intended
it as a work of reference on these specific topics. Another strength of the book is
its meticulous documentation from the three great African writers, although the
use of parenthetical references for the thousands of short references to abbreviated
titles of their works might have alleviated it. It will undoubtedly prove an invaluable
work of reference for students of any of the three African tenors or of the multiple
topics covered in this book.
The focus on the three great writers, however, causes a disproportion in the
chronological coverage of the book as whole, particularly considering the scope
covered in the first three historical chapters. Indeed, although these chapters take
the narrative up to the Islamic conquests of the seventh century, the thematic chapters that form the core of the book rarely venture beyond Augustine’s death. This
is a puzzling feature of the work, especially in light of chapter 3, which aptly covered the Vandal and Byzantine periods. Even if the documentation for these later
centuries is slimmer and less satisfactory, why not at least present what we know on
each topic for chapters 5 through 12? This neglect of the fifth and sixth centuries
occasionally leads to problematic claims, such as the following from chapter 5, on
baptism: “Nor is there reason to believe that Vandals required the repetition of the
ritual as Donatists did” (p. 104). This contradicts a statement made earlier in the
book that “conversions to Arianism were sought—often coerced—and included
rebaptism” (p. 70) and that Victor of Vita attests clearly (3.45–52).
Despite this limitation, Burns and Jensen have nevertheless produced an
important work that will be extremely useful to all scholars of late-antique North
Africa and early Christianity. Its integration of archaeological remains alongside
literary evidence is particularly noteworthy and valuable.
West Chester University of Pennsylvania

ÉRIC FOURNIER

The Early Byzantine Christian Church: An Archaeological Re-assessment of FortySeven Early Byzantine Basilical Church Excavations Primarily in Israel and
Jordan, and Their Historical and Liturgical Context. By Bernard Mulholland.
[Byzantine and Neohellenic Studies, Vol. 9.] (Bern: Peter Lang. 2014. Pp.
xvi, 229. $67.95. ISBN 978-3-0343-1709-2.)
There are more early Byzantine basilicas that are archaeologically well-documented than we generally acknowledge, and we have only begun to mine this rich
corpus for what it might reveal. These are two important takeaway points from

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Bernard Mulholland’s new monograph. The author draws particular attention to
the potential of artifactual analysis—studying the types and patterns of deposition
of the “stuff” found within church walls, from pots to items of personal adornment—to enrich our understanding of the complexities of ecclesiastical space.
Mulholland has identified, for example, twenty-five churches from which domestic
artifacts have been recovered, preserved under sealed destruction layers caused
either by fire or earthquake (p. 30). This is an exciting body of material, the potential of which the present volume begins to explore.
The specific questions posed by the book of the assembled evidence are threefold: What typological patterns of sanctuary configurations do the buildings fall
into? What might these tell us about the location of the diakonikon in the early
Byzantine period? And does archaeological evidence support or refute the view that
the sexes were segregated in early Byzantine basilicas? Mulholland addresses each
of these issues in turn, although the terms of the discussion, especially in the case
of the first two questions, remain narrowly technical rather than expanding into a
sustained discussion of the larger significance of the findings (such as that pertaining to our understanding of relationships among liturgy, experience, and architectural form, of geographical patterns, or of historical change). In the case of the third
issue, Mulholland concludes that “archaeological evidence does not support the
accepted view that the sexes are segregated in church” (p. 163). It is important to
note, however, that the archaeological evidence presented by the author does not
convincingly refute it either.
The author admirably aims for methodological transparency; however, a
number of questions and concerns remain. Although chapters usefully compile and
tabulate data, they rarely enter into scrutiny of details from any given church, none
of which is reproduced in plans or images, and the full catalog of sites and artifacts
is available only on the disc that accompanied the original thesis (from Queen’s
University Belfast, 2011). The composition of the corpus is also enigmatic. For
example, the justification is not convincing for the inclusion of a handful of basilicas outside the Levant—there are three in Italy, one in Croatia, three in Bulgaria,
one each in Egypt and the Sudan, although none from Turkey, Greece, Syria,
Lebanon, or Byzantine North Africa—in a study that is primarily about early
churches in Israel and Jordan (which account for thirty-eight of the forty-seven
sites surveyed). As a result, the corpus seems both too large and too small. By
including a selection, yet only a small selection, of basilicas that are both geographically, and in some cases also chronologically, distinct from the Israeli-Jordanian
majority, it becomes difficult to discern what the conclusions represent since they
are neither closely regionally specific nor broadly comparative. For example, readers
will understandably question the value of the evidence of the ninth- to twelfth-century burials from Mola di Monte Gelato in Italy (p. 153) for understanding gendered spaces in early Byzantine churches. In addition, more sustained discussion of
the limits of and methodological approaches to the archaeological evidence would
have been desirable. For this, one need not start from scratch. For example, the discussion of which chamber should be understood as the diakonikon and the analysis

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of archaeological artifacts for evidence of gendered spaces could have benefited
from recent scholarship tackling similar questions in Roman domestic spaces.
University of Southern California

ANN MARIE YASIN

The Bishop of Rome in Late Antiquity. Edited by Geoffrey D. Dunn. (Burlington,
VT: Ashgate Publishing. 2015. Pp. xi, 273. $124.95. ISBN 978-1-47245552-9.)
The eleven essays that compose this volume on the role of the bishop of
Rome, edited by Geoffrey Dunn, are a valuable contribution to the continuing discussion on the breadth and depth of the Roman bishop’s authority. In the introduction, Dunn acknowledges that the book does not seek to present a coherent
opinion but rather to offer a wide range of perspectives and methods while examining the influence of the Roman bishop both inside the city and in the provinces.
This volume provides a continuum of historiographical approaches.
The text is divided into three parts, partitioned by century rather than theme
or methodology. The first section on the fourth century contains articles by George
Thompson, Christian Hornung, and Alberto Ferreiro who all argue that the bishop
of Rome was gaining extensive authority both within and outside Rome. This
group of scholars presents a view of the bishop running counter to recent scholarly
work that seeks to incorporate cultural theory in undermining the teleological
approach to understanding the bishop. Within this first section of the book, in
contrast, Marianne Sághy offers a look at the local politics of Damasus’s bishopric
and largely reprises her earlier work on the subject.
The second group of essays features articles by Dunn, Michele Salzman,
Philippe Blaudeau, George Demacopoulos, and Bronwen Neil. Dunn calls for a
regional consideration of the bishop’s power as he analyzes Pope Innocent I’s letter
to the Synod of Toledo. Dunn opposes the suggestions by Hornung, Ferreiro, and
Thompson, arguing that there is little evidence for a claim to Petrine primacy, at
least when one looks carefully at the sources in Spain. Salzmann offers a refreshing
look at the relationship between Pope Leo I and Prosper of Aquitaine, suggesting
that Leo’s administration was far more disorganized than is often assumed and that
there is little reason to believe that Leo did not compose his own works. Rather,
she suggests that Prosper’s role was instrumental in boosting Leo’s local legitimacy
through his aristocratic caché, especially when Leo was confronted with independent attempts by local elites to claim property. Blaudeau argues that editors of the
Liber Pontificalis sought to challenge Eastern influences particularly in relation to
the Acacian schism. Demacopoulos argues compellingly that St. Gelasius’s assertion of papal primacy in the Ad Anastasium was a rhetorical strategy employed out
of frustration with his waning efficacy with local clergy. Demacopoulos and Salzmann together represent the continuation of the discussion started by Cooper and
Hillner’s edited volume on patronage in the city of Rome, and they offer a contrast
to the perspectives presented earlier in the book by Thompson, Hornung, and Fer-

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reiro. Finally, Neil carefully analyzes the epistles of Gelasius, presenting possible
African origins for his leadership style.
Dominic Moreau and Christopher Hanlon offer the only articles on the sixth
century in this volume. Moreau locates the conflicts around the double election of
Boniface II and Dioscorus of 530 in the theological controversies of the East and
the competition between the Ostrogoths and Byzantines during the Laurentian
Schism. Hanlon analyzes the letters of Pope Gregory the Great to the Sicilians and
paints him as an intervening bishop seeking to oversee local Sicilian administration.
The volume is recommended for specialists and more general scholars of the history
of Christianity, as it makes a concerted effort to present a spectrum of perspectives
on the role of the bishop in Rome in late antiquity.
Emporia State University
Emporia, KS

KATE BLAIR-DIXON

The Correspondence of Pope Julius I. Translation and commentary by Glen L.
Thompson. [Library of Early Christianity, Vol. 3.] (Washington, DC: The
Catholic University of America Press. 2015. Pp. cvi, 259. $39.95. ISBN 9780-813-227-078.)
Julius of Rome is a figure about whom we would wish to know more. Presiding
over the Roman see in the crucial years that followed the death of Constantine the
Great, Julius was the friend and supporter of Athanasius of Alexandria and Marcellus of Ancyra during their exile in the west and was the first Roman prelate to play
a major role in the so-called “Arian” theological controversies. In this excellent contribution to the Library of Early Christianity series, Glen L. Thompson has performed an essential service in providing the first modern edition and translation of
Julius’s correspondence with extensive prefaces and notation. The complex problems
of textual transmission and false attribution are laid out clearly in the general introduction, with the manuscript descriptions and the numerous pseudonymous works
falsely associated with Julius’s name conveniently catalogued in two extensive appendices. The six surviving letters are then presented in chronological order with facing
text and translation: Julius’s letters to the Eastern bishops at Antioch (II) and to the
Alexandrian church (V); as well as the letters to Julius from Marcellus of Ancyra (I),
from Hosius of Cordova and Protogenes of Sardica (III), from the Western council
of Sardica (IV), and from Valens of Mursa and Ursacius of Singidunum (VI).
These six letters offer a unique insight into the conflicts dividing the Christian
Church in the late 330s and 340s and their impact on the see of Rome. Athanasius
and Marcellus, exiled to the West following their condemnation by repeated Eastern councils, both appealed successfully to Julius for support. Julius’s reception of
the exiles, and his insistence in his letter to the Eastern bishops in 341 upon his
authority as the bishop of Rome to do so, led directly to the disputes that culminated in the abortive council of Sardica in 343, where the estranged Eastern and
Western delegations were reduced to holding separate synods for mutual denunci-

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ation. Yet Julius’s claims to authority were accepted by the Western bishops gathered at Sardica, as we see acknowledged in the letters that Julius received from
those bishops and in the canons issued by the Western council of Sardica, which
were frequently cited in later papal arguments. Julius rejoiced in Athanasius’s eventual return to Alexandria in 346 and not long afterward received the short-lived
repentance of Athanasius’s old enemies Valens and Ursacius.
There are, inevitably, questions raised by these letters that might have received
more in-depth exploration than Thompson’s short commentaries permit. The theological issues under debate in this period demand more careful treatment, whereas
the complex relationships between Julius, Athanasius, and Marcellus still divide
scholarly opinion today just as they divided the contemporary Church. Julius’s characterization of the Eastern opponents of Athanasius and Marcellus as a small hostile
faction (“the Eusebians,” named after Eusebius of Nicomedia-Constantinople) followed the polemic of his new allies and ignored the legitimate claim of that alleged
“faction” to represent a considerable majority within the wider Eastern Church. Nor
did the Eastern bishops recognize Julius’s self-proclaimed right to re-examine their
conciliar verdicts, which remained a matter of contention for centuries to come. All
these questions are touched upon in Thompson’s introductions and notes, however,
and further arguments would have far exceeded the remit for his volume.
Thompson has earned the gratitude of scholars and students alike. He has
produced a work that is both valuable in itself and will, it is hoped, draw new attention to Julius of Rome and his crucial and yet often neglected role in the history of
the papacy and of the fourth-century Christian Roman Empire.
Royal Holloway, University of London

DAVID M. GWYNN

Two Early Lives of Severos, Patriarch of Antioch. Translated with an introduction
and notes by Sebastian Brock and Brian Fitzgerald. [Translated Texts for Historians, Vol. 59.] (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press; distrib. University of
Chicago Press. 2013. Pp. xii, 175. $34.95 paperback. ISBN 978-1-84631882-5.)
“The Life of Severus” by Zacharias Scholasticus and the “Life of Severus” traditionally attributed to John of Beth Aphthonia and here translated into English
for the first time are possibly the two most important documents not only for the
historical events linked to Severus of Antioch (c. 465–538 AD) but also, given the
patriarch’s historical importance, for the history of the late Roman empire and the
Christian Church in the Orient at the turn of the sixth century. Zacharias, a friend
and a fellow student of Severus in Alexandria and Beirut, wrote his work in reaction
to a pamphlet that accused Severus of participating in pagan sacrifices as a student.
His openly apologetic narrative goes from the family origins of Severus up to his
ordination as Patriarch of Antioch in 512. The anonymous “Life,” composed
immediately after the death of the patriarch, drew on Zacharias’s work for the early
years of Severus, taking the narrative up to Severus’s death and the miraculous

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events surrounding his burial. The task of translating and introducing the texts has
been divided between the two editors: Sebastian Brock has translated and commented on the “Life of Severus” of Zacharias and has written the sections of the
introduction dealing with Severus and Zacharias. Brian Fitzgerald is responsible for
the later “Life of Severus” as well as for the relevant section in the introduction.
The concise but highly informative introduction gives an outline of the life of
Severus based upon all the available sources and clarifies the question of his pagan
origins through a synoptical presentation of both the Syriac and almost contradictory Coptic redactions of the famous section from the second Cathedral homily in
which Severus mentions his life before baptism (pp. 2–3). It adds further details on
Severus’s escape from Antioch gathered from still unpublished material (p. 6n15).
A sketch of the main theological issues of the time (pp. 9–11) and a list of the biographical materials for the life of Severus (pp. 11–15) provide the reader with clear
and useful guidance through a very complex matter and otherwise rather scattered
documents. The last sections of the introduction deal with the two translated documents, presenting the two authors and their writings. Brock analyzes all the evidence about Zacharias and both highlights and assesses his apologetic intentions in
writing about the “manner of life” of Severus. Zacharias, for instance, never openly
denies the pagan origins of Severus but subtly allows the reader to believe that
Severus came from a Christian background (pp. 15–23). Fitzgerald discusses the
various theories about the authorship of the other “Life” and convincingly argues
that the traditional attribution to John of Beth Aphthonia cannot be accepted
because of the literary unity of the work, which hints at one single author, and the
fact that the death of John is related in the text. Given the unlikelihood of the alternative hypothesis, it is best to ascribe the biography to an anonymous monk at the
monastery of John (pp. 24–29).
The extensive annotations that accompany the translations, along with the
two maps of Syria and Lebanon and of Anatolia (pp. x–xi), the glossary of important names and words (pp. 140–44), the appendix with the list of the bishops of the
main sees (pp. 144–47), the bibliography (pp. 148–59) and the indexes (of names,
pp. 160–68; Greek words, pp. 169–72; and biblical references, pp. 173–75) make
this edition a most welcome instrument for anyone interested not only in Severus
but also in the history of the Church and its theology in late antiquity.
RENÉ ROUX

University of Urfurt

MEDIEVAL
Lectio Divina: The Medieval Experience of Reading. By Duncan Robertson. [Cistercian Studies, Vol. 238.] (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press. 2011. Pp. xxi,
247. $34.95 paperback. ISBN 978-0-87907-238-4.)
Lectio Divina, a meditative, ruminative form of reading that linked study,
prayer, and textual interpretation, was a hallmark of medieval monastic culture,

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taught and practiced by all of the greatest authors of the Christian Middle Ages. In
this insightful book, Duncan Robertson argues that Lectio Divina was even more
than a monastic practice—namely, a standard of medieval literary culture in general
before the rise of Scholasticism. He makes a plea for modern readers to rediscover
the energy and sense of community inherent in this way of reading, so as to bring
back something lost to modern readers: “a fullness of active, affective, intellectual,
and creative literary participation” (p. 233).
Robertson structures his study as a largely chronological investigation of the
development of Lectio Divina between the early monastic movement of the fourth
century and about 1200, when he sees the rise of Scholasticism eclipsing monastic
literary practices. He touches on the usual suspects: Origen of Alexandria, St.
Augustine of Hippo, St. Jerome, John Cassian, St. Benedict of Nursia, St. Gregory
the Great, the Venerable Bede, St. Anselm of Canterbury, John of Fécamp, and St.
Bernard of Clairvaux but also gives excellent snapshots of lesser known authors
such as the Carolingian author Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel (pp. 113–18). His readings of Gregory (pp. 57–71) and Bernard (pp. 175–202) are particularly sensitive.
One might question Robertson’s decision that the tradition of Lecto Divina ends
after the twelfth century, since he makes passing reference to later vernacular
instances in authors such as Richard Rolle (p. 202), and since, as Alastair Minnis
has shown, the boundaries between forms of “monastic” and “scholastic” literary
activity were actually rather fluid in the later Middle Ages, especially in relation to
biblical exegesis.
But what makes Robertson’s study especially original is his linking of Lectio
Divina to two movements of modern scholarship. First, to set a context for modern
study of medieval monastic authors, Robertson discusses the twentieth-century
francophone ressourcement medievalists such as Jean Lerclecq and Henri de Lubac
(pp. 1–26), ending this discussion with a link to twentieth-century literary critics of
the reader-response movement (pp. 27–37). Robertson feels strongly that twentieth-century New Critical/Formalist thinkers left us an “imprisoned” literary text,
an inert object; but that a reader-response approach has the ability to bring a literary text, even the most hermetic and complicated text, to life again. This is the ultimate value of understanding Lectio Divina, Robertson argues, that it can actually
help modern readers to love literature again.
Not many studies of medieval literature have the goal of holding up a medieval
practice for the benefit of modern readers, but Robertson makes an earnest and
plausible argument for understanding Lectio Divina as a literary method every bit
as insightful as that of the latest literary critics. It is a fascinating thesis, especially
as we are entering an age in which the very meaning of reading and writing are
being questioned by new technologies and formats. This book, therefore, will be of
interest to modern literary critics and those interested in technologies of literacy as
well as historians of Christian spirituality and monastic practice.
University of Pennsylvania

E. ANN MATTER

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Motherhood, Religion, and Society in Medieval Europe, 400–1400: Essays Presented to
Henrietta Leyser. Edited by Conrad Leyser and Lesley Smith. [Church, Faith,
and Culture in the Medieval West.] (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing.
2012. Pp. xvii, 369. $149.95. ISBN 978-1-409-4315-9.)
Medieval motherhood is not perhaps quite such a neglected topic as the editors of this volume claim. Nonetheless, a collection devoted to it is very welcome,
not least one dedicated to Henrietta Leyser, whose own work on medieval women
remains a constant inspiration. The preface highlights the paradox of medieval
motherhood—power and vulnerability—and the themes of the volume: survival
(meaning recovery history, mortality, and loss), social agency (preparing children
for life, the fight for property rights, maternal protection, and—more rarely, at least
in the sources—rejection), and institutionalization (detaching the concept of motherhood from biological mothers). The collection is overtly social history, but its editors—if not all its authors—are also concerned with motherhood and its paradoxes
in the context of Christian discourse and practice.
It is a truism of medieval motherhood (and fatherhood, for that matter) that
we see it largely through the eyes of adult, male clerics. Kate Cooper’s excellent
consideration of St. Augustine and Monica warns how far our Monica is Augustine’s mother: not only idealized but also a vehicle for thinking through his own
development and particularly his route to God. Augustine and his Monica, became
in turn models for later clerical (self-)reflection—as Brian McGuire notes—for
twelfth-century celibates like Guibert, St. Bernard, or St. Anselm. That renewed
significance raises questions about the intervening centuries. The twelfth century
saw a return to adult choice of the religious life; did that breathe new life into the
Augustine/Monica story, while child oblation of the early Middle Ages had little
space or need for it? A history of parenting in hagiographical texts would make
interesting reading, although it would tell us less about flesh-and-blood mothers
than we might expect.
Its picture of mothers and daughters also might be different, given Christina
of Markyate’s conflicts with her mother over her vocation. Mothers and daughters
are an especially elusive topic, given the nature of the sources. Augustine’s sister is
completely lost to history, as is his elder brother—although, as Cooper reminds us,
it was this son who was at Monica’s deathbed. Sethina Watson shows us the development of three hospitals as Augustinian—and thus more liturgical—foundations,
through the lens of maternal response to the deaths of children. Maternal inheritance is here presented as more flexible, motherhood and its griefs as transcending
the lifecycle. But in all three cases, all male children had died. Mothers of daughters
alone may have had other priorities and, as Jocelyn Wogan-Browne reveals, different attitudes to property and its inheritance. By the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the picture of St. Anne teaching Mary became common, although, as
Michael Clanchy notes, that does not accord with the apocryphal gospel’s account
of Mary’s childhood. The image reflects new social contexts, new maternal voices
that can now be heard. But, as Clanchy warns, the image may also have Dominican

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resonances. Mothers and daughters require far more attention. But, as with sons,
interpretation will need to be cautious.
The reader of this volume will find a series of “‘specific interventions”: Birgitta
of Sweden becoming Mary giving birth, her whole ministry conceived as rebirthing
(Samuel Fanous); exegesis of the Fourth Commandment revealed as allegorical,
number obsessed, but always relating to adult children and elderly parents (Lesley
Smith); a rare Anglo-Norman vernacular medical text, discussed and edited, which
allows for men’s as well as women’s responsibility for infertility (Monica Green
and Tony Hunt); the harshness of London Lawbooks’ treatment of mothers and
guardianship belied by practice (Caroline Barron and Claire Martin); and a ninthcentury mother, Dhuoda, whose knowledge of the Psalter was so subtle that she
could use it to instruct her son and also attempt to allay anxieties it might produce
in him (Jinty Nelson). There are two brave attempts at longer-term, wider-ranging
comparisons and contextual development: Conrad Leyser on Marian devotion and
motherhood, and Mark Whittow on motherhood and power—an East/West comparison to illuminate Empress Eirene. Much in the narratives of social change in
both could be questioned, but the value of such essays lies precisely in the bigger
questions they demand.
The volume ends on a nicely ambiguous note with Wogan-Browne’s Joan de
Mohun: a mother whose production only of daughters prompted a rewriting of history to include a founding female heiress. She was a woman whose commitment to
her children was real, but she used her widowhood for her own ends. This presents
a picture not of maternal self-sacrifice but of the agency of widowhood. Joan is a
final reminder of the specificity of motherhood alongside its continuing patterns,
but also that “mother” is only one face of female identity.
University of Liverpool

PAULINE STAFFORD

Envisioning Christ on the Cross: Ireland and the Early Medieval West. Edited by Juliet
Mullins, Jenifer Ní Ghrádaigh, and Richard Hawtree. (Dublin: Four Courts
Press; distrib. ISBS, Portland, OR. 2013. Pp. xiv, 370. $74.50. ISBN 9781-84682-387-0.)
The cross has long been the prime symbol of Christianity; yet this was not
always so. Early Christians, especially during persecution, generally favored cryptic
symbols such as the anchor, the dove, the chrismon or chi-rho, and the fish—the
ichthys symbol, created by combining the Greek letters ΙΧΘΥΣ in a
backronym/acrostic that translates as “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.” With
Constantine’s vision of the cross and his mother’s amateur archaeological discovery
of its burial place, the instrument of torture became (as the Dream of the Rood so
movingly relates) the crux gemmata—bejeweled symbol of salvation.
Crucifixion iconography does occur in early Christian art, including the earliest dated illuminated manuscript, the Syriac Rabbula Gospels of 586, but its rise in
popularity stems from the Monothelete controversy, which caused schisms in the

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Christian Orient and spread to the West, contributing to Pope Gregory the Great’s
decision to help evangelize the Anglo-Saxons and to subsequent attempts to draw
the British and Columban churches into the international Orthodoxy of Chalcedon. The Synod of Whitby (664), with its focus upon the dating of Easter, was
not merely an Insular affair but also part of international church politics. The Sixth
Ecumenical Council, held in Constantinople in 681 (and preceded by the council
in Hatfield in 679), proclaimed that the divine and human wills were united in
Christ who, being incorruptible, never conflicted with the divine will, his incorruptibility stemming from his conception from the Virgin by the Holy Spirit.
Iconographies of the Virgin and of the cross, symbolizing the key moments of conception, redemption, and integration of the wills, thereafter assumed wider popularity in Eastern art, rapidly pervading the West.
There has been much recent scholarship on the subject and the editors of the
volume under review have done a fine job in assembling contributions that range
across Europe from fifth-century Rome to twelfth-century Parma. As the volume’s
title indicates, its primary purpose is to situate the contribution of early-medieval
Ireland in establishing the iconic status of the cross and in exploring its spiritual,
exegetical, liturgical, and aesthetic potential. Two aspects of this sweeping task
underpin the volume: “God Hanging from a Cross” and “Contemplate the
Wounds of the Crucified.” The first section examines the mystery of God’s divinity
revealed upon the cross and the second his humanity, expressed through his suffering and the tradition of affective piety. This tradition is traced back beyond its usual
association with Ss. Anselm and Bernard of Clairvaux to Augustine of Hippo, blurring the traditional distinction between an emotive, empathetic Romanesque
response and an earlier Insular emphasis upon Christ’s triumph on the cross and
integrating what has often been romanticized and misrepresented as a distinctive
“Celtic” contribution into the mainstream.
In a series of excellent, nuanced contributions the development of Crucifixion
iconography is examined in the first section (Felicity Hartley McGowan on the
Greco-Roman background to early Christian iconographies; Jennifer O’Reilly on
the exegetical interpretation of Insular manuscript iconography; Carol Neuman de
Vegvar on numerological symbolism and the wounds of Christ; César García de
Castro Valdés on the function and iconography of the cross in Asturia; Hawtree on
the conflation of Insular and Carolingian thought in Eriugena’s Carmina, Louis
van Tongeren, Beatrice Kitzinger, and Cellia Chazelle on aspects of the liturgical
framing and reception of teaching on the significance of the cross). In an equally
impressive second section the interaction of text and image in prompting those
contemplating Christ on the cross to inwardly reflect on their salvation is discussed
(Mullins on the Middle Irish material in the Leabhar Breac; Elizabeth Boyle on
Echtgus Úa Cúanáin’s eucharistic treatise and its relationship to the work of
authors such as Lanfranc; Michele Bacci on the Volto Santo; Jordi Camps I Soria
on Catalan majestats). Irish imagery on the high crosses (Ní Ghrádaigh) and Crucifixion plaques (Griffin Murray) reinforces the contextualization within the European Romanesque as expressed in the Anglo-Norman Trinitarian doctrine

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expressed in the frescoes at Houghton-on-the-hill, Norfolk (John Munns); in the
croci depinte of southern Italy (Katharina Christa Schüppel); and in Antelami’s
Parma Deposition (Elizabeth C. Parker).
University of London (Emerita)

MICHELLE P. BROWN

The Divine Office in Anglo-Saxon England, 597–c. 1000. By Jesse D. Billett. [Henry
Bradshaw Society, Subsidia 7.] (London: Boydell Press, for the Henry Bradshaw Society. 2014. Pp. xxii, 463. $99.00. ISBN 978-1-90749-728-5.)
Historians have sometimes lamented that evidence for the liturgy of the
Divine Office as performed in early-medieval England is so meager. This received
wisdom has, one suspects, also discouraged attempts to piece together the clues that
do happen to survive. As the author of this splendid monograph shows, both the
quantity of relevant material and the coherence of the picture that it forms are
greater than has often been perceived. Much more can in fact be said about the
Office liturgy in England prior to 1000 AD, and Jesse D. Billett says it with
impressive learning and clarity.
The book has two main parts. First (chapters 1–5) comes an external history
of the Divine Office in Anglo-Saxon England drawn from references, often brief
and vague, in saints’ lives, chronicles, wills, charters, and other nonliturgical
sources. This survey proceeds chronologically, with chapters devoted to the preViking-Age Church, the Viking Age through the beginning of the tenth century,
and the later tenth-century period associated with the rise of “Benedictine reform.”
Although it is hard not to be a little disappointed that Billett’s historical narrative
ends around the year 1000, his reasons (stated on p. xi) for not wading into the
more abundant but often still unedited sources from the eleventh century are
understandable. The second part of the study (chapters 7–9) offers a close investigation of four manuscript witnesses to the tenth-century English Office chant
repertory, preceded by a wonderfully concise, lucid essay (chapter 6) on the
methodological difficulties in comparative analyses of such material. The book
concludes with a series of appendices offering transcriptions of hitherto unprinted
liturgical matter from the manuscript fragments discussed in chapters 8 and 9.
Both parts of the book support the foremost of Billett’s conclusions—namely,
that the form of the Divine Office now familiarly labeled the “Roman” or “secular
use” was probably the only one performed in England down until the second half
of the tenth century. Although much local variety pertained, and although the Rule
of Benedict was certainly known and respected in England from an early date, there
is no good evidence that the distinctively “monastic” form of the Office prescribed
by the Rule was adopted in any English minster before the rise of the Benedictine
reformers. Even then, as Billett convincingly argues from both external and liturgical evidence, implementation of the Benedictine cursus was by no means immediate or easy. Rather, in England, as elsewhere, “Benedictinizing” the Office often
involved, at first, the ad hoc alteration and supplementing of available secular

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Office chant books. The processes by which this was done, and the degree to which
earlier traditions were suppressed, varied considerably from one place to the next,
with the reformers themselves appearing to have taken differing approaches.
Although it acknowledges that there is much we may never know about the
content of the Office in Anglo-Saxon England, Billett’s careful book sheds new
light on an important topic. Above all, his study complements other recent work
that has productively complicated our views of what it meant to be “monastic” in
England down to and, in many places, well beyond the tenth-century reforms.
Consequently, this is a book not only for specialists in liturgical history but also for
anyone interested in the varieties of Anglo-Saxon religious life. Because Billett
writes so accessibly about even the most technical aspects of his subject, the results
of his important research should reach a wide audience.
Ohio State University

CHRISTOPHER A. JONES

Der Pontifikat Gregors IV. (827–844): Vorstellung und Wahrnehmung päpstlichen
Handelns im 9. Jahrhundert. By Cornelia Scherer. [Päpste und Papsttum, Band
42.] (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann Verlag. 2013. Pp. xvi, 345. €158,00. ISBN
978-3-7772-1308-8.)
Few monographs treat early-medieval popes because the sources rarely permit
separate treatment of a single man or reign. Alert to this issue, Sherer chooses to
focus on conceptions and perceptions of both Pope Gregory IV and the papacy in
his time. Most historians know Gregory because of his unfortunate journey to
Francia during the rebellion of Louis the Pious’s sons. Scherer rightly says that one
event should not be allowed to define a seventeen-year pontificate. She devotes
substantial chapters to Gregory as bishop of Rome, his dealings with the church in
Italy, his relations with the Frankish rulers, and his dealings with the world beyond
Rome. First, she looks carefully at the sources. Her aim is not to generate a biographical picture of Gregory; this cannot be done. She explores how various sources
perceived Gregory and the papacy. She is especially attentive to the audience
addressed by various writers, the dissemination of texts, and the manuscripts containing any particular text. Second, with learning and courtesy she engages in a
continuous dialogue with the historians who have worked on the papacy in this
period. She reaches back to older writers such as Johannes Haller but focuses primarily on Egon Boshof, Philippe Depreux, Johannes Fried, Klaus Herbers (her
Doktorvater), Jörg Jarnut, and this reviewer.
Gregory can be known best as bishop of Rome; accordingly, Scherer studies
liturgy, rulership, pastoral duties, and construction/donation records. She reads the
Liber Pontificalis very carefully alongside letters, coins, inscriptions, and mosaics
(especially the one installed by Gregory in San Marco where he had been title
priest). The Pactum Hludowicianum (817) and Consitutio Romana (824) provided
the political and legal framework within which Gregory worked. Although this
reviewer made this point thirty years ago, it has been denied by scholars such as
Marios Costambeys. Gregory showed concern for churches all over the city but

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rarely for churches outside the walls. Scherer offers meticulous statistical analyses
of Gregory’s fifteen construction projects and sixty-nine donations, but she cannot
explain Rome’s evidently abundant resources. Roman sources offer keen insights on
the pope in his local setting but never reach beyond the city. For instance, the Liber
Pontificalis does not mention Gregory’s trip to Francia. Roman sources perceive the
pope as the local bishop.
Scherer then turns to Gregory’s activities in Italy. These were limited to isolated dealings with Farfa, Ravenna, Naples, Gaeta, and Aquileia-Grado. No clear
patterns emerge, and the Italian scene provides no opportunities to assess papal
authority or influence.
Scherer’s lengthy chapter on Gregory and the Frankish rulers is careful. Of
particular note are her close reading of the Frankish sources and definitive analysis
of the letters written by Gregory to the Frankish bishops on the affairs of Louis the
Pious and Bishop Aldric of Le Mans. What emerges is a sharp sense of the prestige
attached to papal authority.
Gregory had no official dealings with Byzantium or with any area of the West
except Francia. Where the latter is concerned, the best “evidence” is a series of
forged monastic privileges. These documents perceive the pope as guardian and
protector not only of the true faith but also of basic rights.
In the end, Gregory’s dealings with Francia always proceeded on the basis of
Frankish initiative. Scherer argues that the “Rise of the Papacy” did not follow the
collapse of the Carolingians but occurred in the dynasty’s great days and was largely
a Frankish, not a Roman, impulse. In her beautifully written and tightly argued
book Scherer makes dozens of astute observations. One must read the book to
appreciate these.
University of Notre Dame

THOMAS F. X. NOBLE

John the Baptist’s Prayer or The Descent into Hell from the Exeter Book: Text,
Translation and Critical Study. By M. R. Rambaran-Olm. [Anglo-Saxon
Studies 21.] (Rochester, NY: D. S. Brewer, an imprint of Boydell & Brewer.
2014. Pp. ix, 249. $99.00. ISBN 978-1-84384-366-5.)
M. R. Rambaran-Olm’s edition and study of the Old English Descent into Hell
is the first full edition and discussion of this important poem from the Exeter Book.
This is an intelligent and interesting discussion and presentation of this poem. The
book is approximately 250 pages long, and the poem as transcribed and edited from
the Exeter Book is approximately 122 lines long, a bibliographical fact that gives
some sense of the scope of this edition.
This new edition includes an introduction, followed by chapters on “Paleography, Codicology and Language”; “The Descensus Motif”; “Literary Analysis,” and
“Selected Comparative Studies and Analogous Literature.” The volume ends with an
afterword, as well as a text, translation of, and commentary on The Descent into Hell.

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One immediate point about this study concerns the presumed audience. Rambaran-Olm devotes a substantial amount of space to outlining the development and
significance of the Descent into Hell/Harrowing of Hell theme in the context of
early-medieval Christian thought and provides an appendix in which she lists various authorities who expressed opinions about and definitions of this “event” in the
history of salvation. Although a book about an Old English poem can presume that
the students and scholars who consult it already know about the Descensus or can
consult the usual handbooks or encyclopedias to confirm their knowledge of it, it
is convenient to have this information gathered, and relatively few students will
pick up this edition with a firm knowledge of the development of the Descensus
theme in the early Church. Thus the extended discussion of this theme will be convenient for students, and those scholars who have studied this material in other
contexts can pass over those chapters that summarize this material. One must
observe, however, that a comment such as “Rabanus Maurus states the Descent in
a matter-of-fact way” (p. 196) is hardly very useful even though the exact reference
is convenient. The Descent is a clause in the Creed after all.
One major theme of this new study is that Rambaran-Olm feels that the traditional title of this poem The Descent into Hell does not adequately describe it and
proposes a new title: John the Baptist’s Prayer. There are, however, two problems
with the new title. First, most of the narrative of the poem and the various speeches
take place in “hell” or some more vaguely defined realm of the dead. The setting of
the poem is important, and the newly proposed title does not indicate anything
about the locus of the poem. More important is the problem with bibliographies
and similar handbooks. Specialists in Old English can learn new titles easily
enough, but a scholar whose primary interest is in Middle High German, Old
French, or even Middle English (and such scholars might well be interested in this
poem) would find it confusing and frustrating that “John the Baptist’s Prayer” and
“The Descent into Hell” are the same poem.
One pleasure of a new fully annotated edition of a poem like this is that it
becomes much easier to re-examine and debate the editor’s text and commentary.
Thus, for example, she translates lines 99–102 “Oh! Jerusalem in Judaea! / How
you remained fixed in that place! Not all living dwellers on the earth / who sing
praise to you may traverse you.” With all due respect, this translation does not make
immediate sense—cities do not move around and not everyone on Earth can
wander about a given city. It is more likely that the poet is alluding to the stasis
motif—the idea that the world stood still at the birth of Jesus—and that the translation should reflect these ideas.
For the most part, however, the translation and commentary are quite good;
and the appearance of a very useful edition of an interesting Old English poem
should be celebrated.
Cornell University

THOMAS D. HILL

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The Sleep of Behemoth: Disputing Peace and Violence in Medieval Europe, 1000–1200.
By Jehangir Yezdi Malegam. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 2013. Pp.
xvi, 335. $55.00. ISBN 978-0-8014-5132-4.)
The Sleep of Behemoth follows the discourse about peace that framed the church
reform movement of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Central to the project is
the question of what “peace” actually meant. According to Jehangir Yezdi
Malegam, true peace to reformist clerics did not mean tranquility, stability, and the
absence of conflict. It meant right order, which would only be achieved when the
ecclesiastical power governed the secular and laypeople participated in clerical
modes of living (p. 22). Simple tranquility, when based on an accommodation
between the Church and the world and on secular and especially imperial control
of the Church, was not peace; it was violence clothed in a false stability. This “false
peace” represented, in a phrase coined by Rufinus of Sorrento, “the sleep of Behemoth” (p. 3); within lay the disorder personified by the Old Testament monster.
Creating and maintaining true peace required fighting the monster; it demanded
insurrection against the status quo, conflict, and physical violence.
This vision of true peace, Malegam argues, explains the implacable behavior
and unprecedented radicalism of Pope Gregory VII and his successors and their
willingness to foment violence. Their opponents, the emperors, fought back by
appropriating clerical ideas about peace for themselves; they presented themselves
as protectors of true peace and the reform Church’s peace as inherently violent.
Both, however, were overtaken by changes taking place around them. Malegam
focuses in particular on the development of the urban communes. To the Church,
the communes, whose “peace” was based on internally generated ideas of proper
order and on oaths of mutual protection, subverted the divinely sanctioned political
order and therefore threatened authentic peace (p. 231). The Empire, too, viewed
the communes as a threat and in the same terms. In his Deeds of the Emperor Frederick, Otto of Freising declared that Barbarossa’s attack on the cities of Lombardy
was necessary because they by nature threatened proper order: “their increasingly
sophisticated structure breathed violence, for they overturned the rightful order of
governance” (p. 272).
But by the thirteenth century, realities had forced accommodation. Rufinus of
Sorrento also articulated the idea of an intermediate, worldly peace that lay
between the peace of Behemoth and that of God: the “peace of Babylon” (p. 264).
God’s peace could never be realized on earth, he argued. The Church had to work
together with secular authorities, including the communes, to maintain the stability
on which human society depended.
Malegam presents an original and revealing picture of the worldviews and
motives that drove the great conflict between Church and Empire. Inevitably he
leaves questions open. For example, why does this ideology of true peace and false
peace spring into view when it does? By tackling this question directly, as he did in
describing the context for the formation of the communes and their attitudes

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toward peace and order, he could have helped us understand better the larger context from which the conflict between Church and Empire sprang.
Such questions notwithstanding, The Peace of Behemoth is a very important
book. It leads us into the mental world of church reformers as well as their opponents, and explores ways of understanding peace and violence that are quite different from our own. In the process, it gives us a fresh view of what the ecclesiastical
reform movement of the eleventh and twelfth centuries was all about and what
drove both its protagonists and opponents to behave in the ways that they did.
California Institute of Technology

WARREN C. BROWN

The Book of Emperors: A Translation of the Middle High German Kaiserchronik.
Edited and translated by Henry A. Myers. [Medieval European Studies, Vol.
14.] (Morgantown: West Virginia University Press. 2013. Pp xii, 398. $44.95
paperback. ISBN 978-1-935978-70-1.)
The twelfth-century Kaiserchronik (“imperial chronicle”)—a Middle High
German verse chronicle of some 17,280-odd lines in its fullest extant version—is
one of the major historical, cultural, and literary sources of the central Middle Ages.
It presents a history of the Roman Empire through biographies of individual
emperors and, reflecting the ideology of its time, views the Western empire as the
continuation of the ancient Roman Empire. Little of certainty, however, is known
about the work’s origins—despite the efforts of scholars such as Edward Schröder,
Ferdinand Urbanek, and Edmund Stengel to make various claims on its behalf.
Myers’s translation is the first into English, and so the Kaiserchronik will now
be readily available to English-speaking students of history and literature. But
although the increased accessibility of the Kaiserchronik is to be welcomed, Myers’s
work leaves much to be desired. The introduction lacks adequate grounding in the
historiography of medieval Germany, medieval kingship, or medieval historical
writing—a significant problem that manifests itself in frequent errors, both of
detail and of concept. For example, the claim that the chronicler Frutolf of
Michelsberg (d. 1103) was “a partisan of the interests of the Church against
Emperor Henry IV” (p. 5) leads one to wonder whether Myers ever read Frutolf at
all, whereas to characterize St. Peter’s in Rome as a “Cathedral” (p. 15) betrays a
worrying lack of attention to institutional and historical detail. Carelessness in
detail begets inaccuracy in dealing with larger concepts, which is all too evident in
Myers’s handling of the Investiture Contest. His claim that supporters of Henry IV
demanded an “independent secular sphere” and insisted “upon the primacy of the
empire at the expense of the church” (p. 16) is anachronistic. Henry repeatedly justified his actions in terms of the ideology of sacral kingship, the imperial duty to
reform the Church, and hopes for cooperation between regnum and sacerdotium.
These are not isolated examples, and Myers’s capricious handling of the evidence
is a constant distraction throughout the introduction.

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The reader will find that the translation itself presents many missed opportunities. Myers has chosen not to render his translation in verse and prefaces each
imperial biography with an historical summary of his own. These summaries are
general and unreliable, as well as being virtually devoid of citation to relevant scholarly literature. The translation is also entirely without annotation: no effort has
been made to help the reader by identifying the rich array of biblical and literary
allusions, or any of the references to historical or fictional characters. The reader
will find, too, that elements of the translation are problematic. A case in point is
the choice invariably to translate munster as “cathedral.” When Myers applies this
to the church of St. Stephen in Bamberg (ain munster zêran, line 16,230), he shows
that he has paid insufficient attention to the historical details of what he was translating, as St. Stephen’s is a canonry and Bamberg’s actual cathedral is dedicated to
Ss. Peter and George. “Church” here might have been better.
In conclusion, Myers’s translation of the Kaiserchronik is unfortunately vitiated
by its unscholarly nature and frequent lack of attention to detail. It will not be
nearly as useful as it could have been in introducing the text’s literary and historical
world, and in many respects is liable to lead the unsuspecting reader into error.
New College of Florida

T. J. H. MCCARTHY

The Collectio Burdegalensis: A Study and Register of an Eleventh-Century Canon
Law Collection. By Kriston R. Rennie. [Medieval Law and Theology, Vol. 6.]
(Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. 2013. Pp. xiv, 247.
$95.00. ISBN 978-0-88844-185-0.)
Whereas most historians of medieval history make ample use of normative
sources (including famous ones like the Dictatus Papae of Gregory VII, for example),
the study of legal culture is often left to specialists. It is therefore particularly welcome that Kriston Rennie— an expert on medieval canon law—has published a
book on the subject that is clearly not written only for specialists. Rennie presents
and analyzes the so-called Collectio Burdegalensis (=CB), a substantial collection of
canon law of the late-eleventh century, compiled (as Rennie argues) for La Sauve
Majeure, a monastery some twenty kilometers east of the medieval city of Bordeaux.
In his introduction, Rennie sketches the church reform movement of the
eleventh century as the background of collections like CB. He also gives a careful
and balanced account of the scholarly literature on the collection itself and makes
clear that CB should not, as has often been the case, seen as a product of a
“Poitevin” law school. Rather, CB was a local collection in the sense that the compiler adapted widely spread collections of canon law to local needs and more specifically to the needs of a large monastery. That said, the collection does contain
Poitevin material—namely the canons of the important Council of Poitiers held in
1078. (Oddly, this very council is missing in the register for the attribution of
canons in the collection found on pp. 240–43.) Indeed, Rennie highlights the
importance of this council and those held at Bordeaux in 1079 and 1080 for CB,

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and goes on to suggest that the 1080 council was in fact held at La Sauve Majeure
itself (p. 19). To convince a skeptic, more arguments would have been needed here,
including perhaps a discussion of the foundation date for La Sauve Majeure. Yet
even a skeptic can agree with Rennie that the collection was compiled after 1080
and specifically for a monastery, possibly La Sauve Majeure.
The main part of the book is the analysis. As the specialist will see immediately (and as Rennie, of course, makes clear), it is based on Linda Fowler-Magerl’s
database Clavis canonum, one of the most important tools in medieval canon law
history. Rennie’s analysis of CB is yet another proof of how much can be gained
from this invaluable database (http://www.mgh.de/ext/clavis/). Rennie’s canon-tocanon analysis provides basic information for those canons that can be traced back
with certainty to well-known formal sources and gives fuller details for those texts
for which this is not possible. The analysis is sound, but the choice of eighteenthand nineteenth-century editions for almost all texts quoted is not convincing. For
example, it is not clear why the canons of the Council of Poitiers (pp. 12–14) are
quoted from the Mansi edition rather than CB with which Rennie was working.
Likewise, for Burchard of Worms the editio princeps (also available online) clearly
is to be preferred over the Migne edition.
Yet on the whole, the analysis is sound, and in the absence of an edition,
Rennie’s “register” is simply the best way to read the collection; together with the
useful introduction, it makes CB much more available to scholarship than it ever was.
University of Constance

CHRISTOF ROLKER

The Debate on the Crusades. By Christopher Tyerman. [Issues in Historiography.]
(Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press; distrib. Palgrave. 2011. Pp.
xii, 260. $90.00 clothbound, ISBN 978-0-7190-7320-5; $30.95 paperback,
ISBN 978-0-7190-7321-2.)
This interesting and learned review of crusade historiography is one of a
number of such surveys, by the same author and others, to have appeared in recent
years. They cumulatively speak to the manner in which the academic study of crusading has reached an impressive critical mass over the last few decades, while they
also acknowledge a concomitant and emergent sense of uncertainty about the
future directions that research should take, especially given, as Christopher Tyerman aptly notes, the manner in which the crusades have been anachronistically
mobilized in recent and uninformed, even historically illiterate, rhetoric about the
“clash of civilizations.” In fact, Tyerman’s concluding remarks about the crude
appropriation of the crusades as a model or parallel for modern conflicts, in both
Western and Muslim discourses, are pertinent and well made.
The book’s survey starts with the chroniclers of the First Crusade and their
medieval successors. The central argument is that, from its beginning, crusade historiography has been engaged in various didactic and more or less polemical proj-

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ects of world-creation, not world-reflection. This approach permits some thoughtful remarks on, for example, William of Tyre and on the “recovery literature” of the
later Middle Ages. The first centuries of crusade historiography are reviewed quite
summarily, however, setting up early examples of what will become a recurrent
motif of the book’s argument: that over the course of nine centuries historical writing about the crusades has been characterized by a tendency to loop back over
familiar tropes—for example, the role of religion as motivating force, materialist
explanations, and the crusades as a site of cultural collision—at least as much as by
the sort of linear narrative of conceptual sharpening and methodological refinement that modern crusade scholars might imagine in their loftier moments.
Given this thematic emphasis, it is unsurprising that the strongest portions of
the book are the central chapters that cover the period between the Reformation
and the early-twentieth century, for here Tyerman summarizes the positions of key
writers in turn and draws out their influences upon one another as well as their
points of disagreement. A particular merit is that Tyerman does not limit himself
to the obvious star names, although they naturally feature prominently, but also
explores the work of what now seem lesser lights as revealing evidence of broader
frames of cultural reference. The book’s organizing principle and methodological
orientation are that species of intellectual history that foregrounds an author’s biographical and institutional circumstances as the essential analytical keys to the ideas
found on the page. This biographist framework works perfectly well within its own
terms of reference, especially in the discussion of early modern, Enlightenment,
romantic, and Victorian scholarship. The downside, however, emerges in the necessarily more selective handling of the crowded historiographical scene of the last
six or seven decades. For, in the treatment of some contemporary scholars, this
same biographism can shade toward caricature in the service of the academic selfpositioning that will be familiar to readers of other of Tyerman’s works.
This is one of the better history-of-the-history surveys of crusade scholarship.
There are omissions and imbalances: there is very little on Spain and Italy, for
example, and too little on North American scholarship other than the Munro
school, for which Tyerman has scant regard. Overall, however, this is a stimulating
and thought-provoking discussion, in its density of contextualizing reference and
allusion better suited to a scholarly readership, perhaps, than to undergraduates and
general readers.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

MARCUS BULL

Partners in Spirit: Women, Men and Religious Life in Germany, 1100–1500. Edited
by Fiona J. Griffiths and Julie Hotchin. [Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts, Vol. 24.] (Turnhout: Brepols. 2014. Pp. x, 427. €100,00. ISBN 978-2503-54096-2.)
Partners in Spirit: Women, Men, and Religious Life in Germany, 1100–1500,
offers a collection of excellent essays that brings into conversation three models for

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studying Christian religious women in medieval Europe. Much recent scholarship
emphasizes male suspicion of religious women and clerical efforts to control female
behavior and representations of women’s religiosity. Other studies depict an asymmetrical relation between religious men and women in which clerics offered sacraments to women and women offered clerical advisers accounts of religious experiences. A third model explores the administrative, familial, and political roles of
religious women without considering their spiritual lives. The essays in Partners in
Spirit recognize asymmetries of power and acknowledge that cooperation between
men and women could elicit suspicion, but they argue that the cura monialium created opportunities for dialogue and cooperation between men and women.
Women’s communities provided important spiritual and administrative opportunities for men, and religious women could negotiate and invert the authority associated with clerical office.
The volume brings to an English-speaking audience recent scholarship studying religious communities in German-speaking lands. It is organized chronologically, but the essays also divide into three overlapping conceptual clusters. One cluster troubles both the idea of “double monasteries” and the convention that reformed
male orders avoided the care of women. Elsanne Gilomen-Schenkel finds otherwise
invisible women in the necrologies of reformed Swiss communities; Shelly Amiste
Wolbrink shows that thirteenth-century Premonstratensian canons provided spiritual care for women despite the order’s prescriptions against the cura monialium; Jennifer Koplacoff Deane demonstrates that beguines in Würzburg negotiated successfully for pastoral care despite the prohibitions of the Council of Vienne; and Sigrid
Hirbodian shows how Franciscan and Dominican women in late-medieval Strasbourg remained subject to the oversight and spiritual direction of the city’s friars.
A second cluster of essays demonstrates that articulations of female authority
and female cooperation with men changed over time. Using manuscript illuminations and evidence of book production from double houses in the southwestern
empire, Susan Marti contrasts a twelfth-century ideal of cooperation with the realities of separate manuscript production; over time, a new ideal effaced the women,
but evidence of book production shows their continued presence. Using visitation
records, Eva Schlotheuber compares twelfth-century Saxon Frauenstifte with thirteenth-century Norman communities; she shows that the Norman women negotiated their independence from their provost in ways that the Saxon women could
not. Sabine Klapp examines Frauenstifte in late-medieval Strasbourg, arguing that
it was sixteenth-century socioeconomic changes that made male challenges to
female authority more insistent.
A third cluster depicts the complex ways that men and women taught and
ministered to one another. Fiona Griffith analyzes the ways that Guilbert of Gembloux valued his care of the nuns at Rupertsburg; Anthony Ray demonstrates that
Thomas of Villers’s advice for his sister depended on male Cistercian models of
sanctity; Wybren Scheepsma argues that Hendrick van Leuven based his spiritual
guidance for women on shared visionary experiences rather than clerical authority;

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and Sara Poor analyzes devotional texts to show inversions in customary pastoral
roles: women became teachers and advisors.
Finally, John Coakley’s afterword considers the various ways that religious
women could exercise authority. He suggests that different source materials might
lead to different conclusions. Indeed, the authors of these essays work with manuscripts as well as edited sources, and they use documents of practice rather than prescriptive materials and saints’ lives. The volume offers important suggestions for
future research, and it demonstrates how an attentiveness to the possibilities of
documents of practice can provide new insights into male-female interactions in
medieval Christian religious communities.
University of Texas at Austin

MARTHA G. NEWMAN

Lost Letters of Medieval Life: English Society, 1200–1250. Edited and translated by
Martha Carlin and David Crouch. [The Middle Ages Series.] (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press. 2013. Pp. xxvi, 334. $29.95. ISBN 978-08122-4459-5.)
This elegant and scholarly volume reproduces a strong proportion of the
model correspondence contained in two early-thirteenth century formularies, one
surviving in the British Library and the other in the Bodleian. They both emanate,
it seems, from Oxford, and both cater to the needs of business students. A crisp
introduction covers, in addition to description of the manuscripts themselves, a history of such formularies; the political context; an introduction to contemporary
Oxford and the study of letter writing there; literacy in early-thirteenth-century
society; and, most interestingly, a study of epistolary conventions with particular
reference to forms of address dictated by courtesy and social status. The subjects
range from commercial transactions; processes of provisioning and accounting; and
requests for assistance and creation of reciprocal obligation to issues concerning
lordship, administration, war, and politics. One of the most fascinating sections
concerns a knight’s correspondence regarding the building of a barn. The context
is one of those grants, so common on the Chancery rolls, where a royal servant is
granted oak trees from the royal forest for building works. Few readers of these
entries will have given much thought, one suspects, to what precisely happens next.
Here, however, we have a sequence of events that might follow. The recipient
writes to a forester, described as his friend, asking him to convey the gift to his men
and requesting that the recipient supply the oaks but adding that he might increase
the royal gift “as you can without betraying the king’s trust” (p. 278). What does
this mean? The forester’s response is to comply, adding the crowns of the trees “and
everything that belongs to the forester’s office” (p. 280) for the knight’s hearth,
together with all assistance to his carpenters. In a third letter the forester instructs
his sergeants to add a fifth oak “of our own gift” (p. 281) and to obtain assistance
from the surrounding communities in carrying the oaks to the knight. The knight
then hires a carpenter to finish his windmill and to build a barn and instructs his
bailiff accordingly. The latter replies saying that all has been done as requested and

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that he has borrowed money to cover the expenses. Finally, the knight writes to his
wife, affirming their “indissoluble bond of love” (p. 289) and requesting her to join
him at the manor concerned and to remain there once he has returned to court.
Among the many interesting aspects is the latitude enjoyed by the forester. However, only so much latitude was allowed. Elsewhere in the volume, but unconnected
with this sequence, is a writ to a sheriff ordering an inquiry into the activities of
foresters accused of selling the king’s oaks for their own profit.
Other entries reveal the limitations of letter writing as against face-to-face
communication and the importance of an interaction between the two modes.
Thus: a knight demands that a suspect bailiff appear before him to present his
accounts; another “serjeant” justifies his refusal to obey his knight’s wife; a man
informs a friend that he has seen the latter’s wife in bed with another man and
sends her girdle as proof. None of these matters, one assumes, could have been settled by letter alone.
The letters are carefully edited throughout, with an English translation and
lavish commentary. The commentary assumes no prior knowledge, ensuring maximum accessibility. Much of it is unassailable. The editors do, however, offer one
especially contentious argument. Rejecting Michael Clanchy’s argument that much
twelfth-century literacy was functional, they contend that “casual correspondence
was widespread and that literacy was well established in every social class in England by the early-thirteenth century, and probably by the late twelfth” (p. 14). Their
argument requires more space, however, than is allotted here. What constitutes literacy? Do the editors envisage distinct levels of literacy in operation? Notwithstanding a degree of sophistication that is present in these model letters, they
remain for the most part broadly functional. In providing the models, the business
tutors were advocates and promoters of written communication. How far does this
reflect reality? If literacy was so widespread, why was there the need for such specialized training? Arguments around literacy will continue to flourish, and this
excellent edition will be turned to again and again on this and many other matters.
Cardiff University

PETER COSS

Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae: A Biography. By Bernard McGinn. [Lives of
Great Religious Books.] (Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2014. Pp. xi,
260. $24.95. ISBN 978-0-691-15426-8.)
In 1265 the Roman Dominican Province assigned St. Thomas Aquinas to
Rome to establish a studium at Santa Sabina. The resulting institution differed
from the more famous Dominican studia generalia of Paris or Oxford in two important ways. First, it accepted students only from the Roman Province; in effect, it
was what Dominicans would subsequently call a “studium provinciale.” Second, its
students were not generally regarded as gifted enough to train at the studia generalia. As a result, Aquinas had to think hard about how best to educate these students. To help them, he decided to write a textbook for beginners in theology.

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Initially Aquinas thought a revised version of his Sentence-Commentary
would best meet the needs of his Roman students. However, after trying that
approach for about a year, he changed his mind. He concluded that even a revision
of his Sentence-Commentary would be too difficult for beginners, and so he settled
down to compose a new work, the Summa Theologiae. It became Aquinas’s most
famous work, and Bernard McGinn offers us a biography of it in this book.
McGinn’s strategy is to introduce the reader to the Summa’s “intellectual gestation in the mind of Thomas, its structure and contents and some aspects of its
impact on later history” (p. 2). The book’s five chapters fit neatly into this pattern.
Thus the first two focus on background information about the medieval world,
Aquinas’s life, and why he wrote the Summa: its “intellectual gestation.” The third
chapter discusses a number of different themes from the Summa itself: its “structure
and contents.” The last two chapters examine the Summa’s reception from 1274
until 1974: its “impact on later history.”
Of course, given the relative sizes of McGinn’s book and the Summa Theologiae, one might be skeptical that such a project could succeed. Indeed, McGinn
himself acknowledges that it may seem “foolhardy to attempt a short book” (p. 2),
His solution is to offer an account that is “selective and personal” (p. 3) but that
tries to present “what an interested and curious reader might want to know about
the Summa and its reception” (p. 3). By and large, McGinn succeeds; there are no
obvious omissions in the material selected, and the reader approaching the Summa
Theologiae for the first time will get a good sense of what that work is about and the
influence it has exerted. Where one might take issue with the book is in some of
the “personal” elements of McGinn’s account. For example, McGinn’s assessment
of the Church’s response to modernism as an “ecclesiastical reign of terror” (p. 180)
and his remark that “fortunately the Vatican no longer possessed any machinery of
physical coercion, imprisonment, or worse” (ibid.) seem rather too personal. They
distract from consideration of the use made of the Summa Theologiae in the modernist crisis and instead encourage the reader to attend to McGinn’s assessment of
the modernist crisis.
Blackfriars, Oxford

DOMINIC RYAN, O.P.

The Beguine, the Angel, and the Inquisitor: The Trials of Marguerite Porete and Guiard
of Cressonessart. By Sean L. Field. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press. 2012. Pp. xi, 407. $40.00 paperback. ISBN 978-0-268-02892-3.)
With this volume, Sean Field has contributed a much-needed, common-sense
exploration of the trials of Marguerite Porete and Guiard of Cressonessart to the
scholarly literature of the Middle Ages. He has also created a work of history that
reads like a detective novel; he has meticulously pieced together fragmentary and
often ambiguous evidence into a fascinating reconstruction of a controversial
episode. This is scholarly history at its best.

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Most medieval historians are familiar with the events surrounding the story of
Marguerite Porete. These have not gone untreated; scholars as diverse as Robert
Lerner, Paul Verdeyen, Edmund Colledge, Noel Valois, John van Engen, CharlesVictor Langlois, Barbara Newman, William Courtenay, and even this reviewer
have all spent time and ink on Marguerite. Drawing on these and many other historians, and carrying out an admirably thoughtful re-analysis of the primary
sources, Field has produced what will surely be the definitive account of l’affaire
Marguerite for a long time to come.
It is difficult to deal with Marguerite without taking sides: one either wishes to
portray Marguerite merely as a stubborn fool who brought about her own unnecessary destruction and the royal and ecclesiastical officials who brought her down as
merely doing their virtuous duty, or alternatively to view the clergy involved in her
prosecution and execution as misogynist bigots and Marguerite herself as a paragon
of misunderstood virtue. Field generally steers clear of such seductive traps, avoiding
both a hagiographic attitude to Marguerite on the one hand or clergy-bashing on
the other. Instead, he relies on patient and careful source work to allow his subjects
to speak for themselves. The result is a picture of great subtlety—of all the complexity, along the moral spectrum, of which the human race is capable.
In the course of reaching this goal, Field shows how Marguerite had good
reason—in her view—to persist in her attempts to have her book validated by the
hierarchy and how cautiously William of Paris handled the matter, using it deftly
to bolster both the rehabilitation of his own reputation and also to advance royal
assertions of spiritual leadership. He ties Guiard’s otherwise rather incomprehensible intervention convincingly into the wider world of fourteenth-century Joachite
apocalyptic speculation (in the process making perfect sense out of Arnold of Villanova’s otherwise peculiar interest in issues associated with Guiard) and illuminates the careers and interests of many of the players in this drama in ways that
greatly improve our understanding of the affair.
Along the way, Field illuminates other aspects of early-fourteenth-century
history admirably. He shows how the trials of Marguerite, the book The Mirror of
Simple Souls (which, he notes, had its own free-standing trial), and Guiard of Cressonessart must be understood in the context of the contemporary trial of the Order
of the Temple and in the wider context of the centralizing and even rather totalitarian agenda of Philip the Fair. Field’s analysis shows how William of Paris relentlessly but subtly manipulated the masters of the University of Paris to gain their
apparent (if not entirely genuine) approval both for his actions and those of his
royal master. This leads to a depiction of the trials of Marguerite and Guiard as
they should be seen: not as examples of institutional misogyny or bigotry but rather
as chapters in the ruthless development of an intrusively powerful, late-medieval
Capetian administration.
The volume also—and felicitously—contains translations of the major sources
relating to these events, something that is most helpful not only to undergraduates
and graduate students but also to harried scholars. Small criticisms might be made.

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One of the achievements of this book is that it reorganizes and corrects the
chronology of the events in question, which have gotten rather tangled over the
years in places (pp. 3–6); it would have been useful to see a timeline, clearly setting
out the corrected version. The discussion of the role of money in the Templar trial
would benefit from reference to Ignacio de la Torre Muñoz de Morales’s unfortunately neglected Los Templarios y el Origen de la Banca. But these are rather insignificant quibbles.
This is a bravura performance and highly recommended reading.
California University of Pennsylvania

PAUL F. CRAWFORD

Doctrinas y relaciones de poder en el Cisma de occidente y en la época conciliar (1378–
1449). Edited by José Antônio de C. R. De Souza and Bernardo Bayona
Aznar. [Colección Ciencias Sociales, No. 94.] (Zaragoza: Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza. 2013. Pp. 386. €25,00 paperback. ISBN 978-8415770-53-4.)
The editors of this volume start from the extended interest in Spain for historical novels and the dearth of knowledge about medieval philosophy and legalpolitical thought in that same population. They seek to remedy the situation in this
collection of studies aimed at a Spanish audience in that all the contributions either
were written in or translated into Spanish, and the secondary literature and even
the original sources are presented for the most part in a Spanish translation. Within
this limitation the volume provides an abundance of information and insights covering the major aspects of the conciliar era.
The introduction (by Bernardo Bayona Aznar) gives an overview of the relationship of the Church, its doctrine, and the secular world, including the Church’s
ideas on power and a discussion of the ebb and flow over the centuries especially in
regard to the consolidation of papal power, the tendency to identify the Church
with the pope, and the failure of reform. The chapters that follow confront and
examine the key persons, events, and ideas. Chapter 1 (by José Antônio de
Camargo Rodrigues de Souza) details the antecedents of the Great Western
Schism, its immediate consequences, the fundamental question why the pope and
cardinals at the outset did not grasp the gravity of their actions, and the dominance
of political and territorial interests in the decisions and actions that followed over
the decades. Chapter 2 (by Luís A. De Boni) takes up John Wyclif and his questioning of the power attributed to the papacy. The author notes that Wyclif must
be considered in the context of the English situation (royal centralization versus
outside interference) and the call for a return to a “poor Church.” Chapter 3 (by
Bernardo Bayona Aznar) provides an excellent introduction to Francesc Eiximenis,
his world, and his ideas on power. This is most welcome, as he is a figure not well
known outside of Spain. Chapter 4 (by Fátima Regina Fernandes) examines the
Church from Pisa, which deposed claimants from both the Roman and Avignon
lines for their failure to work for unity of the Church and then at Constance, which
moved against a third claimant (John XXIII) not because he was not valid but

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because he was found unworthy of the papacy. Chapter 5 (by Gregorio Piaia) centers attention on Franciscus Zabarella as the theorist of conciliarism from the legal
perspective. It especially notes the significant revision in the evaluation of Zabarella
since the Second Vatican Council. It stresses that in the “incipit” of Zabarella’s
tract De schismate his emphasis was how to achieve union and that it was the duty
of all to work for this while maintaining a legal and theological basis in medieval
corporation theory and canon law for any actions. Chapter 6 (by Thiago Soares
Leite) addresses the conciliar theory of Pierre d’Ailly and what he wrote on obedience to the pope as well as obedience by the pope, whereas chapter 7 (by Alfredo
S Culleton) is on Jean Gerson, his contribution to conciliar thought, and his efforts
for unity and reform. In the context of this movement chapter 8 (by Marcella
Lopez Guimarães) examines the case of Jan Hus, his ideas and actions, his connection with the ideas of Wyclif, the situation in Prague and Bohemia, as well as the
context in which the Fathers at Constance condemned and executed him.
Chapter 9 (by Estaban Peña Esguren) steps back to take a broad look at Constance, the relation of pope and Council, the decrees Haec Sancta and Frequens, and
the question of a middle view present at Constance (given its need to reach a decision acceptable to all). It also points to the recent scholarship on Haec Sancta that
shows that a definitive version does not exist of this all-important document. In the
aftermath of Constance and its only partially fulfilled hopes, chapter 10 (by
Bernardo Bayona Aznar) examines a major figure of the next generation—John of
Segovia—including his ideology and doctrines as well as his legacy to students at
Salamanca so that they would have access to knowledge of the Koran and Islamic
doctrine. No treatment of this problematic era could leave out Nicholas of Cusa, as
chapter 11 (by Estevão C de Rezende Martins) details, especially his De concordantia Catholica written in the early stages of what became a heated split between the
Council of Basel and Pope Eugenius IV. The article looks at not only what Cusa
proposed there but also why Cusa in the subsequent decades moved away from his
conciliarist thinking to become an ardent papalist. He sees the later Cusa, like
many at the Council of Constance, as a pragmatist, which led him to break with
the extremist tendencies at Basel—viewed by Cusa as pushing private issues at the
cost of the common good.
Overall, this volume presents careful analysis and a good introduction for its
intended readers. If the conciliar era’s most pressing concerns were unity and
power, it is a sad fact that, in subsequent centuries, these were secularized into
modern nationalist and ideological movements at great cost in human lives.
State University of New York at Fredonia

THOMAS E. MORRISSEY

Nicholas of Cusa and Islam: Polemic and Dialogue in the Late Middle Ages. Edited by
Ian Christopher Levy, Rita George-Tvrtković, and Donald Duclow. (Leiden:
Brill. 2014. Pp. xx, 256. €115,00. ISBN 978-90-04-27475-4.)
Nicholas of Cusa was an important and influential fifteenth-century theologian, an erudite humanist, and a key member of the conciliar movement. He also

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wrote two works dealing with Islam: in De pace fidei, composed in the wake of the
Ottoman conquest of Constantinople (1453), he imagines a debate among sages of
different religions, a dialogue between the world’s wise men who can agree to the
essential unity of their creeds and accept a diversity of practice. His Cribratio
Alchorani (Sifting the Qur’an, 1461) is a close reading of the Qur’an in an attempt
to find in the Muslim holy text the confirmation of Christian truth while explaining away its rejection of such essential Christian doctrines as the Incarnation or
Resurrection. Together, these two unusual works make Nicholas into a rare and
thoughtful voice in fifteenth-century Latin writings about Islam.
This volume assesses the importance of Nicholas’s engagement with Islam and
places it in various contexts, through fifteen essays written by specialists in Christian and Islamic theology and philosophy. With the notable exception of Thomas
Burman (author of the excellent preface), none of the authors is a specialist of
Christian-Muslim relations, and several of the authors are unfamiliar with key
works in the field: Tamara Albertini, for example, is unaware of important recent
work on one of the two Muslim authors she examines, Ibn Hazm; several authors
who refer to Robert Ketton’s twelfth-century translation of the Quran are also
unfamiliar with recent scholarship in the field.
Part 1 contains six essays on “Cusanus and Islam.” There is some overlap,
since several authors describe the contents of the two key works. Readers may find
particularly useful Pim Valkenberg’s essay on the context of the two works in Cusa’s
development of the notion of the essential unity of the object of religion within a
variety of rites. Part 2, “Historical Perspectives,” consists of four essays comparing
Cusa’s works with those of other medieval Christian writers on Islam. Rita
George-Tvrtković provides a thoughtful comparison of three medieval authors
(Alan of Lille, Riccoldo da Montecroce, and Cusa) on the bathing rituals of Jews
(mikveh) and Muslims (wudu) compared with Christian baptism: through this concrete example we see how Cusa attempts to downplay differences in rite in an
attempt to affirm their fundamental compatibility with Christianity. Finally, part 3
consists of four essays dealing with “Muslim Responses to Christianity.” Although
these essays for the most part cover well-trodden ground, they offer useful and
thoughtful introductions for those who are not familiar with the Muslim Jesus or
with the key notion of tahrif (the idea that Jews and Christians have corrupted,
willingly or not, the scriptures that God revealed to them).
This volume contains the work of top scholars in the field and constitutes a
major contribution to several fields: Cusanus studies, medieval Christian theology,
and the history of Christian-Muslim relations. It is a pity that, as usual, Brill has
priced it far beyond the budget of most individuals who might be interested in
buying it.
Université de Nantes and Academia Europaea

JOHN TOLAN

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Virtual Pilgrimages in the Convent: Imagining Jerusalem in the Late Middle Ages. By
Kathryn M. Rudy. [Disciplina monastica. Studies on Medieval Monastic Life,
8.] (Turnhout: Brepols. 2011. Pp. 475. €110,00 paperback. ISBN 978-2-50354103-7.)
This is a magnificent, revisionist study of an important topic. It examines the
ways in which nuns, religious women, and even a few laywomen from the Low
Countries interacted with texts, images, and objects to go on virtual pilgrimage to
Rome and Jerusalem during the half-century or so before the Reformation. This
much is well known; but much less so is the fact that although many were motivated by lack of resources and opportunity, not a few simply did not want to compromise their commitment to poverty and enclosure. At the book’s core is Rudy’s
sensitive and nuanced discussion of seventeen manuscript texts, dating from the fifteenth and early-sixteenth centuries, which were copied by nuns or devout women
(mostly tertiaries). Several of these texts have been transcribed in their original language, Middle Dutch, with parallel English translation, in the extensive appendices
on pages 263–448. As a corollary to the fact that these accounts, more often than
not, drew on diaries or guidebooks written by those who had actually visited the
sites in Rome and the Holy Land, their users—and this word is used advisedly,
given the passive, modern-day connotations of “reader”—tended not to interpret
pilgrimage metaphorically but sought to replicate the experience as physically and
literally as possible: “not just with the imagination, but with the eyes, the hands,
and the feet” (p. 21). A striking manifestation of the desire for “authenticity” was
the importance of so-called “metric relics”—“the measured distances between holy
places . . . which could then be remapped onto the local environment to construct
personal Passion theaters” (p. 97). Rudy sets these phenomena firmly in the context
of the influence in the Low Countries of the devotio moderna, which she considers
responsible not only for spurring production of vernacular devotional literature in
the century up to the Reformation but also for “the ubiquity of women’s vernacular
literacy” (p. 25) as testified by the survival of literally hundreds of manuscripts written in Middle Dutch with feminine pronouns and nouns. Although the lion’s share
of Rudy’s attention is paid to the ways in which the Holy Land was evoked in text
and image, as she notes, the earliest work that consciously sought to provide a substitute for physical pilgrimage was an early-fifteenth-century text, attributed spuriously to Jean Gerson, which explained how its readers could journey to Rome in
their imagination. However, it was not only owing to the fall of Constantinople in
1453, which made actual travel to the Holy Land much more difficult, that
Jerusalem became the focus of attention. Key to this development was the direct
association of visits to the specific locations where Christ walked, talked, suffered,
and was crucified with spiritual reward in the form of indulgences. The master
impresarios here were friars of the Franciscan order who had been given the role of
custodians of the Holy Places by the pope in 1342. It was they who transplanted
the spiritual boon of plenary indulgences—nine of which could be gained in
Jerusalem alone (and four of those within the single site of the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre)—to Western Europe. Their vehicle was the so-called Portiuncula
indulgence—named after the favorite church of St. Francis just outside Assisi

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where he died—which was granted to those who underwent an overnight vigil
within the church (based upon the prototype in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre).
In due course, provided that papal permission was forthcoming, this spiritual boon
could be earned wherever devout souls virtually “walked in Christ’s footsteps”
during Passion week; following as they did so the path of the first Christian pilgrim, the Blessed Virgin Mary, who daily relived her son’s final suffering by tracing
his last journey until she herself was taken up into heaven. A particularly impressive exploitation of this possibility was effected by Ursula Haider, late-fifteenthcentury abbess of the Bickenkloster of Poor Clares in Villingen, a convent in the
Black Forest. Not for nothing was she referred to as “chief builder of the Holy Stations and Roman Churches,” since she had the names of all the indulgenced places
in the Holy Land and Rome—some 210 in number—copied onto pieces of parchment and distributed throughout the convent before petitioning Pope Innocent
VIII in 1491 for indulgences to apply to her labels. The success of her petition led
to the making of more permanent memorials ranging from six stone altars to represent six of the seven principal churches of Rome (the seventh, the main altar in
the convent’s lady chapel, was already extant and stood for the basilica of Santa
Maria Maggiore) to the more than 200 tablets, some of which were in stone, but
others painted in fresco, seventy of which survive to this day.
However, the most rewarding (and moving) parts of this study consist of
Rudy’s painstaking re-creation of how individuals—even occasionally laywomen—
used the texts in her sample. Chapter 3, for example, provides a compelling account
of how votaries might become, in effect, method actors by aligning the posture and
actions of their bodies to match Mary’s own responses to Christ’s suffering. Often
key to the success of such spiritual exercises was the insertion into such texts of
(usually printed) images, not a few of which show evidence of having been “customized” by their owners—streaking Christ’s battered body red was one such
response—or in the case of a miniature showing St. Anne with the Virgin and
Christ child (figure 85) the smudged faces of Mary and her mother suggests that
they have been repeatedly kissed. By contrast, the owner of another manuscript
(Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal MS 212, figure 17) was evidently so upset by a
depiction of the Massacre of the Innocents that she tried to rub out the tip of
Herod’s scepter and obliterate the faces of the executioners. Such interaction with
text lies at the center of Rudy’s latest study, Postcards on Parchment: The Social Life
of Medieval Books (New Haven, 2015), which, if it is anywhere near as thoughtprovoking as this study, should be well worth reading.
University of York

SIMON DITCHFIELD

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Preaching the Word in Manuscript and Print in Late Medieval England: Essays in
Honour of Susan Powell. Edited by Martha W. Driver and Veronica M.
O’Mara. [Sermo: Studies on Patristic, Medieval and Reformation Sermons
and Preaching, Vol. 11.] (Turnhout: Brepols. 2014. Pp. xvi, 393. €100,00.
ISBN 978-2-503-541-853.)
Preaching the Word in Manuscript and Print, the eleventh volume in Brepols’s
Sermo series, is dedicated to Susan Powell, best known for her analysis and edition
of John Mirk’s Festial (Oxford, 2009). The focus of the volume, as the editors
Martha Driver and Veronica O’Mara declare in their introduction, is “on Middle
English and Latin material in prose and verse in late medieval England” and “how
homilists and teachers in the Middle Ages preached the work of God in its widest
possible sense” (p. 1). Their focus allows the contributors to examine works related
to preaching in general, not just sermons, and to consider the diversity of languages
and media in which sermons and works of religious instruction reside. The editors
have organized the contributions into twelve “Studies” and three “Texts,” and a list
of publications by Powell. Their essays add to a growing body of scholarship on
English preaching, such as H. Leith Spencer’s English Preaching in the Late Middle
Ages ( Oxford, 1993), Alan Fletcher’s Late Medieval Popular Preaching (Turnhout,
2009), Holly Johnson’s The Grammar of Good Friday (Turnhout, 2012), and the
many works by Siegfried Wenzel.
Derek Pearsall opens the volume with an examination of the strengths and
weaknesses of G. R. Owst, the scholar whose works, Preaching in Medieval England
(Cambridge, UK, 1926) and Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England (Cambridge, UK, 1933), opened up the field of medieval English sermons. Pearsall seeks
to explain how Owst’s original scholarship, which quoted from several important
manuscripts, and which featured assiduous attention to detail and idiomatic translations from Latin into English, could co-exist with “such embarrassing banality …
such commonplaceness of mind—and with such resentment of the academic
world?” (p. 24). The answer is Owst’s isolation as an outsider in the academic world
and the baneful influence of Owst’s mentor, G. G. Coulton, who had “a hostile and
narrowly Protestant view of the established Church of the Middle Ages” (p. 2).
Other essays by well-known authorities in the fields of preaching and of
Middle English include a study by Driver of the depiction of preachers in manuscript and print in the late-medieval and early Tudor periods, works on the transmission of devotional texts by Joseph Gwara and of Middle English sermon verse by
Julia Boffey, and pieces about the punctuation and copying of sermon literature by
Jeremy Smith and Stephen Morrison. Morrison’s essay reminds readers that manuscript texts are usually not fixed and that scribes, as men of letters in their own times,
had a feel for language that sometimes caused them to alter the texts of the works
they were copying (p. 118). Essays by Margaret Connolly and R. N. Swanson show
the mutual dependence of sermon literature and works of devotional instruction, as
well as the rewards and difficulties of working with manuscript miscellanies, a genre
with which medieval scholars have been grappling increasingly in the last twenty

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years. Anne Hudson’s essay on the manuscripts of John Wyclif’s Latin sermons
shows that “the copy made far from the proven place of origination can have better
readings than that made close to the author’s home” (p. 59). A piece by Vincent
Gillespie examines the lections in the Latin Martiloge of the Syon Brethren, noting
how they set an exceptionally high standard for clerical life, whereas essays by
William Marx and John J. Thompson demonstrate how texts originally intended for
oral presentation could be adapted for private, devotional use.
The three edited texts include an edition and study by Oliver Pickering of the
text for All Souls’ Day from the South English Legendary; extracts from the Syon
Pardon Sermon, by Kari Anne Rand; as well as an edition of the “Boy Bishop”
sermon, in addition to an examination of changing editorial attitudes, by O’Mara.
These texts, as well as the essays, are valuable additions to the growing field of
sermon studies and remind us of how necessary editions and manuscript analysis
remain for the world of preaching.
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh

KIMBERLY RIVERS

EARLY MODERN EUROPEAN
Velo e Velatio: Significato e rappresentazione nella cultura figurativa dei secoli XV–
XVII. Edited by Gabriella Zarri. [Temi e Testi, Vol. 127: Scritture nel
Chiostro.] (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. 2014. Pp. xxx, 197.
€36,00 paperback. ISBN 978-88-6372-611-4.)
The last two decades have seen an increase of scholarly interest in the ways in
which clothing both shaped and projected identity in early-modern Italy. Publications in English and Italian have addressed the economic, social, and cultural
impact of the production, acquisition, material, style, and meanings of dress, generally focusing on laywomen. A fundamental source, Cesare Vecellio’s Degli habiti
antichi et moderni (Venice, 1590), capably translated into English by Margaret F.
Rosenthal and Ann Rosalind Jones (New York, 2008), provides a deceptively neat
taxonomy that ties dress to status. With Velo e Velatio, Gabriella Zarri presents a
collection of essays that engage a range of textual and visual evidence to reveal the
difficulty of deciphering the status indicated by various kinds of veils, including but
not limited to those worn by religious women.
Zarri’s introduction analyzes the differences in appearance and significance of
head coverings with regard to religious and gender identity. Establishing the head
as a symbolic “place,” she provides an analytical framework for assessing the discursive qualities of veils and the state of being veiled. Zarri surveys the head coverings
worn by religious men of various conditions and ranks, and by servants, novices,
and professed choir nuns living in convents. She studies fabric, color, shape, the
occasions when particular head coverings were to be worn, and the relationship of
head coverings to the complete monastic habit. This introduction helps to establish
the veil’s many meanings—betrothal to Christ, subjection, modesty, constancy, and
communal (versus individual) identity, among others.

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These associations are extended in both Valerio Guazzoni’s chapter on
Moretto’s allegorical representations of faith and in Alessandro Martoni’s study of
the iconography of veils in paintings of Saint Flavia Domitilla. Refining our understanding of the meanings the veil conveyed, Isabella Campagnol’s chapter provides
important context for Vecellio’s representations of sixteenth-century Venetians.
Campagnol examines the veils and veiledness of unmarried, married, and widowed
laywomen; courtesans, and both second- and third-order religious women. Her conclusion—that veils could simultaneously communicate, obscure, and confuse identity—beautifully captures the volume’s unifying thesis. Angela Ghirardi’s survey of
veiling conventions for widows, shown in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century portraits, reinforces this point. Gianni Nigrelli’s chapter focuses less on symbolism and
more on how the veil connected the wearer with family and convent community in
a unique cycle of portraits of nuns, now assembled at the Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia.
Sixteen of the original thirty-nine portraits of Chigi nuns survive, and all are illustrated here; they serve as pendants to a cycle of thirty-seven portraits of Chigi laywomen, known as the “Belle.” Nigrelli sets these paintings in the context of the
nuns’ convents in Rome and Siena, all three of which were patronized by the Chigi.
Much is unknown about the circumstances of their commission and even their
intended location, but these portraits, which represent Chigi women of many different ages, in different monastic habits, and at different points in their monastic
careers—some of them multiple times—demonstrate that the sitters’ accomplishments were valued at least as much as those of their kinswomen who established
advantageous connections between the Chigi and other families through marriage.
Although the individual chapters are idiosyncratic, taken together they make a
useful addition to the growing literature on the subject of dress and identity in earlymodern Italy. Although more direct discussion of and engagement with these sources
would have added greatly to the volume, Velo e Velatio fills a niche in the current
scholarship by demonstrating the polysemous potential of a single article of clothing.
Drury University
Springfield, MO

SAUNDRA WEDDLE

Worlds of Learning: The Library and World Chronicle of the Nuremberg Physician
Hartmann Schedel (1440–1514). Edited by Bettina Wagner for the Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek; translated by Diane Booton and others (Munich: Allitera.
2015. Pp. 168. €22,90. ISBN 978-3-86906-757-5.)
The World Chronicle of the German physician and humanist Hartmann
Schedel (1440–1514), first printed in 1493, was a huge success in the publishing
world. Its major allure lay in the illustrations: more than 1800 woodcuts depicted
biblical and historical events as well as views of towns. Since the book was so costly,
copies of it were also jealously preserved by their successive owners. This resulted
in a particularly high “survival rate” and explains why 1300 copies of the Latin edition and 400 of the German edition are still extant in public and private libraries
around the world. An exhibition at the Bavarian State Library in Munich marked

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the 500th anniversary of the death of the Chronicle’s author, seeking to shed light
on Schedel’s biography and presenting his private library that he used to compile
his World Chronicle. The organizers arranged the exhibits chronologically along
the course of Schedel’s life, showing, for example, books he read as a student in
Padua, texts he used to expand his knowledge as a physician in Germany, and many
examples of his wide-ranging curiosity as a collector. His interests ranged from
classical literature, philosophy, history, and geography to medicine, law, and theology. Among the most fascinating documents are, for example, booklists he
obtained from Rome during his hunt for incunables (pp. 101–04). A core challenge
of the exhibition was to elucidate the sources and working methods of Schedel in
compiling his World Chronicle. This fascinating goal is not completely reached.
We are not carried very far beyond what is already known—namely, that contemporary Italian writers such as Enea Silvio Piccolomini, Biondo Flavio, Bartolomeo
Platina, and Giacomo Filippo Foresti strongly influenced Schedel. In Worlds of
Learning, Bernd Posselt (“The World Chronicle and Its Sources,” pp. 117–20)
draws on his doctoral dissertation completed in Munich in 2013, touching on how
Schedel’s Chronicle integrated religious content (such as events in ecclesiastical
history and Church-state relations) with world history (the six ages of the world,
followed by the appearance of the antichrist and the Last Judgment).
This exhibition catalog presents many stimulating questions regarding the
worldview of a private book collector of the Renaissance. Like Schedel’s illustrated
Chronicle itself (which was published in German and Latin), the exhibition catalog
is beautifully illustrated and available in two languages (German and English). The
English edition will be welcomed—like Schedel’s Latin version of 1493—by an
international audience.
University of York

STEFAN BAUER

An Allegory of Divine Love: The Netherlandish Blockbook Canticum Canticorum. By
Marilyn Aronberg Lavin. [Early Modern Catholicism and the Visual Arts,
Vol. 10.] (Philadelphia: Saint Joseph’s University Press. 2014. Pp. viii, 238.
$85.00. ISBN 978-0-916-10179-4.)
The Canticum canticorum, a blockbook produced in the Netherlands around
1465–70, is a series (or Suite, as the author calls it) of eight double-page woodcuts
comprising four individual pictures each, arranged in two registers per page. The
woodcuts depict Christ; a crowned and haloed young woman (Mary); and various
bystanders, mostly a group of three virgins (the daughters of Sion). The pictures
contain banderoles with (xylographic) texts, taken from the Latin text of the Canticles but arranged in different order from the Vulgate. By being inserted in banderoles, the texts are turned into a dialogue between the persons depicted, with the
pictures serving as a visual aid to understand and to meditate on the text. Although
the sequence of the pages varies in some of the approximately thirty surviving copies,
they are here reproduced in the “order accepted by the author as original” (p. 222).
Each of the eight double-page spreads is presented first in a reproduction from the

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(uncolored) copy held by the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York; subsequently,
each of the four pictures is analyzed individually in minute detail, beginning with a
reproduction from a 1949 facsimile, a description, an iconographic study of “visual
parallels” (p. 16), transcriptions and translations of the Latin inscriptions, interpretations of the verses by modern and medieval authors (Marvin Pope, Giles of Rome,
Nicholas of Lyra, Denys the Carthusian), and a brief summary (analysis). The book
thus allows the reader to immerse her- or himself deeply into the fifteenth-century
blockbook. It is very attractively designed, with more than 200 color reproductions
of works of art that can in some way be compared with the (highly unusual) iconography of the blockbook. Rather than putting the blockbook solely in the context of
medieval illustrated manuscripts of the Canticles, Marilyn Aronberg Lavin draws on
copious material from other forms of art—mainly Italian paintings and frescoes.
This method, of course, raises questions as to whether direct influences between
such different works of art, which originated in different regions, are possible; but
instead of studying antecedents, Lavin intends to make the reader familiar with a
widespread iconographic repertoire that allowed fifteenth-century users to understand and contextualize the blockbook. In her very close reading of text and images,
she succeeds in conveying to the modern reader a sense of the deep and often rather
obscure meaning; she stimulates a profound involvement with the blockbook that
may come close to its medieval usage—probably predominantly by (female) members of religious orders, who were induced to follow Mary’s example in renouncing
the world and achieving a spiritual union with Christ.
The book also provides the reader with a concise introduction to the blockbook as a printed medium and to the Song of Songs as well as with a conclusion
outlining some general aspects of its function and readership. Although the overall
layout is clear and appealing, the quality of the book is marred by numerous major
and minor mistakes in the details. There are misprints on nearly every page (many
more than listed on the errata slip), even in names of authors, institutions, and
titles; factual mistakes (such as labeling figure 3’s Speculum humanae salvationis as a
woodcut blockbook instead of as a work containing typeset text); and particularly
frequent errors in the transcriptions of the Latin verses that are accompanied by
translations from the “Douay-Rheims Bible” of 1585–1610 rather than verbatim
translations. The author seems unfamiliar with languages other than English and
with book-historical terminology alike, and the result of her research would have
been more convincing if experts in these areas and a reliable copyeditor had been
consulted. It is particularly regrettable that the author was obviously unaware of a
major project that has digitized and catalogued about ninety blockbooks held in
Bavarian collections, including six copies of the Canticum (see http://www.bayerische-landesbibliothek-online.de/xylographa-werke#canticum). The project
Web site gives an insight into much more authentic versions of the Canticum than
the (heavily modified) 1949 facsimile used by Lavin and invites further research in
this fascinating genre of pictorial books, many of which served for meditation and
religious instruction.
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München

BETTINA WAGNER

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Iserloh: Der Thesenanschlag fand nicht statt. By Uwe Wolff. Edited by Barbara Hallensleben. (Basel: Friedrich Reinhardt Verlag. 2013. Pp. xvii, 267. €25,00.
ISBN 978-3-7245-1956-0.)
Next year, the Protestant and Catholic Churches will commemorate an event
that probably did not happen. The dramatic story of Martin Luther at the church
door in Wittenberg came under close scrutiny in the 1960s in the work of Erwin
Iserloh who, with Joseph Lortz and others, helped to reshape Catholic approaches
to the Reformation. Iserloh’s thesis, the title of this volume, is only partially about
the iconic portrayal of the heroic biblical scholar publicly issuing a challenge to the
late-medieval doctrine of purgatory and its associated practices. More significantly,
Iserloh’s argument about October 1517 reassesses Luther’s intentions by raising
questions about the doctrines and practices of the Church and offers a path toward
seeing the beginnings of the Reformation as a moment within Catholic history.
Uwe Wolff combines several pieces intended to set Iserloh’s life and work in
the context of mid-twentieth-century German Catholicism. Wolff’s own biographical study of Iserloh, drawn from his recollections and research in the Iserloh archive
at the Institute for Ecumenical Studies at Freiburg, shows us Iserloh’s student years,
academic training, ordination and the war years, and a distinguished career as priest
and academic. This biography is the Catholic component of Wolff’s “trilogy of
believing hearts” (p. 120), the other two subjects being the prolific German writer
Edzard Schaper and Walter Nigg, a Reformed theologian known for ecumenical
engagement with Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Paired with this is Iserloh’s
own memoir (Lebenserinnerungen), published in Römische Quartalschrift in 1987 and
his final publication; it appears as appendix E of the present volume.
The diptych of biographical sketches is the heart of this work, and there is
bound to be duplication in the two accounts of Iserloh’s life. But Wolff provides
details (about Iserloh’s mentors, for example) that Iserloh leaves out, whereas Iserloh’s autobiographical observations allow us to see mid-century German Catholicism
through the eyes of one of its major figures. Iserloh’s own reminiscences are more colorful than Wolff’s: the reader appreciates touches of irony interspersed in an account
of tumultuous decades. Taken together, they offer an intimate look at the life of the
Church, and the intertwined trajectories of ecumenical thought and historical scholarship, in the years between World War II and the Second Vatican Council.
Iserloh’s work contributed to efforts to have Luther’s ban of excommunication
lifted, an ecumenical breakthrough had it occurred. Following Lortz, Iserloh saw
Luther not as a heretic but as a deeply pious individual with a prophetic spirit. In
these documents we have sources for the genealogy of an idea controversial at the
time but now conventional in a church more ecumenical than when Lortz and Iserloh wrote. Historians of theology will especially welcome the careful assessment of
Iserloh’s work by Barbara Hallensleben (a 2011 lecture at Trier), the assessment by
Lutheran bishop Friedrich Weber of Iserloh’s contribution to church union, and
Iserloh’s original publication on the posting of the Theses. This last item is good

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to present to a new generation that may be unaware of the circumstances surrounding the dispute about indulgences. Historiographically the question concerns the
quality of the evidence available for an event that has been enshrined as a turning
point in Western history; and Iserloh’s research serves as a valuable case in the history of scholarship.
In an appendix, Volker Leppin of Tübingen offers a view from 2013 of the controversy of the 1960s and sustains the thesis that the iconic event at the door of the
church was a fabrication. In the course of his discussion Leppin critiques the arguments of Bernd Moeller and other defenders of the legend. In Leppin’s hands the
controversial Catholic challenge of Iserloh, a Thesenanschlag of sorts in its own right,
is now part of the dominant narrative of Lutheran historians of the Reformation.
University of Illinois at Chicago

RALPH KEEN

Juan de Valdés and the Italian Reformation. By Massimo Firpo. Translated by
Richard Bates. [Catholic Christendom, 1300–1700.] (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing. 2015. Pp. xvi, 261. $119.95. ISBN 978-1-4724-3977-2.)
The late Gordon Kinder once called the alumbrados of Castile “the goose that
laid the golden eggs.” Massimo Firpo’s recent work shows just how far those eggs
circulated throughout Reformation Europe. The book is a combination of two earlier articles in Italian that have been translated, updated, and expanded. Its major
contribution is distinguishing Valdés’s own religious doctrines from the dual and
contradictory “Valdesian” heresies after his death in 1541. In so doing, Firpo provides a detailed account of how the leaders for religious compromise within the
hierarchy of the Church, and some of the most radical reformation sects, all drew
upon Valdés’s alumbrado heritage.
Given the significance placed on the alumbrados, the analysis of them is rather
thin. Their spiritual individualism, their intense rivalry, and their warped representation via Inquisition trial documentation, makes deconstruction of any systematic
theology extremely difficult. Nonetheless, recent scholarship has increasingly
emphasized their influence on Valdés’s religious thought.
The second chapter somewhat abruptly switches from Valdés to the penetration of Protestant doctrines into Italy from the north setting up the heart of the
study: Valdés’s spirituali circle in Naples and its connections to other spirituali,
including powerful cardinals influential in the ecclesiastical hierarchy before and
during the Council of Trent. Insightfully, Firpo traces a complex and interwoven
grid of communication that he believes peaked in power in the late 1540s after
Valdés’s death. The most thought-provoking part of the work is his closely reasoned argument that the demise of the Valdesian movement for internal reform
resulted in part from radical Valdesian successors. In 1542, just a few months after
Valdés’s death, the Papal Inquistion targeted Valdesians, fearing their influence at
the top of the church hierarchy. Firpo notes that the Papal Inquisition, in effect,
shaped orthodox theology before the Council of Trent leading more Valdesians

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into radical doctrines including anti-Trinitarianism and Anabaptism. The Radical
Reformation, influenced by Valdés albeit postmortem, was as anathema to mainline Protestants as to inquisitors.
Throughout the book Firpo uses the term Reformation to identify both the
work of internal and external Valdesian reformers, and classifies both as heresies.
Although acknowledging that Valdés’s religious thought was incompatible with
Protestant theology, Firpo claims Valdés had absorbed some Protestant doctrines
such as “justification by faith alone” (p. 40). Justification by faith was Valdés’s key
doctrine, but he never added Martin Luther’s insertion of “alone” to the scripture.
Stefane Pastore has highlighted the significance of the alumbrado doctrine of charity, and Valdés’s doctrine of justification by faith was inextricably tied to his doctrine of charity. Valdés, his father, his older brother, and his heir and nephew all
served as stewards of all the houses and hospitals of San Lázaro in the Diocese of
Cuenca that cared for the poor sick. Further, as Firpo indicates, many of Valdés’s
followers joined the Confraternity of the White Servants of Justice, who supported the Neapolitan Hospital for the Incurables, to which Valdés generously
donated in his testament. Throughout Europe, the concept of charity changed in
the sixteenth century to martial resources for dealing with a rampant crisis in
public health. The alumbrados, the Valdés family, Bernardino Ochino and the
Capuchins, as well as the Neapolitan confraternity all seem to have been on the
cutting edge of this change.
In conclusion, Juan de Valdés and the Italian Reformation is a major contribution to Reformation studies that should appeal to all scholars and graduate students
in the field.
University of Central Missouri

DANIEL A. CREWS

Punishment and Penance: Two Phases in the History of the Bishop’s Tribunal of Novara.
By Thomas B. Deutscher. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2013. Pp.
xiv, 215. $60.00. ISBN 978-1-4426-4442-7.)
Among the many actions taken by the bishop’s tribunal in the northern Italian
Diocese of Novara between 1563 and 1799, both “punishment” and “penance”
played an important role. Thomas Deutscher’s case study argues that the bishop’s
tribunal employed both rigor and compassion in responding to the misbehavior of
those who appeared before the episcopate. The tribunal was interested in both
clergy and laypeople, but it responded with varying degrees of severity to each,
depending upon the time period and the context. Deutscher suggests that, in the
early phases (1563–1615), the tribunal actively pursued both sacred and secular
transgressors. In the later period, however, the persecution of laymen dropped off
dramatically, a testament to the growing power of secular justice and the concomitant decline in the authority of the bishop.
The Novara episcopate—particularly in the post-Tridentine period—was
dominated by St. Carlo Borromeo, archbishop of Milan. Deutscher’s opening

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chapter surveys the geography and history of Novara, as well as the specific role of
the vicar general and other offices within the diocese. The second chapter examines
the extent of episcopal jurisdiction by focusing on how Novara interacted with
other judicial bodies, including the Roman Inquisition, and especially on the oftcontentious relationship between the Lombard bishops and their secular counterparts in Milan. The next two chapters consider the immediate post-Tridentine
period in detail, turning first to moral transgressions and criminal acts of the clergy
(chapter 3) and then to similar failings of the laity (chapter 4). The reader’s impression is of a tribunal eager to intervene and to implement Catholic reform but
stymied by a series of obstacles, including a lack of qualified replacements for misbehaving clergy, an overburdened vicar general, and a strong desire to forgive (if not
always to forget). The final chapter looks far ahead to consider the actions of the
tribunal in the period 1745–99. Deutscher explicitly chose a comparative approach
to measure change over time. He recognizes that the extant records, although similar, are not identical, and thus precise head-to-head comparisons are not possible.
Nevertheless, there is certainly sufficient material to draw conclusions about
changes in the strength, success, and targets of the bishop’s tribunal.
It is clear from the introduction and opening chapters that Novara offers a good
run of serial records, complemented by sources such as visitation acts; synodal
decrees; a census of priests; and the extensive correspondence of Carlo Bascapè,
Novara’s bishop and Borromeo’s close contemporary. Deutscher’s study is very much
a local one; in the introduction and the notes he briefly mentions case studies that
have been done elsewhere, but there are relatively few of these, making his level of
detail and careful study a welcome addition to the history of local Catholicism.
One of the most fascinating elements of this study is the rich narrative about
rogue priests and the seeming inability of the bishop’s tribunal to curb them. The
introduction opens with the tale of Pier Paolo Burro, a curate in Novara who was
charged with a dizzying and disheartening list of charges: concubinage, theft, gambling, avarice, assault, and failure to perform many pastoral duties. Despite the
apparently overwhelming evidence, he escaped any serious punishment for nearly
two decades before finally being suspended—but only for one year. These and
other stories exemplify Deutscher’s point that the effectiveness of the bishop’s tribunal was often quite limited.
University of Massachusetts, Lowell

CHRISTOPHER CARLSMITH

Storia di Clelia Farnese: Amori, potere, violenza nella Roma della Controriforma. By
Gigliola Fragnito. (Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino. 2013. Pp. 329.
€25,00. ISBN 978-88-15-24661-5.)
Gigliola Fragnito has produced a work sure to receive vociferous praise from
her peers. Benedetta Craveri in the October 21, 2013, La Repubblica and Paolo
Mieli in the September 3, 2013, Corriere della Sera raved about Fragnito’s work
taking massive archival information and finding the narrative rhythm necessary to

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delight readers enamored of history. Her sixteen brief chapters constituted, for
them, an extraordinary book about a woman caught in power plays at the pinnacle
of a still-corrupted Roman noble and ecclesiastical world, years after the conclusion
of the Council of Trent.
The story, as told by Fragnito, would make a great motion picture. With
political machinations, discomfiting violence, intricate diplomacy, and sexual subplots—not to mention a female protagonist of extraordinary beauty—the tale,
which is ultimately a genuine tragedy, has everything necessary to bring people to
the theaters. Clelia Farnese (1557–1613) was the daughter of a famous art-patron
cardinal and aspiring pope: il gran cardinal Alessandro Farnese (1520–89). The
grandson of Pope Paul III (r. 1534–49), he hoped to be the second Farnese to hold
the throne in the sixteenth century and repeatedly tried to use his daughter to help
him attain the goal. He placed her into a first, disastrous marriage (February 1571)
with Giovan Giorgio Cesarini, from a family that had three members in the College of Cardinals at the time. Giovan Giorgio turned out to be an adventurer on
many levels: as a soldier, as a gambler, and as an adulterer. Clelia apparently
arranged for the killing of one of his paramours inside the Cesarini household. This
notoriety threatened the reputation of both noble families. Roman fascination with
Clelia’s beauty reached a crescendo as Giovan Giorgio’s health was declining. So,
when he died in 1585 at age thirty-five, Clelia’s father aimed to remove the stunning widow with her young son from the city and from the Roman, papal-electing
eye. She resisted with all her might, despite even imprisonment at the order of her
father. In 1587 he steered her—quite in violation of Tridentine marriage legislation—into a still more disastrous marriage, as Clelia’s new husband, Marco Pio di
Savoy, brutalized her. After his death in battle in 1599, Clelia fled to a monastery
in the Farnese duchy of Parma. She returned to Rome in 1601 and died there.
Alas, this is a movie highly unlikely to be made in Hollywood. Although sex,
violence, and political intrigue all sell well with audiences, producers of films with
historical content seem convinced that nothing sells like received narratives of the
past. “Bio-pics” of early-modern characters like Martin Luther and Elizabeth I
provide plenty of evidence. This book rightly casts aside the standard narrative on
life in early-modern Europe. Conjugal and family relations surely did not constrain
Clelia, as she defended her own position and the interests of her son with autonomy and determination. This illegitimate daughter unabashedly resisted her father,
who happened to be one of the most powerful cardinals in the Roman hierarchy.
Clearly not all women conformed to social conventions, often considered determining in early-modern gender relations. Clearly the heavy hand of the post-Tridentine Roman Church was not as heavy as suggested in the dominant narrative.
Such truths make for a complicated story to bring to the cinema. Most readers of
this journal would be satisfied with easier dissemination of Fragnito’s brilliant
work: a readily available English translation.
Bloomsburg University

WILLIAM V. HUDON

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The Lead Books of Granada. By Elizabeth Drayson. [Early Modern History: Society
and Culture.] (New York: Palgrave. 2013. Pp. xv, 289. $95.00. ISBN: 978-1137-35884-4.)
The human stories behind the multilingual and multigraphic parchment,
relics, and “Lead Books” (plomos) of Granada, recovered from their hiding places in
two episodes between 1588 and 1599, are endlessly fascinating. Elizabeth
Drayson’s new book describes in detail how the personalities and complex motives
of individuals shaped the forgery, discovery, authentication, and repudiation of the
plomos. Those texts and artifacts were found over the course of the decades following the second war of the Alpujarras and the expulsion of the morisco “new Christians” from Granada (1568–71). The purportedly early Christian relics and texts
were intended by their creators to demonstrate an ancient Christian heritage for the
recently converted city of Granada, as well as to cast aspects of the Islamic heritage
of that same city (first and foremost the use of the Arabic language) as compatible
and acceptable to the orthodoxy of Counter-Reformation Spain. These relics and
texts were written or inscribed variously in Latin, Castilian, and a distinctive Arabic
script described as Solomonic. The unique set of skills and expertise needed to
create such artifacts, and the particular set of motives that would inspire a hoax
geared to appeal to both Christians and Muslims, have inspired a spirited and longstanding debate among scholars as to the identity of the forgers. Drayson looks to
the usual suspects, the morisco doctors Alonso del Castillo and Miguel de Luna, and
gives an account of the recent scholarship about these figures. Drayson, whose previous work has focused on the legends surrounding Rodrigo, the last Visigothic
king of Spain, is especially drawn to the figure of Luna, the author of the Historia
Verdadera del rey don Rodrigo (Granada, 1592), itself an invented history purportedly translated by Luna from the original Arabic text of one Abu al-Qasim Tarif
ibn Tariq. Luna is a tremendously engaging figure with complex personal and professional motives, as Drayson and others who have worked on him have shown.
One of Drayson’s principal motives for writing the book, as she tells her readers in
the preface and again throughout chapter 5, “Miguel de Luna—Hoaxer, Heretic,
or Hero?” is to “bring to the fore a man who has not been regarded as a hero” (p.
xiii). However, the story of Luna and his contemporaries that Drayson proceeds to
tell is fascinating on its own merits and would not seem to require the invocation
of a heroic ideal to justify its discussion and analysis.
Drayson’s well-written book is a timely addition to a renewed scholarly interest in early-modern forgery and its role in the cultivation of new forms of critical
inquiry along with the cultivation of religious and national heritage through antiquities (forged or authentic), as exemplified in the works of Katrina Olds and Katie
Harris, among others. Along with her interventions in this scholarship, however,
Drayson’s principal contribution, beyond synthesizing the complex matter of the
plomos episodes, lies in her portrayal of the lead books in contemporary Spanish culture (chapter 10). Her discussion of the imaginative portrayals of the episodes
around the lead books in Spanish popular culture since the 1990s, in fiction and in
film, introduces her readers to an aspect of contemporary Spanish culture that is as

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important as the historical episode and historiography around the Lead Books. She
shows how the recent flurry of scholarship and creative work inspired by the
Granadan forgeries is in its own way a glimpse into the current engagement of both
the Spanish academy and the Spanish public with the same questions for which the
plomos were meant to serve as a response at the end of the sixteenth century: what
is the place of Islam and Islamic culture in Spanish society and Spanish history?
Those who are particularly interested in the topic will wish to read Drayson’s
book in conjunction with the revised edition and English translation of Mercedes
García-Arenal and Fernando Rodríguez Mediano, The Orient in Spain: Converted
Muslims, the Forged Lead Books of Granada, and the Rise of Orientalism, translated by
Consuelo López-Morillas (Leiden, 2013) and its rich archival references (Drayson
cites the 2010 Spanish first edition). In addition, for non-Spanish speakers,
Drayson’s translations throughout the text and in the appendices will be of particular value.
Saint Louis University

CLAIRE GILBERT

Der Jansenismus—eine „katholische Häresie”? Das Ringen um Gnade, Rechtfertigung
und die Autorität Augustins in der frühen Neuzeit. Edited by Dominik Burkard
and Tanja Thanner. [Reformationsgeschichtliche Studien und Texte, Band
159.] (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag. 2014. Pp. viii, 464. €56.00. ISBN 9783-402-11583-1,)
The book contains eighteen essays dedicated to the controversy on grace and
justification in the early-modern period that were discussed in the symposium held
in Würzburg on May 12–14, 2011. The symposium examined Jansenism as a
European phenomenon of various theological, historical, and political implications.
Fourteen essays are in German, one is in French, and three are in English. The
book includes an index of abbreviations and acronyms as well as an index of personal names.
Free will is one of the oldest questions of history. In the history of Christianity, it is found mainly in the early-fifth-century controversy between St. Augustine
of Hippo (354–430) and Pelagius, and in its theological and ecclesiastical implications. Later the problem of divine grace and human freedom gave renewed rise to
considerable theological debates. Finally, the question of justification, focused
through the Reformation, acted as a catalyst. Between the emerging denominations
in the wake of these debates also a struggle flared for the “heritage” and for the true
hermeneutic of Augustine himself. The theological problems of grace led to violent
intra-Catholic controversy that eventually culminated in the mid-seventeenth century in the conflict over the Augustinus of Cornelius Jansen (1585–1638). Immediately after the publication of this work, which claimed to be the authentic interpretation of the Church Father, came the prohibition of the Augustinus published by
the Roman Index of Prohibited Books. The papal bull Cum occasione (1653) condemned five propositions, taken from the Augustinus, as heretical. The explosive

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force of this act was enormous between theologians and seemed to condemn the
theological position on grace of Augustine. The volume examines the complex,
multifaceted phenomenon of Jansenism from the theological initial question and
offers the analysis of the reception of Augustine’s thought by main theologians of
the modern period such as John Calvin and Martin Luther. The importance of
Augustine’s theological thought emerges in this well-documented and nuanced
history of Jansenism.
Cornelius P. Mayer analyzes the evolution of Augustine’s thought until the
drafting of the Confessiones. Two essays present Augustine’s hermeneutic and the
relationship among Luther, Calvin, and Augustine: Otto H. Pesch discusses the
ambiguous critique made by Luther, and Karin Scheiber analyzes the main contact
points and differences between Calvin and Augustine. Karlheinz Ruhstorfer presents the dispute “de auxiliis” from its origins to the dispute between the Jesuit Luis
de Molina and the Dominican Domingo Báñez (unfortunately the author ignores
the Italian and French studies on this intriguing subject). Giovanna D’Aniello
explains the link between Francisco Suárez and Augustine on the effectiveness of
grace. Diana Stanciu’s essay is dedicated to Jansenist concepts of habit and habitual
grace, two concepts inspired by Aristotelian philosophy: Jansen could not accept
the Aristotelian concept of human nature as defined by virtue or ability to exercise
virtue before receiving the aid of grace, as it implied that humans could control salvation. Wim François discusses efficacious grace and predestination in the Bible
commentaries of W. H. van Est, Jansen, and Libertus Fromondus. The three theologians could be considered as interesting representatives of a golden age of biblical scholarship in Louvain and Douai, but only Estius is considered by the author
as the most skillful of the three, and he was the only who took a strikingly different
doctrinal option on efficacious grace solely to the elect. Michael Kalus Wernicke
explains the position on the Jansenist controversy expressed by the Eremites of the
Augustine order Christian Lupus and Enry Noris. Sylvio Hermann De Franceschi
dedicates his research to the presentation of theological ambiguity in the Catholic
Thomism of the early-modern age, caused by the proximity of St. Thomas’s position on grace to the Calvinistic one. The diplomatic aspect of the Jansenist controversy during the mission in Cologne of the nuncio Fabio Chigi (1640–51) is presented by Marcel Albert, whereas Dominik Burkard explains the background of the
Five Propositions condemned by Rome, presenting the Memorandum sent to Pope
Innocent X on August 28, 1652, and written by three Augustinian theologians—
professors in the Theological Faculty in Paris. Burkard found this important document in the Archivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede and places
it in the context of events. Tanja Thanner presents the origins of the history of the
Bull Cum occasione, detailing the censurae written by the members of the Index’s
congregation from the Augustinian order (Philip Visconti and Celestinus Bruni).
Els Agten attributes the impetus of the Jansenist milieu in France and the Low
Countries to Bible reading in the vernacular languages between 1660 and 1735,
presenting the main translated edition of the Bible or of the New Testament in
French and Dutch. Nicole Reinhardt focuses on the theme of the royal conscience
in the prism of Jansenist criticism, and Catherine Maire presents the reception to

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the Bull Unigenitus (1713) as church law and the norm of the French state. Jan
Rioegiers explains the political implications of the Jansenism and anti-Jansenism,
among European plots, alliances, and political factions. Herman H. Schwedt presents the position of the Dominican Inquisitor Sebastian Knippenberg, who worked
in Cologne at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The final essay, by Volker
Reinhardt, traces the most important stages of the rejection of Jansenism by the
baroque papacy.
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia

MARIA TERESA FATTORI

Cunegonde’s Kidnapping: A Story of Religious Conflict in the Age of Enlightenment. By
Benjamin Kaplan. [The Lewis Walpole Series in Eighteenth-Century Culture
and History.] (New Haven: Yale University Press. 2014. Pp. xxii, 290. $30.00.
ISBN 978-0-300-18736-6.)
In this exemplary microhistory, Benjamin Kaplan weaves together a story of
local religious conflict with broader themes of Enlightenment, toleration, and the
political and social history of the Netherlands and Germany in the eighteenth century. Based on a treasure trove of documents in the Dutch National Archives,
Kaplan’s book connects the intimate details of a mixed marriage to the border politics of a confessionally mixed territory and the actions of the Dutch Republic’s
ruling elite. In so doing, Kaplan has provided us with a fascinating view of eighteenth-century religious and social history that will be of interest to scholars and
general readers far beyond the field of Dutch history.
The kidnapping of the title refers to two related acts in 1762. In the first, a
young Catholic woman from Aachen by the name of Cunegonde tries to halt the
baptism of her infant nephew in the Reformed (Calvinist) Church of Vaals, a small
village on the Dutch-German border (today located at the “Drielandenpunt” where
Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands come together). Her feeble attempt to
seize the child is stopped. Temporarily imprisoned in Vaals, she is freed by a small
gang of Catholics from Aachen. This double kidnapping results in a series of escalating acts of religious violence and judicial actions in Aachen and the Dutch
Republic. The legal proceedings against Cunegonde and against the Catholic
pastor Johannes Bosten (the presumed instigator) form the backbone of the book.
One of the great strengths of this book is Kaplan’s ability to use particular
details from his story to present a larger social and intellectual portrait of the age.
For example, the first chapter tells the story of the fraught marriage of the
Reformed Sara Maria Effrans and the Catholic Hendrick Mommers. Kaplan
writes about the couple’s difficulty in finding a clergyman willing to perform the
wedding ceremony and, in so doing, paints a larger picture of the nature of intermarriage in a religiously diverse landscape. The chapter presents a rich account of
the various legal, social, and political implications of mixed marriages in the period.
Likewise, Kaplan’s excellent chapter on the particular religious and political
geography of Vaals and Aachen offers a fascinating discussion of borders in the

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early-modern period. Because authorities in Catholic Aachen forbade Protestant
worship, Protestants traveled on Sundays to Reformed Vaals for services. Borders,
Kaplan notes, were not just restrictive but offered a liberating effect, producing a
sort of religious “deregulation.” The same freedom of movement that enabled the
Catholic kidnappers to escape Dutch jurisdiction and offered occasion for religious
violence also put pressure on ruling authorities to tolerate religious minorities who
moved in and out of neighboring territories.
A later chapter takes the case all the way to the States General, which had
final jurisdiction over the matter. In addition to offering a glimpse into the inner
workings of the Dutch Republic, Kaplan presents an insightful discussion of the
difference between local and national ruling elites as well as the various ways in
which the Enlightenment affected political and religious decisions. In short,
Kaplan’s book serves as a wonderful introduction to issues of religious conflict and
coexistence in the eighteenth century, and serves as a worthy pendant to his wellreceived Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early
Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA, 2007).
Yale University

MICHAEL PRINTY

The French Revolution. Faith, Desire, and Politics. By Noah Shusterman. (New
York: Routledge. 2014. Pp. xiii, 265. $34.95 paperback. ISBN 978-0-41566021-1.)
This new synthesis on the French Revolution from 1789 through the end of
the Directory is self-consciously conceived for students and the general reader. It is
written in a lively—at times almost chatty—style, and it gives ample attention to
many of the most dramatic moments of this dramatic period. There are numerous
pithy descriptions of Revolutionary figures, from major leaders like Maximilian
Robespierre, Jean-Paul Marat, the Marquis de Condorcet, and Jérôme Pétion de
Villeneuve to more obscure individuals like the refractory parish clergyman
Jacques-Pierre Fleury. It is particularly unusual in its extensive reliance on the
works of nineteenth-century historians. References to the classic accounts of
Alphonse de Lamartine, Adolphe Thiers, Thomas Carlyle, Edgar Quinet, and Jean
Jaurès (although not Alexis de Tocqueville) appear frequently in both the text and
the notes. Above all, the great romantic historian Jules Michelet is cited dozens of
times, both for his vivid prose and for his interpretations. Although the author does
not entirely neglect the vast amount of research on the Revolution published since
the nineteenth century, he frequently follows the arguments and narrative line of
these earlier historians. Perhaps it is for this reason that he chooses largely to pass
over the “pre-Revolutionary” period (e.g., the Assembly of Notables of 1787, and
the municipal mobilization, the great pamphlet campaign, and the tsunami of grain
riots everywhere in France in 1788–89)—on which scholarship scarcely existed
when Michelet and Carlyle were writing.
In addition to a strong emphasis on the political narrative, the author gives
substantial attention—as his subtitle suggests—to the religious history and the his-

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tory of women during the Revolution. He provides nice passages on several of the
key female participants and explores some of the legislation advancing women’s
rights (although he never mentions the sweeping new rights granted over inheritance, property, and the control of children). He also underlines the considerable
support given by many women for the counterrevolution. On the question of
church history, there is an extensive analysis of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy
and the oath required of all ecclesiastics with cure of souls (he mistakenly says “all
clerics,” p. 73), and of the huge impact of this legislation and the ensuing religious
schism on the later development of the Revolution. Curiously, he chooses not to
mention the great National Assembly debate in mid-April 1790 on the precise designation of the ecclesiastical property to be sold to pay off the state debt and on
whether or not Catholicism should be declared the “state religion.” The decrees
voted in this debate were actually far more important than the vague decree of the
previous November that made some Church land “available” to the state, and they
were a major factor in further polarizing the Assembly and igniting religious riots
across southern France. There is almost no mention, moreover, of the goals and
activities of the Constitutional Church, of the vigorous and often idealistic support
for the Revolution on the part of tens of thousands of clergymen. Perhaps most surprising, given the book’s dual emphasis on women and religion, there is no mention
whatsoever of women religious during the Revolutionary period (some 55,000 individuals): of their widespread backing of the refractory clergy and of the extraordinary difficulties they faced when they were compelled to leave their convents.
Obviously, however, no rapid overview of this kind can hope to cover every
topic equally. Noah Shusterman’s book can still serve as a useful and stimulating
text for undergraduates in a course on the French Revolution.
University of California, Irvine

TIMOTHY TACKETT

LATE MODERN EUROPEAN
Les religions et les cultures dans l’Occident européen au XIXe siècle (1800–1914). By
Gérard Cholvy. [Histoire des mondes chrétiens.] (Paris: Éditions Karthala.
2014. Pp. 397. €27,00 paperback. ISBN 978-2-8111-1313-1.)
Gérard Cholvy, who taught history at Montpellier from 1962 to 2002, was
one of the leading figures in the golden age of French religious history. He has
written both general histories and more detailed studies, focusing especially on
youth movements, popular religion, and the geography of French Catholicism.
This new synthesis covers not only France but also Italy, Germany, and England,
although the sections on France are the strongest. After a review of the situation c.
1800, subsequent chapters examine the religious impact of romanticism and positivism; the spiritual revival of the later nineteenth century; religious art; the religion
of women; and Christian missions in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. The book ends
with a review of the situation c. 1914. There is then a “Postface” that outlines
Cholvy’s career as an historian and the influences on him, starting with his time as

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leader in the Catholic student movement in the 1950s. The main argument of the
book is that in opposition to the familiar model of a linear process of gradual secularization—a model favored especially by those who see secularization as a byproduct of a process of modernization—the period from the later eighteenth to the
early-twentieth centuries saw an ebb and flow, with periods of religious decline followed by periods of revival. Thus he stresses the critical state of religion in France
(and, indeed, in some of the countries occupied by French armies) as a result of the
disruptions and persecutions inflicted by the Revolution. But after that there was a
revival, peaking in the 1840s. The 1850s to the 1880s were the golden age of positivism, marked by growing anticlericalism and culminating in the secularizing legislation of the early Third Republic. But 1886 saw the start of a Catholic revival,
which peaked in the years immediately before World War I. Cholvy’s model works
well for France, but whether it can be applied generally is more questionable: in
fact, European religious history from the 1790s to the 1960s reflects national differences as much as, or even more than, common trends. For example, England saw
remarkable church growth from the 1790s to the 1840s, stabilization from the
1850s to the 1880s, and decline from the 1890s. The most distinctive aspect of the
book is perhaps the emphasis on key personalities. There are numerous portraits of
these men and women, and Cholvy stresses the importance of their initiatives as
theologians, social reformers, missionaries, or founders of religious communities.
However, the multiplication of examples of notable individuals is sometimes taken
too far—lending itself to a narrative approach that obscures wider issues of interpretation. This applies especially to the section on missions. His writing is especially vivid when his sympathies are most fully engaged. He describes with enthusiasm, as well as erudition, the many Catholic conversions among intellectuals in
the early-twentieth century; the growing Catholic (and to a lesser extent Protestant) presence among students; and the vibrant Catholic youth movement, noted
for the prowess of its soccer and basketball teams. Another highlight is the section
on religious art, which includes not only Eugène Delacroix, the Nazarenes, and
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (although not Emil Nolde) but also the “democratization of piety” brought about by mass production, notably of plaster saints selling for
12 francs. Written in an informal style but informed by Cholvy’s vast knowledge of
modern French religion and society, the book can be read with enjoyment by specialists but is directed principally at students and the general reader.
University of Birmingham

HUGH MCLEOD

The Fantasy of Reunion: Anglicans, Catholics, and Ecumenism, 1833–1882. By Mark
D. Chapman. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2014. Pp. x, 329. $99.00.
ISBN 978-0-19-968806-7.)
Mark Chapman’s new book casts an eye on the seemingly narrow topic of ecumenical relations between Anglicans and Catholics in the nineteenth century. Yet
the study provides a window into broader questions of Christian doctrine and
authority and their relationships to national identity, history, and international
relations in the nineteenth century.

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The narrative begins with ecumenical discussions during the Oxford Movement (1833–45), which involved rival understandings of catholicity and doctrinal
authority. Tractarians situated catholicity in a supposed patristic consensus,
whereas Roman Catholics emphasized a catholicity of the present under the
authority of the papacy. The arrangement of these theological loci provided numerous occasions for misunderstanding in the nineteenth century. In chapter 2, Chapman examines the rise and fall of the Association for the Promotion of the Unity
in Christendom (APUC) and highlights contributions of figures such as A. W. N.
Pugin, Ambrose Phillipps, and Frederick Lee. Chapman examines the APUC
against the backdrop of historical nostalgia and medieval revival in the romantic
era. He shows how Roman officials never warmed to the ideals of the APUC, and
the institution’s emphasis on national communions ran afoul of the rising ultramontane movement. At Manning’s prompting the Association saw official condemnation from Rome in 1865. The central chapters of Chapman’s study examine
Edward Pusey’s various Irenika and efforts of men such as Bishop Alexander Forbes
and Victor de Buck to find bases for reunion in the 1860s. These efforts were also
destined for failure, largely because Anglicans continued to seek foundations for
Christian reunion in a patristic consensus, whereas Roman Catholics increasingly
emphasized communion with the papacy. Pusey and Forbes were aware that their
efforts remained marginal even within their own communion. Authorities in Rome
also rebuffed these efforts, save for a select few, such as Archbishop Georges
Darboy and Bishop Félix Dupanloup, who may have been more interested in seizing the initiatives for their own intra-ecclesial purposes. Pusey and Forbes still
maintained their efforts until the definition of papal infallibility in 1870. After this
point, attempts for reunion with Rome disintegrated, and dialogue re-emerged on
a different playing field.
The final chapters (8–10) of the book focus on the period after the First Vatican Council. Here Chapman broadens his scope to include figures such as Henry
Liddon, Ignaz von Döllinger, and Frederick Meyrick and traces new ecumenical
efforts involving numerous cross-relations among Old Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and the American Episcopal Church. Chapman shows how these efforts
were also destined to failure by the early 1880s on account of factors such as nationalist tensions in the late-nineteenth century, divisive personalities, and the inability
of Eastern and Western Christians to agree on the ecumenicity of the Second
Council of Nicaea (787 AD).
Chapman’s overall narrative forcefully contours the shortcomings, scope, and
relentless rehearsal of misunderstandings in Anglican-Catholic ecumenism in the
nineteenth century. In finishing the book, the reader can only agree with his choice
of title. Yet the story Chapman tells offers a valuable contribution to our broader
understanding of Anglicanism and nineteenth-century Christianity. Ecumenical
exchanges focus light on precisely those questions, which many considered essential
during a time of rapid social, intellectual, and geopolitical change. The approach
isolates these concerns in debates about history, catholicity, doctrine, and understandings of church and state. The Fantasy of Reunion will interest scholars of

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modern Christianity and should be considered essential reading for Anglican and
nineteenth-century specialists. Rarely does such a narrow investigation cast so
broad a light on the landscape of an age.
Seton Hall University

C. MICHAEL SHEA

Mighty England Do Good: Culture, Faith, Empire, and World in the Foreign Missions
of the Church of England, 1850–1915. By Steven S. Maughan. [Studies in the
History of Christian Missions.] (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing. 2014. Pp. xvi, 511. $45.00 paperback. ISBN 978-0-8028-6946-3.)
Anyone working on Anglican missions in the Victorian and Edwardian periods will find Steven Maughan’s study an invaluable guide to the theological
debates, party strife, and personal rivalries that shaped the operations of the two
principal voluntary societies that bankrolled the foreign missions of the Church of
England: the Church Missionary Society (CMS) and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG). Although the title is drawn from a charge to British
Christianity delivered by David Livingstone’s African companion Jacob Wainwright in 1874, it is the metropolitan organization rather than the foreign operations of Anglican missions that is put under the microscope. As far as culture is
concerned, the principal object of study is the internal culture of the Church of
England.
Too often neophyte historians of Christian missions plunge into the archives
with a very superficial understanding of the denominational peculiarities and governance structures of the missionary societies dispatching agents to far-flung corners of the globe. Maughan decisively demonstrates that the CMS and SPG spent
much less time debating strategies for converting the heathen than defending their
confessional and partisan turf. They struggled continually to resolve the contradiction between the episcopal governing structure of the Anglican Church and the
voluntary philanthropic engines that kept the missionary societies financially afloat.
Broadly speaking, the CMS represented the Evangelical wing of the Anglican
Church, whereas the SPG embodied the values of High Church and AngloCatholic Anglicans. However, the shifting tides of politics and public opinion
ensured that the forces of various parties never settled into a comfortable equilibrium.
In the 1870s revivalist impulses from across the Atlantic infiltrated the church
at all levels and fuelled enthusiasm for what became known as the Keswick holiness
movement. Although this renewed passion for the cause of foreign missions among
university students, it worked against the development of self-governing, self-propagating churches overseas. Maughan enhances our understanding of the processes
identified by Andrew Porter in Nigerian Anglican missions that led to the dismissal of African leadership in the name of holy rectitude. He goes on to show how
an ineffectual response to the holiness challenge stunted the growth and threatened
the finances of the SPG.

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Further complicating the socio-religious balance of forces were the voices of
women frustrated by the inability of patriarchal structures in both the church and
the voluntary societies to accommodate their desire to serve at home and abroad.
Paradoxically the very receptiveness to evangelical passion that had strengthened
the CMS in the 1880s and 1890s threw it into turmoil at the turn of the century
when the male leadership recoiled against women’s involvement at the higher levels
of administration. About the same time the SPG embraced the cause of empire as
an ideal of Christian service that might transcend the bounds of entrenched parties
and the challenge of secularism.
Maughan’s book is longer than it needed to be. The historiographical opening
chapter adds little to the analysis, and there is a great deal of repetition, particularly
in the long sections labeled “Conclusions.” The writing and thinking, on the other
hand, are of a consistently high standard. The archival work is immensely impressive, and all subsequent scholars will owe him a debt of gratitude for surefooted
guidance across a treacherous terrain. We can only hope that someone may be
inspired to do something similar for Catholic missionary orders and societies.
University of Western Australia

NORMAN ETHERINGTON

The Moscow Council (1917–1918): The Creation of the Conciliar Institutions of the
Russian Orthodox Church. By Hyacinthe Destivelle, O.P. Edited by Michael
Plekon and Vitaly Permiakov. Translated by Jerry Ryan. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. 2015. Pp. xviii, 447. $36.00 paperback. ISBN
978-0-268-0217-2.)
The local Council of Moscow of 1917–18 was a pivotal event in the history of
the modern Russian Orthodox Church. The last council had taken place in 1667,
when Tsar Alexis attenuated the reform movement that Patriarch Nikon had initiated. Peter the Great went further and replaced the patriarch with the Holy
Synod, which was headed by a layman who reported directly to the government.
That arrangement prevailed until Tsar Nicholas II abdicated in February 1917.
The provisional government that succeeded Nicholas allowed religions to organize
and manage their own affairs, and, in response, the Russian Orthodox Church convened the local Council of Moscow.
The purpose of the council was to elect a new patriarch and to launch a reform
agenda once again, particularly in the light of historical changes related to modernization. The council was particularly interested in exploring more deeply the notion
of sobornost’—that organic sense of conciliarity that tied together bishops, clergy,
and laity in a unique relationship of love and service where each had its role, its special charism from God, and worked and sacrificed willingly to improve the community. However, council members never reached agreement on a definition of
conciliarity. Some argued that it meant more lay involvement and more democratic
procedure in the church, and others claimed that it related to defining functions for
different groups that remained subordinate to bishops and a patriarch. The council

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delved into a wide variety of topics, including church administration, missionary
activity, liturgy, preaching, monasticism, schools, local churches, and parochial life.
Many of the issues discussed by the council were critical for church reform and
renewal, including the role of the laity, the place of women, the church’s role in
society, ecumenical relations, and church unity. Unfortunately, the Bolshevik Revolution cut short the council’s work, but the challenges continued to be explored by
a brilliant group of emigré Russian theologians and philosophers in interwar Paris,
and their work and the original efforts of the Moscow Council are now being studied and used by the Russian Orthodox Church in the postcommunist era to move
forward with a reform agenda.
Hyacinthe Destivelle, O.P., an official at the Oriental Section of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, has done an invaluable service for the
Russian Orthodox Church and for the whole idea of Christian unity. His book,
which is based on the council documents and was originally published in French,
is a brilliant and insightful analysis of the Moscow Council and its many fascinating ideas and challenges. It is not only a fair and balanced treatment of Russian
Orthodoxy’s determination to make Christ’s enduring message of love and justice
relevant to a people experiencing radical changes in society but also an incredibly
rich presentation of original source documents, including the publication for the
first time in Western languages of The Definitions and Decrees of the Sacred Council
of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Statute of the Local Council of the Orthodox
Church of All Russia. Destivelle identifies many of the successes of the council
(such as parish administration) and also points out a central problem that the
council intended to confront—namely, separation of church and state—but never
quite managed to address.
Texas State University

DENNIS J. DUNN

The Polish Orthodox Church in the Twentieth Century and Beyond: Prisoner of History.
By Edward D. Wynot Jr. (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, an imprint of
Rowman & Littlefield. 2015. Pp. xiii, 123. $75.00. ISBN 978-1-7391-98841, clothbound; ISBN 978-0-7391-9885-8, ebook.)
This monograph depicts a portrait of the church whose appearance is compared to the birth of an “unwanted stepchild” (p. 1) and that managed to become
the second largest Christian denomination in contemporary Poland. The author
tells a fascinating story of this church as a part of broader issues of religion’s
accommodation to demands of secular politics, of relations between national identity and faith, and of minority activism in Poland. The research base is extensive,
including documents from Polish state archives, published sources, and newspapers and magazines of the period. The analysis is supported with statistical data
on ethnic composition of Poland, church network, numbers of Orthodox believers
and clergy, and maps showing geographical disposition of Orthodox dioceses. The
monograph is divided into four chapters and also contains a preface, select bibliography, and index.

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Chapter 1 (pp. 1–19) provides a sketchy overview of Eastern Christianity in
Poland prior to World War I. The author notes important milestones: inclusion of
Ukrainian and Belarusian lands into the Polish state, the 1596 Union of Brest, and
the struggle of Cossacks in support of Orthodoxy. The 1667 Treaty of Andrusovo
is seen as a turning point, as “the ‘Mother City’ of Polish Orthodoxy [Kyiv] … now
passed into the jurisdiction of the Russian Patriarchate” (p. 9). No longer simply a
“minority faith,” Orthodoxy in partitioned Poland became an “imperial Church”
perceived with “the lasting enmity of Poles from all social strata” (p. 15). A nonspecialist in early-modern history, the author freely uses anachronistic terms such
as Polish Orthodox Church, Polish Metropolitan, and Polish Orthodoxy, which are misleading in relation to the historical events he describes.
Chapter 2 (pp. 21–56) examines the complex fate of the Orthodox Church in
interwar Poland. The altered geopolitical situation forced the church to accommodate itself in the Polish nationalist state where Roman Catholicism became the
established face. Answering pressures from below and from above, the hierarchy
under Metropolitan Dionizy (Waledynski) strove to become independent from
Moscow. Polish authorities’ support was decisive in persuading Ecumenical Patriarch Gregory VII to bestow autocephaly on the Polish Orthodox Church in
November 1924 (interpreted by the author as a “non-canonical act” [pp. 33, 38]).
Simultaneously, state authorities saw this church as an instrument of Polonization
and Latinization of the Slavic minorities. Yet another factor came on the scene in
the period: clergy and lay activists of Ukrainian and Belarusian origin attempted to
ensure the national character of their church and saw it as a crucial constituent of
their respective national movements. The latter’s loyalty to the state was open to
doubt because of the treatment of the church by the ruling Polish majority (the
author mentions campaigns of “pacification,” forced conversions to Catholicism,
and “Neouniatism”), criticized both inside the country (by Metropolitan Andrei
Sheptytsky) and abroad (pp. 42–43).
The focus of chapter 3 (pp. 57–82) is on the existence of the Polish Orthodox
Church under communism. The World War II period, however, does not escape
the author’s attention either. The author’s remark, “That the Church not only survived but actually somewhat prospered during this era is a testament to its skill at
adapting to changes in its surroundings” (p. 57), is not without moral judgment.
The church collaborated with the Nazis during the war (the author provides an
oversimplified picture with some factual mistakes [pp. 58–59]) and Polish communists never failed to remind it of this to bring the church under tighter state control.
To have an effective instrument in their hands, they obtained the approval of the
church’s autocephalous status from Moscow and tolerated its considerable expansion, financial gains, and growth in prestige. The church had to pay the price and
therefore supported all governmental policies both domestically (from the “Operation Vistula” in the 1950s to the introduction of the martial law in the 1980s) and
internationally (engagement in ecumenical activities and the peace movement).
The church leaders—Macarius (Oksijuk) and Bazyli (Doroszkiewicz)—maneuvered quite successfully within allegedly hostile political and sociocultural condi-

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tions and managed to transform the Orthodox Church into a “respectable ecclesiastical body which enjoyed comparatively more privileges than the Roman Catholic
Church” (p. 68). The major internal challenge for the church remained the rising
demand for its Ukrainization coming from below, which the (Moscow-supported)
authorities were not ready to satisfy.
Chapter 4 (pp. 83–111) traces the latest developments in Polish Orthodoxy
after the fall of communism. Accused of collaboration with the regime’s security
forces, the church could marshal few arguments to persuade Polish democrats of its
legitimate grounds for functioning and could not compete with the Roman
Catholic Church in social influence, church property, religious education, and the
legal status of religious bodies. Nonetheless, the Orthodox Church managed to
secure its own legal status (p. 95) and sociopolitical role, becoming a spiritual leader
of national minorities’ political struggle for their interests. Metropolitan Sawa
(Hryuniak) also made several important gestures—from the introduction of the
Polish language in church services to the launching of the church’s own radio
broadcast system—to answer the challenges of the new millennium. The mutual
recognition of each other’s baptismal rituals by the Orthodox and Roman Catholic
Churches in 2000 is presented by the author as the beginning of a new page in the
story of this former “prisoner of history” and “stranger” in the Polish lands.
National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy

NATALIA SHLIKHTA

Church of Spies: The Pope’s Secret War against Hitler. By Mark Riebling. (New York:
Basic Books. 2015. Pp. viii, 375. $29.99. ISBN 978-0-465-02229-8.)
Nearly sixty years have elapsed since the death of Pope Pius XII, but the documents relating to his pontification—apart from a selection for World War II,
made available fifty years ago by four Jesuit scholars—are still immured in the Vatican archives and not yet open to public scrutiny. The result is that all of the
numerous books and commentaries about Pius XII and his policies lack verification
that this important, indeed indispensable, source could provide. When these papers
are released, all of these studies will have to be rewritten or at least revised.
Mark Riebling is well aware of these shortcomings but has done a tremendous and most credible examination of a huge range of secondary sources. The
strength of his journalistic skills is that he is able to evoke a most vivid picture of
both the personalities and the places involved in this dramatic story down to even
the details of the furniture of the pope’s study. His thesis is that Pius XII, from
the beginning of his reign in 1939, was involved in a secret war against Hitler, in
alliance with the military members of the German Resistance who also wanted to
overthrow Hitler’s rule. This resistance movement had to contend with the popularity of Hitler’s repeated successes, especially after the conquest of Poland. But
they still hoped somehow or other that, if they succeeded in overthrowing Hitler,
they could obtain peace terms from Britain and France, which would be much
more lenient than those imposed by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. To assist

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them, they sought the support of Pius XII and entered into highly secret negotiations with the pontiff in Rome.
Riebling’s view is that this conspiracy is the real reason why Pius XII imposed
complete silence in his pronouncements about the war. He was very conscious of
the dangers to the Church and to his leadership if any hint of this partiality ever
emerged. But he was at least prepared to suggest to the British authorities in great
secrecy that this plot was a possibility. British Minister to the Vatican D’Arcy
Osborne reported that the pope’s conscience “would not allow him to ignore it altogether, lest there might conceivably be one chance in a million of its serving the
purpose of sparing lives” (p. 85). Riebling’s thesis is an alternative to the more commonly held view that Pius’s silence was due to his desire to act as a mediator at a
time when both sides needed his diplomatic skills to make peace. Many scholars
agree there was a great deal of wishful thinking both on the part of the German
military resisters and of the pope.
Riebling’s view that the pope was engaged in a secret war is still hypothetical.
Until the papers are released we must remain in doubt.
University of British Columbia

JOHN S. CONWAY

The Church of Greece under Axis Occupation. By Panteleymon Anastasakis. [World
War II: The Global, Human, and Ethical Dimension.] (New York: Fordham
University Press. 2015. Pp. xiv, 349. $55.00. ISBN 978-0-8232-6199-4.)
The Nazi occupation of several European countries has remained a topic of interest to scholars, including the role played by the various Christian churches during this
period. In his monograph, Panteleymon Anastasakis examines thoroughly the Orthodox Church in Greece, a country occupied by Germany, Italy, and Bulgaria from 1941
to 1944. This critical period in modern Greek history left a strong mark on subsequent
generations, particularly because of the ensuing bloody civil war (1946–49) between
communist partisans and pro-Western government forces.
Anastasakis has placed particular emphasis on the connection among church,
state, and nation (chapter 1). Under Axis occupation, this became most evident in
the person of Archbishop Damaskinos (Papandreou), who even undertook political
functions as regent to fill the political vacuum, guarantee stability, and smooth
transition (chapter 2). In addition, Anastasakis explores the growing societal role
of the church and its internal problems preceding the Axis occupation (chapter 3);
its tenuous and difficult relationship with the Axis (especially German) authorities
(chapter 4); its multiple activities to assist the afflicted population (chapters 5 and
6); its policies in the Bulgarian-occupied area of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace;
its relationship with Greek Jews and the Holocaust (chapter 7); and the involvement of the clergy in the armed resistance, spearheaded by the communist-led
National Liberation Front (chapter 8). In the epilogue, the author briefly shows the
role of the church after the liberation from Axis occupation and the escalation of
the whole situation into civil war. Was the church the only institution capable of

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holding the Greek people and society together during World War II? The author
seems to argue in this direction, although without any hagiographical intention.
This is perhaps a very strong argument that does not exactly reflect the polarized
Greek situation at the time, especially with regard to the communists, who believed
the church was an ally of the corrupt old establishment. This is not, however, to
deny that the church as a whole was quite active, visible, and utterly important as a
provider of manifold help during the Axis occupation for the nation, including
problems that normally lie outside the ecclesiastical realm.
This book has many merits. First, the hitherto unpublished material that
Anastasakis located in various Greek, British, and American archives is invaluable.
Discussing critically older and recent historiography, he shows the multiple connections among the Orthodox and political, social, and other actors. He thus offers
a balanced account of the multidimensional role of the Greek Orthodox clergy
between active and passive resistance and brings to light the complex plurality of
voices and actions by the various Orthodox actors toward all involved parties, the
Axis forces, the Greek government imposed by them, and the resistance movements, including the National Liberation Front. Another interesting point is his
comparison between the Greek Orthodox Church and other Christian churches
and contexts (e.g., Catholic ones) in Axis-occupied Europe, finding both similarities and differences.
Because this is a comprehensive historical work, the author does not reflect more
deeply and systematically (e.g., using sociological and other theories) on phenomena
such as the particular closeness between church and state and the church’s politicization; or on the intrinsic connection among church, nation, and nationalism, despite
the Orthodox ecumenical past and tradition. Bibliographically, the book is well
informed, yet various additional items could have been also taken into account; for
example, the book by Theodosis Ath. Tsironis on the political role of the church
between 1913 and 1941 (Thessaloniki, 2010). Finally, since the book deals with the
Axis occupation of Greece, it also would have been useful to consult related bibliography in the German language or even to use material from original German archives.
Despite these critical remarks, this book is a major contribution not only to
the church history of modern Greece but also to Greek social, political, and cultural
developments in the first half of the twentieth century. It is not only a welcome
addition to the growing interest within American academia in modern Greek studies including the Orthodox Church but also a book that should be read by all those
interested in World War II, Axis-occupied Europe, the Holocaust, and churchstate relations in the modern European context.
University of Erfurt

VASILIOS N. MAKRIDES

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AMERICAN
La Conquistadora: The Virgin Mary at War and Peace in the Old and New Worlds. By
Amy G. Remensnyder. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2014. Pp. ix,
470. $99.00. ISBN 978-0-19-989298-3.)
For many, the archetypal image of the Virgin Mary reveals her cloaked in
blue, her arms outstretched as she glows resplendently from an altar or a garden
grotto, her face serene, her eyes cast downward. Alternately, in classic renditions of
her bodily ascension to heaven, her eyes gaze brightly upward as she is enveloped
in rosy crenulated clouds, while heavenly cherubs peer out from the crepuscular
rays. In depictions of La Pietà, sorrow torments her countenance as she holds her
dead son’s body, her gaze often turned heavenward but this time with different
intent. These various images of the Mother of Christ, popularly known as “Our
Lady of Grace,” contrast sharply with those of an alter ego—Our Lady of Conquest—that have emblazoned shields, crests, and banners taken into battle over the
centuries and across the continents.
When and where did the soft cloaks and gentle demeanor of the earlier depictions transpose into battle garments—and battle cries? Or, as Amy G. Remensnyder asks in her book, choosing a striking example of the transformation of the
Virgin’s image: “What did such Madonnas mean to Spaniards as they invoked the
past in service of the colonial present?” (p. 293). When Our Lady donned the
mantle of La Conquistadora—to lead soldiers to victory for God and King—she
began a journey that continues to this day. For this reason, Remensnyder’s book
will well serve students of both ancient and modern geopolitical struggles.
Remensnyder attempts to reconcile the dichotomy of the image of the Virgin
Mother’s suffering with the battle cry of war over which her image has often
presided—a dichotomy made particularly striking against the backdrop painted by
the author of Mary’s divine love of the infant Jesus being deployed to convert conquered peoples. The author’s academic remove allows her to delve into this type of
nation-building without slipping into reveries on the pure theological symbolism of
the Marian figure. The author’s thorough exploration of the wide use of Mary’s
symbolism by governments and dynasties, particularly the Spanish monarchy, gives
this book encyclopedic scope and makes it a fine reference on the numerous roles
that Mary has played for civilizations that have artfully deployed her image in settings as diverse as medieval kingdoms and pioneer outposts of the New World.
Remensnyder details the transformation of Mary’s image from that of a passive,
loving object of inspiration to that of an instrument of action and war—in short,
how the cry of battle replaced a mother’s tears for the loss of her son.
In examining the origins and evolution of the bellicose variant of the Virgin’s
image, Remensnyder provides a compelling world history of the “gilded era of conquest” (p. 293). Although the Virgin is often fixed in communal memory as a stationary object, the author’s account of Mary’s iterations, journeys, and conquests

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highlights her ubiquitous and significant role in the spread of civilization, fraught
as that may be for its interplay with the history of indigenous peoples. From this
context, the author explores both cross-faith rituals of Marian devotion and manipulations of the image that lead the reader to ponder how the warrior function of
the Queen of Heaven can be a lonely role indeed and that this kind of pilgrimage—
the journey into the human heart—never ends.
Santa Fe, NM

JAIMA CHEVALIER

America’s First Chaplain: The Life and Times of the Reverend Jacob Duché. By Kevin
J. Dellape. [Studies in Eighteenth-Century America and the Atlantic World.]
(Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press. 2013. Pp. xxii, 208. $75.00. ISBN
978-1-61146-143-5.)
Jacob Duché, a member of a prominent Philadelphia merchant family and
Anglican minister, is primarily remembered by historians for his eloquent prayer
delivered at the opening session of the First Continental Congress in September
1774 in Philadelphia. Three years later his initial enthusiasm for the revolutionary
cause had diminished and dramatically changed. He expressed his revised sentiments and an extensive and cogent plea in a letter to General George Washington.
It is Duché’s initial encounter with national affairs and his abrupt change of opinion that is the subject of this intensively and diligently researched and engagingly
written book.
A member of the first class of eight graduates of the College of Philadelphia
(now the University of Pennsylvania) in 1757, Duché traveled to England the next
year and was admitted as a Pensioner at Clare Hall in Cambridge University. His
attendance was brief as he was ordained a deacon in the Church of England by
Edmund Keene, bishop of Chester, on March 11, 1759. Returning promptly to
Philadelphia, he was appointed an assistant minister at St. Peter’s Church and
quickly demonstrated an eloquent preaching style in the pulpit. Three years later he
returned to London for ordination as a priest by Thomas Secker, archbishop of
Canterbury, in the chapel at Lambeth Palace on September 12, 1762. For the next
twelve years, he honed his preaching manner in Philadelphia and earned deserved
adulation from his congregation and the wider audience of the city’s civic, educational, and religious leaders. Among the ranks of local preachers he was the obvious
candidate to invite to open the First Continental Congress session in September
1774, with a petition for divine guidance in the assembly’s proceedings.
The delegate charged to recruit Duché to open the Congress with a prayer was
the sly, scheming, Massachusetts radical political leader and strategist Samuel
Adams, who had his own agenda for the meetings and was no friend of the Church
of England in New England. In a series of newspaper articles published in the
Boston Gazette newspaper in 1768 he had honed his attack on the Anglican
Church. Adams raised anew the condemnation of the presence of the English
Church and episcopacy in the region that was launched by Increase Mather in the
1680s and recited regularly by subsequent generations of Congregational Church

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leaders. In 1772 he enlisted the clergy of the Massachusetts Congregational
Church to speak from the pulpit in support of the radical political leaders’ objections to English policies. For Adams, the presence of Duché at the Congress delivering a prayer to an assembly of colonial radical partisans critical of England’s
imperial administration would be a significant display of manipulative political
cleverness. Yet Duché was not alone among English parsons in early America
objecting to the government’s policies after 1763 to London ecclesiastical officials,
but he was the most visible and prominent Philadelphia clergyman to do so. His
eloquent and dramatic opening prayer on behalf of the Congress’s purpose and
deliberations earned the admiration, applause, and respect of Adams’s second
cousin and fellow delegate: the Boston lawyer John Adams.
Within a year after the first session of the Congress Duché began to entertain
uncertainties regarding the drift of colonial civil objections to England’s imperial
policies. Perhaps he became aware of Adams’s critical newspaper essays regarding
the New England English Church and finally recognized the duplicitous character
of his recruitment. But he was also distressed by the unsettling military consequences of the War for Independence in 1776 and 1777 and its impact on the
Philadelphia community. Three months after the Declaration of Independence,
Duché abruptly and boldly resigned his position as chaplain of the newly independent congress. His letter to Washington proposed and pleaded for a new and more
conciliatory and peaceful procedure for addressing the political differences between
the new states and the mother country. Regrettably diaries, journals, account books,
and correspondence are absent that may illuminate Duché’s evolving private feelings
and ruminations regarding the unfolding civil and military affairs. Without reservation, he was a victim in rapidly changing local, state, and national political and military events. The subsequent odyssey of exile and turmoil for Duché and his family
in England and their ultimate return to America reflect his turbulent and disappointing personal encounters with the dramatically changing and unsettled times.
Rothermere American Institute
Oxford University

JAMES B. BELL

Establishing Religious Freedom: Jefferson’s Statute in Virginia. By Thomas E. Buckley. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. 2013. Pp. xvi, 359. $39.50.
ISBN 978-0-8139-3503-4.)
There is a certain pristine clarity to Thomas Jefferson’s “Statute for Establishing Religious Freedom.” After a series of preliminary justifications for liberty of
conscience, the Statute guarantees that
no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship,
place, or ministry … nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened
in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious
opinions or belief … all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to
maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no
wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities.

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And yet, as Thomas Buckley points out in this scrupulously researched and
intricately narrated treatment of religious politics in Virginia, “dissolving the innumerable links between religion and government proved much more complicated
than anyone had anticipated,” and Virginians’ “struggle to achieve separation curtailed the very religious freedom they sought to establish” (p. 2). The first of these
claims is perhaps uncontroversial, although Buckley shows in extraordinary detail
the complexity involved in pursuing disestablishment in a place like Virginia. The
second claim is far more provocative and opens up a range of questions regarding
the meaning of religious liberty in both historical and contemporary terms.
Establishing Religious Freedom opens with a chapter laying out the contours of
the colonial religious establishment and the ways in which insurgent groups like
Quakers, Presbyterians, and Baptists sought to use the 1689 Toleration Act to
secure a foothold in the Old Dominion. He stresses the role of the Revolution in
fostering toleration and the complex legislative history of Jefferson’s Statute, which
was finally adopted by the Virginia General Assembly in January 1786. Motivations for separating church and state varied; evangelicals warmed to Jefferson’s call
for religious freedom even if they did not share his rationalist, Unitarian sympathies. Much to Jefferson’s chagrin, evangelical Protestantism flourished as he aged,
and Buckley narrates the history of church-state relations in Virginia as a story of
the crumbling of Jefferson’s rationalist vision before the forces of evangelical
Protestantism. By the mid-nineteenth century, “Protestant Christianity increasingly assumed the characteristics of a functional establishment with ever-increasing
state support for, and endorsement of, religion in general [since] Virginians
believed that religion encouraged the public virtue they regarded as essential for
republican government” (pp. 184–85). None of the lofty language of Jefferson’s
Statute was ever applied to African Americans, as Buckley perhaps too briefly
points out (pp. 180–81).
Perhaps the most contentious area of church-state relations in Virginia had to
do with the disposition of church property after the Revolution, a long-running
debate that culminated with repeal of the state’s glebe laws—which Baptists argued
“was necessary to fulfill the implicit promise of [Jefferson’s statute]” (p. 103)—at
the end of the eighteenth century. Yet the legislation, which Buckley describes as
“the most radical step taken by any one of the new republics against the property
rights of any individual or group in the aftermath of the Revolution” (p. 113),
proved not to be the decisive step that many envisioned. Instead, it “created a legal
situation that would vex the churches, courts, and legislatures throughout the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth” (p. 117).
Behind all these details lies a more fundamental question: what do we mean
by religious freedom? Do the rights of conscience attach primarily to individuals
and the beliefs they hold about issues of ultimate significance? Or are there particular aspects of corporate religious practice that make special treatment of religious
institutions permissible, perhaps even mandatory, entailments of a commitment to
such liberty? Much of the rhetorical power of Jefferson’s statute—and of the early-

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modern movement for toleration in England and America, so heavily influenced by
Protestant anti-Catholicism—derives from the “specter of an incorporated
Catholicism” (p. 139), bête noire of Enlightenment rationalists and evangelical
Protestants alike. But how relevant are such fears in later decades or even centuries?
Religious freedom, as it manifested itself in Virginia in the rhetorical shadow of
Jefferson’s Statute, Buckley claims, “invariably discriminated against the churches
… [and] churches and religious groups were less free in the Old Dominion than
anywhere else in the Union” (p. 255).
Establishing Religious Freedom is not a quick and easy read. Some readers will
tire of the blow-by-blow descriptions of speeches in legislative sessions or at ecclesiastical assemblies. Buckley provides detailed portraits of the many domains in
which church(es) and state, to say nothing of religion and politics, overlapped and
intertwined. He explores in great depth the role of religion in the state’s educational
institutions, as well as the part played by political and ecclesiastical leaders in morals
legislation, Prohibition, censorship, sexual morality, contraception, sterilization of
the mentally ill, Sunday closing laws, divorce, and gambling. There is, in brief, an
enormous wealth of information in these pages. Buckley has left almost no stone
unturned; Establishing Religious Freedom is a comprehensive and impressive account
of one episode in the long and contentious history of religious liberty in America.
Rutgers University

ANDREW R. MURPHY

Witness: Two Hundred Years of African-American Faith and Practice at the Abyssinian
Baptist Church of Harlem, New York. By Genna Rae McNeil, Houston Bryan
Roberson, Quinton Hosford Dixie, and Kevin McGruder. (Grand Rapids,
MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing. 2014. Pp. xii, 708. $45.00. ISBN 9780-8028-6341-6.)
Harlem, designated by many as a black cultural capital, finds its spiritual
center in the Abyssinian Baptist Church. At its height during the Great Migration,
Abyssinian’s sacred edifice on 138th Street was home to 14,000 members and was
pastored by such luminaries as Adam Clayton Powell Sr. and his son, Rep. Adam
Clayton Powell Jr. (D–NY). Under such impressive leadership, Abyssinian
emerged as a national pulpit that fused the social gospel with a commitment to
political protest and community empowerment. In this meticulously researched
tome, coauthors Genna Rae McNeil, Houston Bryan Roberson, Quinton Hosford
Dixie, and Kevin McGruder chronicle the ebbs and flows of Abyssinian’s 200-year
history, contributing significantly to congregational histories of the African American religious experience.
Witness traces Abyssinian’s birth to the independent church movement among
free blacks in the wake of the Revolutionary War. In June 1809, fifteen African
American members of First Baptist Church in New York, responding to the discriminatory practices of white parishioners, requested that they be dismissed to
form their own congregation. The opening chapters explore these early years as

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Abyssinians tentatively sought to achieve autonomy and institutional stability as
well as address the broader social and religious concerns of their community. By the
dawn of the twentieth century, Abyssinian’s fortunes had stabilized, and its 1000strong membership began to contemplate moving uptown to follow the growing
waves of migrants from the post-Reconstruction South. The congregation relocated first to the Tenderloin district before finally settling in Harlem in 1922
during the pastorate of the elder Powell. The book’s most compelling chapters
arguably center on the pivotal leadership of the Powells, who championed Abyssinian as a “model church” capable of addressing the holistic needs of Harlem’s black
community. Consistent with the social gospel theology and institutional church
framework of Reverdy Ransom, the Powells adopted “a broad conception of urban
ministry” that included the provision of extensive social services combined with a
strident political advocacy (p. 99). As Witness demonstrates, this tradition continued to define Abyssinian’s mission in the post–civil rights era as the church sought
to address the challenges of growing class inequalities, unemployment, mass incarceration, and declining federal support for social services.
Scholarly studies of leading black congregations are, unfortunately, few and far
between. As leading scholars in African American religious studies have lamented,
“[C]hurch history generally and denominational history in particular are out of fashion … [making] progress [on black churches] … painfully slow.”1 In this context,
Witness represents an important addition to African American congregational history and joins more recent scholarly studies such as Clarence Taylor’s The Black
Churches of Brooklyn (New York, 1996) and Houston Bryan Roberson’s Fighting the
Good Fight: The Story of the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, 1865–1977
(New York, 2005) in tracing the contours of the nation’s leading black churches.
University of Wyoming

KERRY PIMBLOTT

Missionaries of Republicanism: A Religious History of the Mexican-American War. By
John C. Pinheiro. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2014. Pp. xii, 240.
$45.00. ISBN 978-0-19-994867-3.)
Any scholarly work that ties evangelical Christianity to a long tradition of bigotry, ignorance, racial intolerance, and ethnic arrogance is already far along the path
to warm acceptance from the mainstream academic community just by showing up.
This will no doubt be the case with John C. Pinheiro’s examination of how evangelical Protestants made anti-Catholicism the centerpiece of American expansionist ideology during the Mexican-American War.
Although antebellum Protestant anti-Catholicism is familiar scholarly terrain,
Pinheiro coaxes from this well-tilled ground a more potent hybrid he calls the

1. Albert J. Raboteau et al., “Retelling Carter Woodson’s Story: Archival Sources of
Afro-American Church History, Journal of American History, 77 (1990), 183–99, here 186.

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“Beecherite Synthesis.” Assigning pivotal significance to Lyman Beecher’s Plea for
the West (1835), Pinheiro argues that the Presbyterian leader’s work became a virtual roadmap for evangelicals in the 1840s. They uncritically accepted its deafening
alarms of an impending Catholic (largely Jesuit) assault on American republicanism
with the vulnerable American West as ground zero for the arrival of a new order of
religious tyranny and vanquished individual liberty. Pinheiro’s Synthesis is not
simply an interpretive structure to house routine expressions of evangelical angst
about Catholics or their doctrines. Rather, he claims it as a tightly integrated world
view that essentially excised Catholics from the Christian family and blended evangelical fervor, Anglo-Saxonism, racialism, and republicanism as the only ideological alliance that could turn back a Jesuit army committed to a “a papal orchestrated
takeover of the United States” (p. 5).
For Pinheiro, it is the war against a Catholic nation that elicited visceral reaction among evangelicals, consolidating their commitment to Beecher’s Plea and
making anti-Catholicism the prime mover in missionary outreach. Samuel F. B.
Morris’s Foreign Conspiracy and Imminent Dangers, as well as the editorializing of
Lewis Levin and other Native American Party leaders, amplified Beecher’s message. Although war fever pleased some evangelicals and angered others, Pinheiro
contends that anti-Catholicism became the tie that binds. Pro-war factions wanted
to deprive Jesuits of a Mexican haven, whereas their more reluctant peers found
consolation in new fields for spiritual harvest.
Credit Pinheiro for embedding his anti-Catholic voices in the rich details of
the war itself, American recruitment strategies, the soldier experience, and the
broader political battles that pitted President James K. Polk against adversaries who
would sully his decidedly materialist and expansionist war aims with religious distractions. Pinheiro’s culminating claim is that by war’s end, the Beecherite brand of
anti-Catholicism had trumped Polk’s secular vision to become the prevailing cultural defense of Manifest Destiny and American republicanism. These pillars of
political and cultural arrogance, Pinheiro concludes, had become “unintelligible
without it” (p. 146)
Despite claims for the broad reach of the Beecherite Synthesis, the author
finds his surest footing for this analytical path on the terrain of New-School Presbyterians and Native American Party loyalists in the North. Outside that circle,
however, the Beecherite Synthesis had serious competition. Explosive growth in
the evangelical community by this time centered on Baptists and Methodists, not
Presbyterians. Protestant denominations split in the 1840s over slavery and needed
no anti-Catholic incentive. Unlike Beecher, pre-eminent evangelical revivalist
Charles Finney consistently steered clear of anti-Catholic waters. Rank-and-file
evangelical ministers invested much more in the transcendent destiny of individual
souls, not republican millenniums or anti-Catholic crusades. Far more often than
Catholic political conspiracies, the sermons, tracts, and literature of the 1840s cited
a broader and more insidious threat in crude cultural materialism and sundry freethinking philosophies that threatened religion itself with irrelevance. One need not

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accept the Beecherite Synthesis as a controlling evangelical consensus, however, to
recognize that Pinheiro’s uncovering of this virulent strain of anti-Catholicism
adds significantly to our understanding of the myriad voices seeking to define the
nation’s destiny during the Mexican-American War.
Truman State University

MARK Y. HANLEY

Catholic Borderlands: Mapping Catholicism onto American Empire, 1905–1935. By
Anne M. Martínez. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2014. Pp. xviii,
293. $70.00. ISBN 978-0-8032-4877-9.)
The onset of the Mexican Revolution sent shockwaves through the Catholic
Church in the United States, particularly as it took a decidedly anticlerical turn.
Anne Martínez provides us, in Catholic Borderlands, an intriguing examination of
the interplay between titanic forces: the Revolution itself; the political and ecclesial
elites of Mexico and the United States; the Vatican; and Bishop Francis Clement
Kelley of Oklahoma City and Tulsa, founder of the Catholic Extension Society. In
Martínez’s hands, the definition of borderlands is broadened beyond the mere geophysical to include the spiritual.
Martínez very effectively places her work within a broad historiography, and
carefully and artfully articulates the significant influence of Catholicism in the context
of U.S.-Mexican relations in general and Kelley’s influence on these relations from
the 1910s to the 1930s in particular. Kelley’s work, moreover, in Martínez’s hands,
takes on a much deeper level of significance in positioning American Catholicism as
central to the American identity in the early-twentieth century, including its instrumental role in forging the U.S. response to the Mexican Revolution. Catholic Borderlands, therefore, limns not only the boundaries of both U.S. and Mexican history and
identity but also a place (both geographic and ideological) where Kelley could work
to redefine what he believed it meant to be “American.” As such, these borderlands
proved much more metaphoric than geopolitical, as evidenced by Martínez’s contention that the location of the 1926 International Eucharistic Congress made
“Chicago the center of the Catholic borderlands” (p. 27).
Kelley established the Catholic Extension Society as a way to defend the
Church against a rising tide of Protestant challenges in the burgeoning West.
Among the “frontiers” to which Catholic Extension dedicated its efforts were the
U.S.-Mexican border region, the American Southwest, black and creole missions
in the Deep South, the islands of the Caribbean, and the Philippines. In effect,
anywhere that Kelley considered Catholicism threatened by Protestant proselytizers in schools and communities was targeted for what Martínez calls Kelley’s “religious Monroeism” (p. 124). Kelley’s travel schedule indicates the reach of Catholic
Extension’s net: to the Vatican in 1915 to lobby for a new archbishop of Chicago,
to the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919 to lobby on behalf of the Mexican hierarchy, and to London in 1920 to work on securing Catholic missions in the former
colonies lost by Germany following World War I. His diplomatic work culminated

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with the effort to secure peace among the Mexican government, the Catholic Cristero rebels, and the Mexican hierarchy.
The implications of Kelley’s definition of Catholic borderlands are identified
in Martínez’s discussion of mestizaje within the context of the 1910s and 1920s
eugenics movement. For eugenicists, mixed-race Mexicans in the Southwest were
agents of degeneration and degradation. For Kelley, however, the Spaniards were
the focus of this story, and Mexicans—the mestizo race that emerged from the
noble Spanish effort to Christianize the natives—were the results of that effort and
thus were to be honored, although only through their linkage to the conquistadores.
Anne Martínez’s Catholic Borderlands is a skillfully written, meticulously
researched, and engagingly diversified examination of what it meant to be a
Catholic and an American from the perspective of Kelley. By expanding the concept of borderlands from geography to ideology, Martínez challenges her readers’
understanding of the place of Catholicism in the modern world. As such, it
deserves a wide readership in postsecondary classes where students examine the
concept of American political, social, cultural, and religious imperialism.
Montana State University Billings

MATTHEW A. REDINGER

Expanding Horizons: Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary 1919–1943. By
Ann M. Harrington. (Dubuque, IA: Mount Carmel Press. 2014. Pp. xii, 185.
ISBN 0-974-8082-2-9.)
Expanding Horizons is a history of the Sisters of the Charity of the Blessed
Virgin Mary (BVMs) during the first half of the twentieth century. As historians
of women religious increasingly turn their attention to the role of the Second Vatican Council in the lives and work of sisters and nuns, Ann M. Harrington explains
that it is important to understand “what life was like before the changes” (p. 2).
During the years covered by this study—1919–43—the congregation was affected
by World War I, the Great Depression, and the first years of World War II, events
that played important roles in the lives of all Americans, including the members of
this community and their leaders.
In 1885, the congregation was placed under the jurisdiction of the Holy See
rather than a local ordinary; this signaled the beginning of a period of change that
encompassed the administrations of Mother Mary Isabella Kane (1919–31) and
Mother Mary Gervase Tuffy (1931–43). Harrington frames her study around the
administrations of these two women to “provide more convenient access to history
through timelines inherent within the congregation’s history” (p. 3). Within this
framework, two themes are especially important: the role of the leadership in the
life and work of the congregation, and the ways in which canon law and papal rulings affected the BVMs.
Chapters 2 through 8 are devoted to the history of the congregation between
1919 and 1943. In these pages, readers will find information about the expansion

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of the BVM educational ministry, including the establishment of Mundelein College in Chicago, the ways in which members of the community participated in and
were impacted by larger societal events, and issues related to the internal affairs of
the BVMs such as religious life and the congregation’s Constitutions.
Although Expanding Horizons is not intended to be a comprehensive history
of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, readers will find it to be an
excellent source for material related to the work of one congregation of women religious in the very important period leading up to the beginnings of the Sister Formation Conference and the Second Vatican Council.
La Salle University

MARGARET M. MCGUINNESS

White Elephants on Campus: The Decline of the University Chapel in America, 1920–
1960. By Margaret M. Grubiak. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press. 2014. Pp. xii, 167. $28.00 paperback. ISBN 978-0-268-02987-6.)
By presenting the history of the plans for and construction of chapel buildings
on private university campuses, Margaret M. Grubiak advances the argument that
colleges and universities in the United States became secularized in the twentieth
century. With the end of mandatory chapel services, more religiously diverse student bodies, and the rise of scientific perspectives, religion, she argues, moved from
the center of the university’s mission to its periphery. What is new about this secularization argument is the author’s use of campus architecture to make a case.
Focusing, for the most part, on “elite Protestant universities that had the
choice of continuing a religious identity or negotiating a new relationship with
religion in the modern era” (p. 3), Grubiak contends that seemingly contradictory
circumstances of the building of huge new chapels (University of Chicago and
Harvard), the canceling of plans to do so for financial reasons (Yale and Johns
Hopkins), and the building boom of smaller and more neutral chapels in the post–
World War II era (Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Illinois Institute of Technology) all constitute evidence for secularization. This line of reasoning seems thin in some places: if canceling building plans for financial reasons
indicates a removal of religion from central campus priorities, why does not the
building boom of the 1950s indicate a return of religion to top priority lists? And
how does the hiring of two of the most important modernist architects to build
smaller-in-scale chapels—Eero Saarinen at MIT and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
at Illinois Institute of Technology—indicate that these universities somehow
slighted these chapels? In addition, claims about chapel buildings and secularization require that the author include more thorough histories of reception and
building utilization.
The specific histories of the planning and building of several university
chapels are an excellent contribution. Especially interesting is Grubiak’s inclusion
in her study of nonchapel buildings that were given religious meaning and design:

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the Cathedral of Learning skyscraper at the University of Pittsburgh and Yale’s
neo-Gothic Sterling Memorial Library.
University of Northern Iowa (Emerita)

BETTY A. DEBERG

Change and Conflict in the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps since 1945. By Anne C. Loveland. [Legacies of War.] (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. 2014. Pp.
xviii, 349. $64.00. ISBN 978-1-62190-012-2.)
In Change and Conflict in the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps Since 1945, Anne
Loveland has produced an exhaustively researched monograph that traces the cultural transition of the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps from 1945 to the present. Her
work presents an in-depth analysis of how society had significant input on the policies and even the day-to-day activities of Army chaplains. This monograph makes
a significant contribution to a rather sparse corpus of literature on the subject.
Loveland shows how the intersection of three cultures—civilian religious community, the military, and the chaplaincy—specifically intersected in a way that provided direction for chaplain services from the end of World War II to the present.
Loveland organizes her monograph chronologically and thematically in eleven
chapters and an extensive epilogue. She chronicles how an extensive moral breakdown within the ranks of the U.S. Army after World War II led to the development of a program of character guidance and a code of conduct for soldiers. The
1960s is described as “a watershed decade for the Chaplain Corps and the U.S.
Army” (p. xvi), with such significant events as the Vietnam War, the significant rise
in secularism, and a major shift in American life away from traditional mainline
denominations, illustrated best by a rising percentage of Americans placing themselves in the “none” categories of religious preference. Vietnam was especially a difficult time, for it challenged chaplains to find their way through the morass of antiwar sentiment and forced them to find a way to minister to all soldiers, including
conscientious objectors. The result was confusion in the chaplain’s role between
minister and military officer. Consistent with the cultural shift in the country, the
late 1960s and 1970s was a period of decline in discipline and morale in the Army,
due to incompetent leadership and the erosion of professional military ethics.
Chaplains were called upon to be the “conscience of the Army” (p. 103). As the
twenty-first century dawned, the chaplain role shifted again during the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan; chaplains were forced to engage a sense of religious pluralism that
they had not known earlier. The Chaplain Corps encouraged soldiers to engage in
spiritual fitness. The new century also experienced a culture war as the traditional
role of the chaplain as minister and evangelist was challenged by some who believed
religious freedom included freedom from religion.
Loveland’s work captures in broad and specific strokes the impact and influence of America’s cultural shift on the Army Chaplain Corps. It was impossible for
the Army to stand aloof and not be affected by the massive cultural shift experienced by the country over the last sixty-five years. In handling the main theme of

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her monograph, Loveland has done a more than creditable job in achieving her
goal. The generally chronological narrative, interspersed with themes, is effective,
but this reader found it a bit difficult when programs from past generations were
repeatedly raised afresh in later chapters, requiring the reader to connect themes,
which at times was difficult to do. As might be expected in the military context, a
host of acronyms is utilized by the author. It would have been helpful if an introductory page of the monograph had listed these acronyms for ready reference.
Loveland’s work is a significant contribution for several groups but most especially military scholars, those studying military chaplaincies, and possibly even sociologists who would be interested in the interaction between cultural shifts in the
United States and their impact on the military. In its cogent analysis of how cultural trends affected the chaplain’s role, the monograph contributes significantly to
the literature.
Stonehill College
Stonehill, MA

RICHARD GRIBBLE, C.S.C.

America’s Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation. By Grant Wacker.
(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 2014. Pp. x,
413. $27.95. ISBN 978-0-674-05218-5.)
This is not a standard biography, but a book on “Graham’s place in the great
gulf streams of American history in the long second half of the twentieth century”
(p. 1). Grant Wacker, one of the deans of American Christian history and a “boss”
in what is sometimes called the “evangelical mafia,” has spent many years trading
heavily in the study of both Graham and his roles in American public life.
Many other recent scholars have tended to fixate on Graham’s storied friendships with presidents and Hollywood celebrities. But Wacker rightly focuses on
Graham’s life work: mass evangelism and spiritual advice to supporters—and has
taken a lot of heat from reviewers as a result. He grants that Graham sought to
leverage U.S. presidents, celebrities, and culture in his work. And of course, this
often led to sycophantic public statements and rhetorical support for conservative
politicians, social strategies, and values. But Wacker stresses Graham’s knack for
using those values for his own, spiritual ends (showing that Graham also grew less
conservative with age). “From first to last,” Wacker argues in the book’s thesis
statement, “Graham displayed an uncanny ability to adopt trends in the wider culture and then use them for his evangelistic and moral reform purposes” (pp. 28,
316). Critics often spurn him as a pawn in the culture wars. But Wacker’s Graham
proves to be a bishop more than a pawn—in a battle more spiritual than cultural.
He functioned as a pastor on the international stage—“America’s pastor,” as
George H. W. Bush once declared (p. 23).
Wacker makes good use of Graham’s syndicated column, “My Answer,” to
demonstrate this pastoral role. He also makes wonderful use of the letters to

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Graham written by people from all around the world, which totaled in the millions.
Graham claimed at one point near the apex of his crusade held in Madison Square
Garden in 1957 that he was getting more than 10,000 letters every day. Although
this statement came at a high point of his national popularity, the letters kept
coming. In the late 1970s, he was still receiving nearly 2.5 million a year. Several
thousand of these survive. As Wacker makes clear, “they offer a direct reading of
how partisans perceived and constructed Graham as pastor.” That is, they “reveal
the emotional exchange between Graham and his audience. They enabled him to
keep his finger on the pulse of broadly evangelical Americans and at the same time
enabled them to know what he thought about their fears and aspirations” (pp. 266–
67, emphasis in original).
This is a marvelous monograph. Wacker exhibits a finer feel than previous
scholars for Graham’s importance to his converts and middle-American fans,
explaining why these followers became so influential during the late-twentieth century. A stronger emphasis would have been advisable on Graham’s acute concern—
sparked by colleague Dawson Trotman in the late 1940s—for the spiritual maturation of the millions who walked the aisles at his stadium events. Wacker states
that, for Graham, “the goal was converts, not disciples” (p. 44). In a sense, this is
true. Graham devoted more time, and spent a lot more money, on evangelizing
strangers than on educating friends. But he also championed “follow up” on those
who signed his pledge cards, performed by local Christians representing local
churches—sometimes even Catholic churches—but facilitated by Graham. Too
much attention to the wide array of churches and their leaders (both clerical and
lay) who helped to organize and execute these massive urban meetings might have
blurred the book’s focus, but a word or two about them would have strengthened
Wacker’s emphasis on Graham’s expanding ecumenical vision.
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Deerfield, IL

DOUGLAS A. SWEENEY

What They Wished for: American Catholics and American Presidents, 1960–2004. By
Lawrence J. McAndrews. (Athens: University of Georgia Press. 2014. Pp. xiv,
503. $49.95. ISBN 978-0-8203-4683-0.)
Historian Lawrence McAndrews provides a welcome addition to a growing
body of scholarship that incorporates the Catholic experience more fully within
U.S. history. McAndrews’s experience—as the author of several books and articles
on Catholic schools and education policy in the United States—provides gravitas
to this work, which effectively navigates Catholicism’s complexity. Scholars of
post-1960 U.S. religion and politics will find this book a critical starting point for
research.
One of the central questions confronted by McAndrews is: Who speaks for
the Catholic Church in the United States? What They Wished for attempts to
explain the varying degrees of weight represented by the international voices of

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popes and Vatican officials; the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; and
individual priests, nuns, and Catholic laypersons of varying education level and
political status. In seeking to identify the causal relationship between Catholic
appeals and presidential decisions, McAndrews also demonstrates mastery of the
chronology of recent U.S. history.
What They Wished for analyzes the impact of Catholic opinion on presidential
policy in three areas—defined by McAndrews as war and peace, social justice, and
life and death. Chapters are organized around presidential administrations beginning with John F. Kennedy and concluding with the first term of George W. Bush.
The elections of 1960 and 2004 serve as useful bookends, because the former
resulted in the election of the nation’s first Catholic president, and the latter ended
with the voters’ rejection of John F. Kerry—another Catholic senator from Massachusetts with the initials JFK. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, McAndrews
believes, Catholic viewpoints received much more consideration in presidential
politics than at any other time in U.S. history.
Regarding war and peace, McAndrews’s argument appears most persuasive.
During Ronald Reagan’s presidency, for example, U.S. Catholic bishops developed
a powerful moral critique of the administration’s plans to modernize and expand
the U.S. military. Rather than ignore the clerics, Reagan officials actively engaged
in correspondence and discussions with U.S. bishops. McAndrews attributes the
dovish turn in Reagan’s second term to Catholic lobbying. This idea seems generally convincing, although the Catholic bishops were not alone in calling for nuclear
disarmament.
In life-and-death issues such as abortion, McAndrews concedes the limits of
his theory that presidents adhered to Catholic appeals. Despite more than forty
years of organized opposition to Roe v. Wade, Democratic presidents rebuffed
direct, personal pleas—even from Mother Theresa—for protection of the unborn.
Republican presidents—who professed to agree with the Catholic Church’s official
stance that abortion is morally wrong—refused to prioritize pro-life policies. Most
glaringly, George W. Bush failed to pass any substantial anti-abortion legislation,
despite working with a Republican Congress during his first term.
Social-justice issues prove the most difficult for McAndrews to measure the
impact of Catholic lobbying. His definition of social justice includes the push for
racial equality and national health insurance. Although the Catholic hierarchy
demonstrated exceptional unity and consistency in opposing abortion and nuclear
weapons, Catholic bishops and laypersons differed significantly in their ideas about
the pace of racial integration.
Although graduate students and other researchers may find this book especially useful, undergraduates would likely struggle with the book’s structure. The
narrative flow is disrupted by a tendency to explain causal relationships through
long lists of factors. Nonetheless, McAndrews’s broad use of archival and oral-history resources has provided historians with an excellent foundation for future study.

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Whereas pundits and scholars of this period have recently focused primarily on secularization and the Religious Right, What They Wished for offers useful insights
into Catholicism’s multifaceted role in this conversation.
Springfield College
Springfield, MA

THOMAS J. CARTY

Saint John’s Abbey Church: Marcel Breuer and the Creation of a Modern Sacred Space.
By Victoria M. Young. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 2014.
Pp. xxi, 216. $34.95. ISBN 978-0-8166-7616-3.)
Architectural historian Victoria M. Young wastes no time early in this study
reminding readers of the degree to which Marcel Breuer’s famous abbey church for
the Benedictines of Collegeville, Minnesota, deviates from the building conventions
of Catholic monasticism. She is just as quick to note that the church, completed in
1961, was intended from its inception to support the most ancient ritual practices of
its users. Herein lies part of the “paradox” that resurfaces throughout Young’s
behind-the-scenes account of how Saint John’s Abbey Church came to stand amidst
the groundswell in Catholic liturgical reform of the mid-twentieth century.
Young devotes considerable attention at the outset of her book to the abbey’s
physical appearance prior to Breuer’s arrival in the early 1950s for the purpose of
designing a centenary church. The brothers of Saint John’s had twice modified
their existing place of worship to bolster participation by the lay assembly that regularly joined them in prayer. In preparation for the 1956 anniversary of their establishment as a community of educators on the outskirts of St. Cloud, Minnesota,
however, they proposed erection of an entirely new edifice reflective of such recent
instructions on the renewal of sacred worship and art as had been promulgated in
Pope Pius XII’s Mediator Dei (1947). Young chronicles this effort in detail and
explains in one of the book’s most intriguing sections how it was that a committee
of “Twelve Apostles” selected the Bauhaus-trained Breuer (1902–81) to serve as
architect from a field of celebrated modernists. Aided by previously unpublished
photographs and drawings, she likewise records the experimental give-and-take of
ideas that prevailed between the members of Breuer’s New York-based firm and
their Collegeville clients as the project unfolded.
Young’s facility for dissecting the formal components of architectural expression is evident in her analysis of the novel interior scheme ultimately devised by
Breuer for his church, which accommodated lay worshipers in shallow ranks of
pews splayed outward from a centralized altar. She properly notes Breuer’s enthusiasm for wrapping the whole of this ritual setting in vast expanses of reinforced
concrete, although her suggestion that the medium’s inherent plasticity represents
“a metaphor for the vision the Benedictines had” and even an essential ingredient
for “shap[ing] liturgical reform” (p. 33) may be too literal an interpretive stretch.
Young situates the Abbey Church project nicely within the evolutionary history of
twentieth-century church architecture, however, and correctly measures the

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breadth of its effect on Catholic church-building universally in the wake of the
Second Vatican Council.
Young’s book is quite handsome, and the archival material it unveils will likely
appeal to students of Breuer’s work or high-modernist architecture in general. If
the study suffers minor weaknesses, however, they appear primarily in those places
where its author strays from a strictly historical/analytical treatment of her subject
into the abstract realm of sacramental theology. This is not to say that Young’s
speculations on the spiritual-aesthetic effect of Breuer’s church on the typical worshiper—lay or ordained—are without merit. Neither is it to claim that her passing
references to the role of the “congregation” in the Church’s “ritualistic actions” (p.
109) are anything but near-misses of usage apt to trouble only the prickliest liturgists or guardians of Catholic parlance. Nonetheless, the author’s handling of the
theological underpinnings of the Abbey Church seems considerably less nuanced
than her observations regarding, say, the tactile qualities of masonry or metal—
which may explain why she finds paradox in the amalgam of forces that shaped the
building rather than evidence for the kind of synthesis that has characterized
Catholic art from the start. Young steers clear of the polemics burdening much
written nowadays on the architectural dimension of liturgical prayer, although her
obvious admiration for Breuer’s creation will likely render her guilty by association
among readers yet to be convinced that anything but a building dressed in period
costume can properly house the transcendent. The release of her book by a secular,
academic press, however, assures Young an audience beyond the ideological disputes that preoccupy some segments of Catholic scholarship, at least, and given to
identifying the sanctity of a landmark building like Breuer’s more with its underlying function than with conformity to any predetermined style, form, or typology.
Gannon University
Erie, PA

MICHAEL E. DESANCTIS

Built with Faith: Italian American Imagination and Catholic Material Culture in New
York City. By Joseph Sciorra. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. 2015.
Pp. xlii, 262. $65.00. ISBN 978-1-62190-119-8.)
One of Joseph Sciorra’s goals in Built with Faith was to examine Italian American “Catholic expressive culture” and “religious artistry” with “seriousness and
attention to detail” (p. 196). The University of Tennessee Press has boosted Sciorra
toward that goal with this handsome publication: well sized for the photographs it
contains, with in-text source citations and explanatory endnotes proper to Sciorra’s
academic discipline, an extensive bibliography, and a detailed index. Still, the production does not seem to justify the cost of the book.
Sciorra’s research is comprehensive. He read widely in Italian- and Englishlanguage primary sources such as early accounts of Italian immigrant devotions; in
the scholarship in his own specialty, folklore; and in many other disciplines as well.
The most significant sources, however, are Sciorra’s interviews with devotees and

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his reports on participant-observer fieldwork. The research is conveyed in prose
that makes theoretical analysis as clear as descriptions of Italian American religious
activities. Built with Faith may become a primary source for information on Italian-American religious practices in New York City from the 1970s to the 2010s.
Sciorra researched lawn and sidewalk religious displays, presepi (Nativity
scenes), Christmas lights, Staten Island’s grotto of Our Lady of Mount Carmel,
and processions near his home in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint/Williamsburg section. He
makes the case that these are religious artworks testifying to beliefs. Lawn statues
proclaim their owners’ faith that saints do watch over them. Presepi-builders
demonstrate their understanding of the Christian message; Sciorra gives the example of the woman who added extra sheep to her display as a reminder to “have reverence for animals” (p. 87). The Mount Carmel grotto is an example of lavoro ben
fatto or “work well done”: an aesthetically pleasing, competently executed, socially
useful creation that reflects the dignity of those who made it.
Sciorra is alert to multiple interpretations of his material. Presepi are works of
art combining family heirlooms with found objects—or reminders that money does
not buy class. Christmas lights are gifts of holiday cheer to the neighborhood—or
consumption at its most conspicuous. Lawn statues and processions identify sacred
space—and warn away “outsiders.”
Attention to nuance is especially important when considering the implication
of the research for pastoral care. Sciorra recounts conflicts even among Italian
Americans over processions’ emotional intensity and secular aspects (p. 196).
Sciorra quoted one devotee as saying, “the Catholic Church loses members every
day . . . but we’re still here” (p. 196) and another as writing the local prelate, “Pastors should also listen to different ideas from their people” (p. 215n24). Are these
power struggles—or reminders of the need to provide proper pastoral care to people
with different ways of practicing the Catholic faith?
Although a footnote (p. 220n4) recounts an occasion on which a colleague
dismissed Sciorra’s work as “ahistorical,” Sciorra is attuned to change over time
such as the new conflicts arising from gentrification. There is still room for a history of these devotions. Built with Faith is not that, but the evidence it gathers and
the issues it raises are important to historians, and therefore it is recommended for
them, as well as for students of art (especially folk art) and those who study Italian
and American culture, New York City, and popular devotion.
Marymount Manhattan College and
the Center for Migration Studies, New York

MARY ELIZABETH BROWN

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Walking Where Jesus Walked: American Christians and Holy Land Pilgrimage. By
Hillary Kaell. (New York: New York University Press. 2014. Pp. xiv, 267.
$79.00 clothbound, ISBN 978-0-8147-3836-8; $28.00 paperback, ISBN:
978-1-4798-3184-5.)
This book is a lively and densely textured ethnography, with a relatively light
theoretical frame, of a number of trips to the Holy Land by pilgrim groups from
the United States between 2007 and 2012—both Catholic and Protestant. Clearly
its strengths lie not in generalization or the sociological big picture, but in the personal accounts, richly presented, empathetically caught, and traced over several
years with a number of individuals, which form its substance. The result is a revealing, sometimes moving portrait of confronting the “other” and making sense of the
events of life in relation to that. Mainly lower- or lower middle-class religious
Americans conducted this quest; about two-thirds of them were women, with
many who had seldom left their country until their pilgrimage to Palestine. Hillary
Kaell is consistently sympathetic to the subjectivities of the subjects of this book—
writing revealingly about the ways in which a majority tends to block out questions
of conflict and to espouse a kind of estrangement from politics (which emulates an
estrangement for their local American politics also, but is striking in the case of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict). At the same time the text makes space for these issues
and for other approaches or responses (both Zionist and pro-Palestinian) among
the pilgrims it follows. That the anthropologist is Jewish, with a specific personal
take on such issues, is an interesting irony.
The book is structured through six chapters framed by an introduction and
conclusion. Chapter 1, “Knowing the Holy Land,” sets out some of the frames and
limitations underpinning American attitudes over the last century—not least the
rise of the State of Israel and its closeness to some Evangelical Christians and the
changes in Roman Catholicism (including in attitudes to the Jews) in the aftermath
of World War II and the Second Vatican Council. Chapter 2, “Soul Searching,”
explores some of the reasons given by American pilgrims for making the choice to
travel to the Holy Land. Chapter 3, “Feeling the Gospel: Evangelicals, Place and
Presence,” and chapter 4, “The Middle Generation: Catholics, Scripture and Tradition,” map some specificities and differences of response in Catholic and Protestant groups. Chapter 5, “God and Mammon, God and Caesar,” examines responses
to the local commercialism of pilgrimage sites. Chapter 6, “The Long Voyage
Home,” picks on rituals of return, memory, show and tell, and souvenirs.
For an author keen to reveal many personal elements so as to clarify potential
biases in approach such as Canadian origins and Jewish background, Kaell is strikingly reticent (and perhaps not consciously so) about one thing: his or her gender.
This is not made explicit until page 24, when Kaell is cast by pilgrims “as idealized
granddaughter or daughter” who shares a room with Dorothy on Pastor Jim’s trip
(p. 27). This makes for slightly uncomfortable reading until readers have a sense of
the author’s voice but is powerfully in tune with the oral-history element and the
ethnographic informality of the text (in which the speaker’s presence in person

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would, of course, define issues of gender and age instantly). This is an intelligent
and thoughtful book, as well as an excellent ethnography—well worth reading by
anyone with an interest in pilgrimage and modernity or in the role of the Holy
Land in the contemporary American imagination.
Corpus Christi College, Oxford
The Divinity School, University of Chicago

JAS’ ELSNER

LATIN AMERICAN
Visualizing Guadalupe: From Black Madonna to Queen of the Americas. By Jeanette
Favrot Peterson. [Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Series in Latin American
and Latino Art and Culture.] (Austin: University of Texas Press. 2014. Pp.
xvi, 332. $60.00 paperback. ISBN 978-0-292-73775-4.)
This handsome volume, beautifully illustrated by a pre-eminent art historian
of Colonial Mexico, combines the appeal of a coffee-table book with scholarship.
It covers a wide range of topics involving one of the foremost Marian devotions in
the Catholic Church.
Jeanette Favrot Peterson’s purpose is stated in the introduction, “The Subjectivity of Seeing”: “I examine briefly the essential place of visual culture and the
development of Christian images as a potent weapon of indoctrination in the evangelization and colonization of the Americas” (p. 9). She accepts the idea that
Tepeyac was a preconquest religious site dedicated to the mother goddess
Tonantzin. The evidence for this is scant and can be traced to the Franciscan missionary Bernardino de Sahagún. Even copies of sacred images retained the power
of the originals—hence the importance of touching or physical contact.
She deals with the vexed and challenging depictions of the Black Madonnas.
One explanation is that the color was accidental, the result of fire or environmental
conditions. Another explanation is that it derived from pre-Christian cults. This
involved an inherent contradiction and gave rise to a multitude of rationalizations.
Chapter 2 deals with Diego de Ocaña and the efforts of the Jeronymite friars
of the Extremaduran Guadalupe to control satellite shrines.
Chapter 3 begins with Sahagún’s famous condemnation of Guadalupe in the
Florentine Codex. The decline of the missionary enterprise toward the end of sixteenth century brought with it a realization of the tenacity of the old religions. On
page 76 she has a valuable summary of Aztec religious thought, especially the
ixiptla, the representation/personification of the ancient deities. She also gives a
detailed and lengthy description of the Aztec gods and their functions.
In chapter 4, she gives a careful analysis of the painting, one that is useful and
enlightening. She describes the position of native artists in postconquest society.
On page 113 she begins an account of the Bustamante-Montúfar controversy,

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involving a public condemnation of the devotion by the Franciscan provincial.
Also, she gives an extensive treatment of Marcos, putative painter of the image,
although there is only one source for a native painter as the artist of the tilma.
There are many early depictions similar to Guadalupe, especially by Dürer.
Chapter 5 has a good treatment of Samuel Stradanus’s engraving (c. 1613–15).
She also describes the marginalization of the native peoples: “Beneficiaries of its
miracles are Spaniards or creoles” (p. 157). She speaks of Guadalupe’s “heavenly
origins” (p. 158), although this was not made clear until 1648. The image was considered miraculous, not because of its origins but because it worked miracles.
She also treats the painting of the first miracle (the mock battle and procession
at the transfer of the image to the first chapel): “What is new in this painting is that
indigenous people are showcased both as ritual participants and as direct beneficiaries for the first time” (p. 207). There was a difference between the fictive native
of times past and the contemporary reality.
With regard to the patronage by viceroys, especially the dukes of Alburquerque, Peterson points out the antagonism between viceroys and bishops (p. 235)
but does not mention that the crown used this as a form of checks and balances.
The author has an excellent treatment of the eighth duke of Albuquerque (viceroy
of New Spain, 1653–60). This chapter also includes an informative and interesting
explanation of native dances.
Happily there are only a few typographical errors: Lorenzo Boturini y Benaducci (p. 73); Cathedrático (p. 183); Aviles for Avilés (p. 189; fig. 7.5); Ramirez
for Ramírez (p. 205); Ursua for Usúra (p. 269). More problematical is the use of
technical terms such as ekphrastic (p. 174); or neologisms such as objecthood (p.
179), “ocularcentric modality of proof” (p. 193), and “Alterity” (p. 226). This use
of technical terms can be confusing to the average reader and may unfortunately
limit the readership of this fine study. A glossary would have been helpful.
This book is a monumental piece of scholarship, one that deserves a wider
readership than it will have.
Los Angeles, CA

STAFFORD POOLE, C.M.

Black Saint of the Americas: The Life and Afterlife of Martín de Porres. By Celia Cussen.
[Cambridge Latin American Studies, Vol. 99.] (New York: Cambridge University Press. 2014. Pp. xvi, 292. $90.00. ISBN 978-1-107-03437-2.)
Black Saint of the Americas is a vital addition to current scholarship on popular
religion and the construction of sanctity in colonial Latin America. Readers will
associate Martín de Porres (1579–1639) with recently studied contemporary holy
women, particularly the Americas’ first saint, Rose of Lima, and the Afroperuvian
visionary Úrsula de Jesús. A mulatto born illegitimately to a former slave woman

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207

and a Spanish father, Martín could aspire to enter the local Dominican monastery
only as a donado (lay servant). Yet, he quickly gained renown for his efficacious
healing, charity, humility, and mystical prayer. After his death, friends among the
local elites and the Dominican order promptly began to promote Martín as a candidate for sainthood. Celia Cussen first reconstructs Martín’s historical biography
in the context of colonial Peru. She then examines how printed hagiographies,
beatification hearings, and pictorial images represented the donado’s African origins, healing mastery, and piety in the decades and centuries following his death.
The book consists of two parts, each containing four chapters. In part 1,
Cussen synthesizes extant archival information about Martín’s historical life,
thereby sketching for the reader Martín’s birth and childhood, service in the
monastery, and death. Of special value are Cussen’s vivid depictions of colonial life
in Lima. As she details personal connections, social interactions, medicinal practices, and religious devotions, she situates Martín in a vibrant, diverse, and multifaceted urban milieu. When Martín intercedes on behalf of his niece and helps her
acquire the necessary dowry to marry a Spaniard, for example, the episode illustrates gender relations and potential racial mobility in colonial Peru. Cussen also
suggests that Martín’s African roots, in conjunction with his spirituality, bolstered
the perceived efficacy of his healing abilities.
Part 2 examines the enduring, dynamic devotion to Martín after his death.
Both locally and internationally, Martín’s cult intertwined the holy man’s coexisting identities as healer, mystic, and mulatto. Biographies and images promoted
Martín’s holiness, and miraculous healings via relics and prayer were attributed to
his efficacious intercession. Images for wide circulation commonly emphasized the
donado’s humility and charity, but occasional paintings showed Martín in mystical
ecstasy, levitating toward the crucifix to receive Christ’s embrace. Martín’s mulatto
identity figured prominently in most representations, although with changing
meanings: originally a model of humble virtue for Lima’s lower social classes, more
recently Martín has been invoked as defender of the oppressed and promoter of
racial harmony.
Cussen offers valuable insight into the role of saints and holy models in colonial
Peru: varying depictions of Martín reveal changing cultural and social values while
affirming the healer’s ongoing relevance in his followers’ daily lives. Cussen’s
research will be of additional significance to readers interested in racial diversity and
African presence in seventeenth-century Lima; colonial Catholicism and popular
piety, including relationships between saints and devotees; and the politics of canonization. Furthermore, Cussen affirms the ability of past holy figures to speak to
current concerns as she details the portrayals of Martín leading to his canonization
in 1962. The Afroperuvian healer was repeatedly invoked to endorse racial equality
in both Church and society; the twentieth-century discourse surrounding this celebrated colonial saint continues to resonate as we grapple with race relations today.
Albion College
Albion, MI

TERESA HANCOCK-PARMER

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BOOK REVIEWS

Nahua and Maya Catholicisms, Texts and Religion in Colonial Central Mexico and
Yucatan. By Mark Z. Christensen. (Stanford: Stanford University Press;
Berkeley: Academy of American Franciscan History Press. 2013. Pp. xiv.318.
$65.00. ISBN 978-0-8047-8528-0.)
Mark Christensen elaborates here on a fine array of Catholic liturgical texts,
confessional guides, and baptismal guides composed, preached, and disseminated
by the mendicant orders throughout the colonial period in the major Mesoamerican indigenous languages of the Nahuatl and Maya. The texts were taught and
assimilated in two distinct geographical areas and from two highly differentiated
cultures: the Nahuas of Central Mexico and the Maya of Yucatan. Furthermore,
this cultural-geographical divide also serves the author to both distinguish and
highlight the degree of impact of, absorption of, and interpretations of Catholicism(s) by the indigenous populace (p. 48). A complex variation existed in the
immersion of Catholicism among the indigenous groups, primarily between centers
and peripheries (p. 17).
The book is divided into three parts: “Creating Catholicisms,” “Prescribing
Catholicisms,” and “Reflecting Catholicisms.” However, the major contribution of
this book is in the distinction among three types of texts: Category 1 texts, which
are “printed religious texts written by ecclesiastic authors and/or their religious aids
and aimed for a broad readership of both ecclesiastic and native populations” (p.
53); Category 2 texts, which are “unpublished texts written by ecclesiastics and /or
their native stewards for more local audiences including religious authorities” (p.
80), and Category 3 texts, which are “unpublished, unofficial texts written by
natives for natives” (p. 84). The genre of the testaments, as primary sources for the
study of the degree of spiritual accommodation of Catholicism in the indigenous
mind and soul to their day of death (chapter 7), were, however, overwhelmingly
both monolithic and formulaic in their nature, and their contents were largely dictated by the local priest, via the notary, to the testators. Therefore, such sources do
not really serve well the scholarly efforts of trying to identify spiritual dynamics or
progress, as the rest of the sources studied here.
These category classifications, however, raise questions. First, there is doubt
whether any broad readership of religious Catholic texts existed among the native
populations, except for the very few among the postconquest Aztec nobility who
were brought up in the Franciscan and Dominican convents. Second, with regard
to the Category-3 texts, Christensen rightly observes that there were “various
Catholicisms” (p. 13)—that is, that the indigenous populace were able to, and
indeed did, create differential, autochthonous versions of Catholicism such as the
well-known Maya Chilam Balam Books (codices) of the late-seventeenth century.
Christensen acknowledges that scholars working lately with parallel texts in indigenous languages, have reinterpreted indigenous responses to Christianity and highlight the close protection and renewal of complex spiritual tenets. However, regarding the major Nahua text cited, the Vision of Saint Paul (p. 197), he writes, “All
such unorthodox elements originate from one of two sources . . . the above derives

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209

from the tale’s inclusion of Nahua-specific elements into the account. The second
stems from misrepresentations of the biblical and medieval accounts” (p. 208).
Such “unorthodox intrusions” into the original version of such texts are, however,
the most distinct marks of indigenous authorship to be found and should have been
discussed further.
Some of the lengthy translations from Nahuatl and Maya (some of which
have already been published elsewhere), although commendable, could have been
either trimmed or moved to the footnotes without affecting this book’s complicated contents.
University of Haifa

AMOS MEGGED

The Guaraní and Their Missions: A Socioeconomic History. By Julia J. S. Sarreal.
(Stanford: Stanford University Press. 2014. Pp. xviii, 335. $65.00. ISBN 9780-8047-8597-6.)
Although the colonial frontiers of South America have received relatively little
attention from historians, the Guaraní missions of the Jesuit Province of Paraguay
are an exception. They have fascinated the general public from the eighteenth century’s Candide to the twentieth century’s The Mission and have inspired inquiry
among scores of South American, North American, and European scholars. In a
crowded historiographical field, Julia Sarreal has managed to add something new
to our knowledge with The Guaraní and Their Missions: A Socioeconomic History.
Sarreal’s introduction includes a valuable survey of this historiography. The
book’s nine chapters cover the history of Guaraní-Spanish interactions from the
contact period through the first years of the nineteenth century. The first two chapters describe the founding and sociopolitical life of the missions. A chapter on the
Jesuit mission economy is followed by another (based almost entirely on secondary
sources) describing the Guaraní War and the Jesuit expulsion. The most important
new contributions of the book are found in chapters 5 through 9, dealing with various aspects of the decline of mission society after the Jesuit expulsion. Here Sarreal
makes use of new primary sources including a wealth of accounting records generated by the post-Jesuit administration.
Sarreal describes her approach to Guaraní mission history as realistic, and
there is a definite material emphasis to her work. She states that Jesuit success in
founding missions depended above all on their ability to provide food and other
material comforts, especially beef and yerba mate. The realistic and material emphasis is even more apparent in the post-Jesuit chapters. In businesslike language, the
author explains how the missions went bankrupt because of the loss of Jesuit unity
of management, the loss of a de facto subsidy provided by the Jesuit trade network,
and a great increase in overhead expenses due to the separation of temporal and
spiritual administration that required twice the administrative personnel. While
Guaraní leaders continued to live relatively well and stayed in the missions, many

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BOOK REVIEWS

other Guaraní left the missions for wage labor in Spanish settlements or joined
nearby independent Indians. The post-Jesuit economy was a hybrid of market and
communal structures, and mission leaders struggled (ultimately unsuccessfully) to
profit enough from the market to fund the communal redistribution of goods that
provided a safety net for the less fortunate and an incentive to remain in the missions. Sarreal describes in depth how two missions, particularly rich in cattle, tried
to profit from a booming Atlantic market in hides, yet lost most of the profits to
Spanish employees and administrators. Whereas previous studies argued that mission decline was primarily the result of corruption and overexploitation by Spanish
administrators, Sarreal insists convincingly that the story was much more complicated. In the end, no one could find a way to make the post-Jesuit missions break
even economically.
A thread of Guaraní agency runs throughout the book. Sarreal is especially
interested in the part played by caciques, the hereditary lineage heads who formed
a sort of middle layer in Guaraní society. She shows Guaraní elites and commoners
as actively pursuing their own interests and making rational economic choices.
Unfortunately, these choices were beneficial only in the short term, and Guaraní
leaders ended up using up all of the assets accumulated in the Jesuit period.
Experts in the field will appreciate Sarreal’s book as a valuable supplement to
the previous literature, which sheds new light on the role of Guaraní caciques and
the process of decline in the post-Jesuit period. For English-language readers who
want to read one book on the Guaraní missions, The Guaraní and Their Missions is
an excellent choice.
University of West Georgia

GARY VAN VALEN

The Lawyer of the Church: Bishop Clemente de Jesús Munguía and the Clerical Response
to the Mexican Liberal Reforma. By Pablo Mijangos y González. [The Mexican Experience, Vol. 28.] (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2015. Pp.
xxxii, 335. $45.00 paperback. ISBN 978-0-8032-5486-2.)
Pablo Mijangos y González’s The Lawyer of the Church is an excellent addition
to the literature on the ecclesiastical hierarchy in the nineteenth-century Atlantic
World. Structured as a biography of one of the central figures in Mexico’s Reform
period (1855–67), this study contributes to the scholarship on the Mexican Church
in particular and on the church-state “culture wars” then being fought in Europe
and the Americas in general.
Regarding the Catholic Church in Mexico, Mijangos has an ambitious goal:
to place his work of intellectual history alongside that of the eminent historian
Charles Hale, whose study of the rogue cleric José María Luis Mora has served as
the essential English-language guide to Mexican liberal thought since its publication in the late 1960s. In this, Mijangos succeeds. He does well by selecting
Clemente de Jesús Munguía, bishop and later first archbishop of Michoacán, as the
liberals’ foil for two reasons. First, it was the ecclesiastical hierarchy, not conserva-

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211

tive politicians, who presented the most coherent response to self-styled liberal
reformers since the 1830s. Second, Mijangos convincingly argues it was Munguía
who shaped and led that response, eclipsing his fellow diocesans and even the archbishop in his calls for clerical independence within a liberal, Catholic state. Here,
Mijangos joins a growing number of scholars—Brian Connaughton, Pamela
Voekel, and Brian Larkin among them—who point to the development of “religious modernity” in Mexico since the eighteenth century. Far from advocating a
return to the colonial modus vivendi between the church and state, Munguía
embraced a confessional republicanism. He pursued a Catholic nationhood, in
which an independent church functioned within the state as a moral authority, able
to define and interpret the law. This, in fact, is the crux of the book and its most
original contribution. Although the Reform period in Mexico is typically viewed as
the ultimate clash between tradition and modernity, Mijangos instead tells us “it
was a conflict over the right to define what a modern nation was” (p. 235).
Furthermore, Mijangos situates this conflict within the broader cultural struggle throughout the Atlantic World. He does this in two parts. In chapters 2–4, he
details the development of Munguía’s thought in conversation with numerous
European (primarily French and German) thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Chapter 4 is perhaps the most significant here, as Mijangos
describes in broad-brush Munguía’s El derecho natural and thus the culmination of
his political philosophy. Then, in chapters 5 and 6, we learn how Munguía’s political theory was tested in an increasingly hostile environment on both sides of the
Atlantic. In Mexico, radical liberals sacked churches and pushed through a series
of anticlerical measures in the 1850s, ending in the nationalization of church property and the legal separation of church and state in 1859. Regrettably, Mijangos
does not afford nearly as much discussion of the Church’s promotion of aggressive
measures, few as they may have been. He ignores the archdiocesan loan in support
of the 1847 “Polkos” rebellion, for example (p. 119). Nevertheless, this is a minor
complaint in an otherwise comprehensive study. As Munguía traveled Europe in
exile, he witnessed further anticlerical maneuvers and became convinced of a
transnational conspiracy “driven by the world’s ‘deep hatred of the Christian religion’” and propelled by liberalism, “the doctrine of the Revolution … ‘that upsets
[and] destroys everything, leaving nothing standing’” (p. 186).
In short, this is an essential read for scholars of Mexican history, and scholars
of constitutionalism and the nineteenth-century Catholic Church will also find
much of interest.
Hope College
Holland, MI

K. AARON VAN OOSTERHOUT

212

BRIEF NOTICE

BRIEF NOTICE
Furry, Timothy J. Allegorizing History: The Venerable Bede, Figural Exegesis and Historical Theory. (Cambridge, UK: James Clarke. 2014. Pp. xi, 162. $39.00
paperback. ISBN 978-0-227-17424-1.)
In this short book for theologians Timothy J. Furry seeks to see “what kind of
theology [the Historia] is” (p. 141, emphasis in original). In chapter 1, “(Re)framing History: A Contemporary Historiography of Bede’s Historia,” Furry surveys a
selection of twentieth-century interpreters with special attention to how they deal
with the contradictory or paradoxical juxtaposition in Bede’s Historia of facts and
miracles as we understand them: how can Bede be both intelligible in modern
terms yet supply many narratives of supernatural occurrences? Furry privileges the
discussions of Charles W. Jones and Jan Davidse, and dwells on Bede’s invocation
of a, or the, vera lex historiae.
In chapter 2, “Can History Be Figural?,” Furry analyzes the Historia alongside
the biblical commentary De Templo, which Bede was writing at the same time. He
concludes that “Bede chooses not to make figural [or allegorical] connections
between the bible and the history he recounts” (p. 10).
In chapter 3, “Interpreting Genesis,” Furry compares Bede and St. Augustine
in their literal commentaries on Genesis 1. He highlights their different philosophical and theological readings, showing that theological and philosophical notions
and arguments matter for literal and historical reading and writing” (p. 10).
In chapter 4, “Anachronism and the Status of the Past in Bede’s Historia and
Figural Exegesis,” Furry discusses the rise of an awareness of anachronism in the
Renaissance. Bede lacked concerns about anachronism. His “ignorance of anachronism helped enable Bede to write the Historia as an intentional piece of theology...”
(p. 11).
In chapter 5, “Bede and Frank Ankersmit,” Furry relates Bede to the thinking
of Ankersmit (b. 1945), professor of intellectual history and historical theory at the
University of Groningen, and author of the book Historical Representation (Stanford, 2001). Among other things, Furry applies “the logic of representation [i.e.,
interpretation] that Ankersmith articulates to Bede’s figural [i.e., allegorical] exegesis” (p. 11).
In the conclusion, Firry states “that the relationship between Bede’s Historia
and exegesis is theologically precarious . . .” (p. 145). WALTER GOFFART (Yale
University)

Report of the Editor
olume 101 of the journal consisted of 1004 pages of articles, essays, book
reviews, brief notices, and the quarterly sections Notes and Comments, Periodical Literature, and Other Books Received, with an additional twenty-four pages
of preliminary material. It also contains two centennial supplements: the first of
111 pages, the second of 285 pages. Three indices (one general and one each for
the two supplements) added 31 pages, so that volume 101 totaled 1455 pages. Subsidies from authors and contributions from others made directly to the journal
allowed for the addition of pages above those budgeted. Professor Paul F. Grendler
of Chapel Hill, NC (emeritus of the University of Toronto), once again generously
made such a contribution.

V

Of the fourteen regular articles published, one treated a medieval topic, two
early-modern European, four late-modern European, four American, one Latin
American, one Caribbean, and one Canadian. Half of their authors came from
American institutions; the other half came from Belgian, Canadian, Chilean,
Grenadan, Italian, Polish, and Portuguese universities. In addition, there were two
essays in the series Journeys in Church History: one from a scholar of the ancient
period, the other of the early modern. Two Forum Essays—one dealing with a book
on the ancient period and another on the early modern—had contributions by scholars from Canada, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The authors of
the three Review Essays came from Italy, the United States, and Vatican City. Two
Centennial Retrospective articles by an American scholar traced the history of the
journal and its relationship to the American Catholic Historical Association.
The two Centennial Supplements were dedicated to different themes. The
first, edited by Maureen C. Miller, treated Catholic Material Culture and included
six articles. The second, edited by Nelson H. Minnich, was a retrospective of the
journal’s contributions in eight areas of church history. The contributors to these
centennial supplements were from among the leading scholars in their fields.
In 2015 the journal published 202 book reviews and two brief notices. The
book reviews can be subdivided into the following categories: general and miscellaneous (21), ancient (9), medieval (53), early modern (50), late modern (24),
American (24), Latin American (14), Asian/Australian (4), Canadian (2), and
African (1). Their authors came mostly from institutions in the United States (130
or 64%), but those in other countries were also represented: in England/Ulster/
Wales (31 or 15%), Canada (10 or 5%), Belgium (4), Germany (4), Italy (4), Scotland (3), Australia (2), and The Netherlands (2), with one each from Argentina,
Finland, France, Ireland, Israel, Malta, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden,
and Switzerland. The two brief notices were by authors at institutions in the
United States. Please see table 1.
213

REPORT OF THE EDITOR

214

TABLE 1. Book Reviews and Brief Notices Published in 2015
Area

Winter

Spring

Summer Autumn TOTAL

General
Ancient
Medieval
Early Modern
Late Modern
American
Latin American
Canadian
Far Eastern/ Australian
African
TOTAL

1
1
6
8
6
3
0
0
2
0
27

2
1
9
8
8
5
4
1
0
0
38

8
5
24
22
5
10
7
0
0
0
81

10
2
14
12
5
6
3
1
2
1
56

21
9
53
50
24
24
14
2
4
1
202

Brief Notices

0

1

0

1

2

The book review editor, Msgr. Robert Trisco, reports:
Readers of the journal must have been dismayed to find listed in “Other
Books Received” 121 titles of valuable books that scholars have accepted but
neither reviewed nor returned to the editorial office. One must wonder about
their professional ethics.

The journal received thirty-four new submissions of articles in 2015. They
came primarily from the United States, but also from Australia, Belgium (2), Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany (2), Ireland, Israel, Italy (2), Poland (2), South
Africa, Tanzania, and the United Kingdom. Table 2 shows the current disposition
of these submissions. During 2015, fourteen articles earlier accepted were published.
During 2015 the journal published two Forum Essays, featuring books by
Liam M. Brockey and Peter Brown, and the two “Journeys in Church History”
essays by Elizabeth Clark and Robert Bireley, S.J. Review essays by Cardinal
Walter Brandmüller and Alberto Melloni gave differing assessments of the two
tomes published by Brepols that included critical editions of the medieval ecumenical and general councils.
The Catholic University of America Press published Journeys in Church History: Essays from The Catholic Historical Review, a collection edited by Nelson H.
Minnich of six autobiographical essays spanning 2007–15. It contains the contributions of Elizabeth Clark; Caroline Bynum; Jean Delumeau; John W. O’Malley,
S.J.; Margaret Lavinia Anderson; and Philip Gleason.
The editorial staff of the journal remains much the same. Msgr. Trisco serves
as the skillful book editor, while continuing to compile the sections Periodical Literature and Other Books Received. Over the academic year he has been ably assisted

REPORT OF THE EDITOR

215

TABLE 2. Manuscripts Submitted in 2015.
Rejected or
Conditionally Withdrawn
Published
Accepted Accepted
(W)
Pending in 2013 TOTAL

Area

General
Ancient
Medieval
Early Modern
Late Modern
American
Latin American
Canadian
Far Eastern
Middle Eastern
African
TOTAL

1
1
2
3, 1(W)
4
2 (W)

1
2

5
6
4

1
3

0

15

1
16

1
1
7
10
9
4
0
0
1
0
1
34

by Ms. Katya Mouris and over the summer months by Ms. Bonnie Brunelle. Ms.
Elizabeth Foxwell has continued as the dedicated staff editor, taking on without
complaint the additional burden of editing the two centennial supplementary issues.
After many years as a dedicated advisory editor, Dr. Maureen C. Miller has found
that her responsibilities as director of the medieval studies program at the University
of California, Berkeley prevent her from serving the journal and has reluctantly
resigned. The journal remains much indebted for her outstanding service. Dr. Scott
G. Bruce of the University of Colorado Boulder has graciously agreed to join the
Advisory Editors' Board.
At the editorial board meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 9, 2016, the
following mission statement was adopted for the journal:
Founded in 1915, The Catholic Historical Review (CHR) is a quarterly journal
owned by The Catholic University of America Press and later adopted as the
official organ of the American Catholic Historical Association. With an
international readership and a global array of contributors, the journal publishes significant, original, and preferably archivally-based articles in English
on topics related to the history of various lived Catholic experiences and their
intersections with cultures and other religious traditions over the centuries
and throughout the world. In addition, CHR publishes reviews (single, fora,
essays, and articles) written by experts of important books in the field, lists
relevant articles that appear in other journals, and includes the section “Notes
and Comments” containing news about the Association and other items of
interest to readers. Any scholar may submit a manuscript, which is subjected
to a rigorous double-blind evaluation.

NELSON H. MINNICH
Editor

Notes and Comments
ASSOCIATION NEWS
At its Executive Council meeting in Atlanta on January 7, 2016, Father Bentley Anderson, S.J., was offered a new five-year appointment as executive secretary
and treasurer of the American Catholic Historical Association (ACHA) that will
extend his term to 2021.
The Association will not hold a spring meeting this year, but planning for the
next Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado, scheduled for January 5–8, 2017, is
moving forward. Proposals for individual and panel presentations that concern any
aspect of Catholic history should be submitted on the ACHA online submission
portal by April 15. Acceptances will be announced by May 15. Membership in the
ACHA and registration for the Annual Meeting are prerequisites for presenting or
participating in panels.
On January 9, 2016, at the ACHA’s 2016 Annual Meeting in Atlanta, the
Association presented the following 2015–16 prizes with their citations:
2015 John Gilmary Shea Prize
Maureen C. Miller, Clothing the Clergy: Virtue and Power in Medieval Europe, c.
800–1200
In awarding the Shea prize to Miller, the committee commented that “[i]t is
common for historians to speak metaphorically of following threads and weaving
together stories. But for Maureen C. Miller, textiles and their production offer more
than just a language to explain the historian’s craft. They instead serve as crucial texts
themselves, providing new and valuable insights into the past. In Clothing the Clergy:
Virtue, and Power in Medieval Europe, c. 800–1200, Miller deftly demonstrates the
importance of clerical vestments for understanding how religious authority was conceived and exercised. As she reveals, the gradual rise in the status of the clergy from
the early to high Middle Ages was accompanied by ever more elaborate forms of
clothing, even though this development stood in contrast to the repeated calls for
reform among certain quarters of the clergy. Eventually, the reformers adopted the
type of magnificent vestments that have been the markers of clerical power down to
the modern era. Relying on a wide array of physical evidence, Miller reveals the level
of effort invested in producing these vestments and how the styles changed over her
period as a reflection of changing ideas about clerical virtue and power. She further
demonstrates the role of female patrons and producers in making the vestments,
showing how women actively shaped clerical culture. Miller’s work exemplifies the
216

NOTES AND COMMENTS

217

value of the study of material culture and offers a compelling argument that deepens
our understanding of medieval Catholicism and its legacy.”
The selection of Dr. Miller’s work is doubly significant because this marks the
first time that an individual has been a two-time recipient of this honor. Dr. Miller
had previously been awarded the 1993 Shea prize for her book, The Formation of a
Medieval Church: Ecclesiastical Change in Verona, 950–1150 (Cornell University
Press). We congratulate her on her fine accomplishments.
2015 Howard R. Marraro Prize for Italian History
Nino Zchomelidse, Art, Ritual, and Civic Identity in Medieval Southern Italy
This beautifully-produced book offers an in-depth and fascinating portrait of
the Easter liturgical celebration in medieval southern Italy, based on a study of
ecclesiastical furnishings and manuscripts produced between the 10th–14th centuries. Zchomelidse’s interdisciplinary analysis focused on ambos, monumental
candlestick holders, and exultet rolls brings to life the theatrical reenactment of
Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection during Easter week, as well as the changes
brought to the liturgical practices in the Norman and Angevin eras.
2015 Peter Guilday Prize
Scott Berg, “Seeing Prussia through Austrian Eyes: The Kölner Ereignis and Its
Significance for Church and State in Central Europe”
The Peter Guilday Prize for 2015 is given to Scott Berg for his article “Seeing
Prussia through Austrian Eyes: The Kölner Ereignis and Its Significance for
Church and State in Central Europe,” which appeared in CHR, 101, no. 1 (Winter
2015), 48–73. Heavily based on archival and printed primary sources, this study
analyzes the complex issues surrounding “mixed-marriage” civil legislation in the
states of Prussia and Austria that led to the arrest in 1837 of the archbishop of
Cologne, Clement August Droste zu Vischering (1836–45) for opposing the
attempt of the Prussian king Frederick Wilhelm III (r. 1797–1840) to impose a
“Protestantization” of his realm by requiring in 1803 and 1825 that all of the children of a Protestant father in a mixed marriage be raised as Protestants, a requirement contrary to Roman Catholic canon law governing marriage. There was similar legislation in Austria, requiring the children of a Catholic father in a mixed
marriage to be raised as Catholics. But there were differences. Prussia was an absolutist confessional state that allowed no exceptions to its legislation. Austria was a
nonconfessional state whose Edict of Toleration (1781), Marriage Patent (1783),
and civil code of 1811 defined marriage as a civil contract and allowed mixed-confession couples to have their marriage performed before a non-Catholic minister
should the Catholic priest refuse to preside because the spouse would not take an
oath to raise the children Catholic. Some priests would discreetly perform the ceremony for such couples but not give the nuptial blessing, the priest’s role being
considered the passive assistance of a state official at the ceremony.

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For a variety of reasons, the arrest of the archbishop of Cologne sparked widespread riots and resistance in the Rhineland to the point that the Prussian government sought a negotiated settlement of the problem with a re-energized Catholic
Church, a settlement that had to await a new king, Frederick Wilhelm IV (r.
1840—61) and the good offices of the Austrian foreign minister, Klemens Wenzel
von Metternich-Winneburg (1773–1859, f.m. 1809–48), who negotiated with
Pope Gregory XVI (r. 1830–41) a resolution of the conflict whereby Droste
received an apology, was released from imprisonment, and ceded the administration of his diocese to his coadjutor Johann von Geissel (1842), and, in addition,
priests were officially allowed to assist passively in marriage ceremonies in which
the Protestant father refused to promise to raise the children Catholic. The pope
showed great flexibility in dealing with a secular state on disciplinary matters. The
Prussian state had backed down from its earlier stances and the settlement was seen
as favorable to the Catholic Church. Because of its earlier tolerant civil legislation,
Austria was spared any unrest from its Catholic population over its marriage laws.
Berg’s study of the Kölner Ereignis in a wider context reveals an Austrian Catholic
Church that enjoyed legitimacy and stability in a nonconfessional state and that
adapted its discipline to a modern state, a model that the supposedly “reactionary”
pope Gregory XVI adopted for the resolution of the conflict with Prussia. For these
fresh insights, the Peter Guilday prize is given to Scott Berg.
2015 John Tracy Ellis Dissertation Award
Jennifer Callaghan, Northwestern University
In awarding Callaghan this award, the committee noted that her project
“Critical Mass: The Fall and Rise of Latin in the long U.S. Catholic Liturgical
Movement” “interrogates 20th century discussions of Catholic liturgical reforms”
from the 1930s to the present, and explores “how the administrative process of
implementing reforms contributed to the construction of a post-conciliar American
Catholic actor prepared to participate actively in both Catholic liturgical and U.S.
civic life.” Furthermore, the committee was impressed by the ways in which Ms.
Callaghan’s research adds nuance to historical narratives of liberal/conservative
polarization in the conciliar era. Her work resists presenting the Latin Mass as
either a political statement against the Second Vatican Council and modernization
in the Church or as a pure exercise of religious piety. Instead, Callaghan’s dissertation interrogates the complex constellation of religious and political elements
which combined to form Catholic religious practices in the late 20th century. Her
study considers both regional aspects of the grassroots efforts to resurrect the Latin
Mass in the Chicago area as well as larger national landscape of Catholic liturgy.
2016 ACHA Distinguished Scholar Award
Walter S. Melion, Emory University
The work of Walter S. Melion, the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Art History, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, has covered the field of Renaissance and

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219

early modern European visual culture broadly. He has demonstrated the links
between image and spirituality, between representation and religious meaning. His
works address how early modern people understood images and used art to convey
profound messages, especially in the field of doctrine and exegesis. Melion has
worked on art from across Europe but especially printed images, showing the links
between readers, viewers, and artists. In addition to monographs on Jerónimo
Nadal’s Adnotationes et meditationes in Evangelia (2003–2007) and on Scriptural illustration in the 16th-century Low Countries (2009), his books include Shaping the
Netherlandish Canon: Karel van Mander’s ‘Schilder-Boeck’ (Chicago, 1991) and The
Meditative Art: Studies in the Northern Devotional Print, 1550–1625 (Philadelphia,
2009). He has also been the patron of many scholars working in the field of Renaissance and early modern art history, organizing volumes of essays and promoting discussions across disciplinary boundaries. His work on devotional images has greatly
enhanced our understanding of Catholic culture in the period of the Counter-Reformation and the Catholic Reformation, and has inspired a new generation of scholars
to reconsider Catholic artistic culture at both elite and popular levels. In 2010 he was
elected Foreign Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
2016 ACHA Distinguished Teaching Award
Rev. Clyde F. Crews, Bellarmine University
Fr. Clyde F. Crews of Bellarmine University is a graduate of that institution,
having earned his B.A. from the then-named Bellarmine College in 1966. As a
Woodrow Wilson Fellowship recipient, he received his MA and PhD in History
of Christian Thought at Fordham University. Ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Louisville in 1973, Fr. Crews returned to Bellarmine that same year where
he then taught theology for the next thirty-plus years. His scholarly, academic, and
teaching interests have ranged from investigating local southern Catholic history to
English Catholic modernism and on to American Catholic popular culture. During
his career, he routinely earned the rarest of academic accolades: the virtually unanimous admiration and respects of his students. Over the years, Fr. Crews proved to
be a teacher who understood Catholic higher education’s formative role. As an
instructor, his courses were well subscribed, his teaching style engaging, his attention to student needs admirable. His authentic teaching and his commitment to
formation mutually reinforced. For those reasons, the University recognized his
excellence in teaching by naming him a Wyatt Fellow. Clyde F. Crews has been a
teacher, a mentor, and a friend to many generations of Bellarmine students. He
retired from Bellarmine’s theology faculty in 2007 and remains professor emeritus.
2016 ACHA Distinguished Service to Catholic Studies Award
Members of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, Our Lady of the
Holy Spirit Monastery, Conyers, Georgia
Since their arrival in the state of Georgia in 1944, the members of the Order
of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, better known as the Trappists, have wit-

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nessed to the Gospels in a region of the United States that was not that familiar
with monasticism or the Roman Catholic Church. Through their labor and their
lives of prayer, the Trappists have ministered to the people of North Georgia
regardless of race or creed. Theirs has been a missionary undertaking. For over
seven decades, the Trappist monks of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Monastery have
provided a place of prayer, of worship, and of solitude for all. Their ministry has
provided a link between the past, the present, and the future of the Christian faith,
offering insight into the history of monasticism, providing knowledge of the
ancient practices of prayer and meditation, and demonstrating to the world that the
God who is, who was, and who will be dwells in our midst. It is for their witness,
their ministry, their service to the Church and all God’s people that the ACHA
awards its 2016 Distinguished Service to Catholic Studies award to the Trappist
monks of Conyers, Georgia.

CAUSES OF SAINTS
On January 21, 2016, Pope Francis received in a private audience Cardinal
Angelo Amato, S.D.B., prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints,
during which he authorized the Congregation to promulgate the following decrees.
Regarding miracles: Blessed Stanislaus of Jesus and Mary (1631–1701, born Jan
Papczyński), Polish founder of the Congregation of Marians of the Immaculate
Conception; Blessed José Gabriel del Rosario Brochero (1840–1914), Argentine diocesan priest; Blessed José Sánchez del Río (1913–28), Mexican child
martyr; Venerable Servant of God Francesco Maria Greco (1857–1931), Italian
diocesan priest and founder of the Congregation of the Little Workers of the
Sacred Heart; and Venerable Servant of God Elisabetta Sanna (1788–1857),
Italian layperson, widow, and member of the Third Order of St. Francis and of
the Catholic Apostolic Union founded by St. Vincent Pallotti.
Regarding martyrdom: Venerable Servant of God Engelmar Unzeitig (1911–
45, born Hubert), German professed priest of the Congregation of Missionaries of Mariannhill; Servants of God Genaro Fueyo Castañón (1864–1936),
Spanish diocesan priest, and three laypersons; and the Servant of God Iustus
Takayama Ukon (1552–1615), Japanese layperson.
Regarding heroic virtues: Servant of God Arsenio da Trigolo (1849–1909,
born Giuseppe Migliavacca), professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor
Capuchin and Italian founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of Mary
Most Holy Consolatrix; and Servant of God Maria Luisa of the Most Holy
Sacrament (1826–86, born Maria Velotti), Italian member of the Third
Order of St. Francis and founder of the Franciscan Sisters Adorers of the
Holy Cross.

RESEARCH TOOLS AND WORKSHOP
The MeMO-project is sponsoring the Medieval Memoria Research (MMR)
Web site devoted to liturgical vestments, http://memo.hum.uu.nl/liturgischege-

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221

waden. The vestments can also be viewed in English on a database found on
http://memo.hum.uu.nl.
The Huntington Library of Marino, California, has made available a database
(compiled since 1999) that chronicles the lives and deaths of an estimated 120,000
persons based on some fifty-year-old microfilms and original mission books containing the records of 101,000 baptisms, 28,000 marriages, and 71,000 burials from
twenty-one Alta California missions stretching from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara
and from the coastal area extending from San Diego to Marin County. The records
show the extraordinarily high mortality among Indians exposed to European diseases such as measles, influenza, and smallpox. They document such information
as the names of family members, their village of origin, ethnic background, trades,
interracial marriages, and cause of death. Access to these records can be found at
http://www.huntington.org.
The Newberry Library of Chicago will host the 2016 Mellon Summer Institute
in Italian Paleography from June 27 to July 15. Instruction will be in the Italian language given by Maddalena Signorini of the Univeristà degli Studi di Roma. It will
provide intensive training in the accurate reading and transcription of handwritten
Italian texts from the late-medieval through early-modern periods. It will also offer
an overview of the system of Italian archives: public, ecclesiastical, and private. The
institute is open to fifteen scholars from American and Canadian institutions, with
eligible applicants including advanced doctoral candidates and junior faculty members, professional staff from libraries and museums, and qualified independent
scholars. The deadline for application is March 1. Recipients will be notified by
April 1. Successful applicants will receive a stipend of $950; those from outside the
Chicago area will receive an additional $2500 to defray costs of travel, lodging, and
food. There are no fees associated with the institute. For further details, visit
http://www.newberry.org/renaissance or telephone 312/255-3514.
The National Endowment for the Humanities is sponsoring the summer
institute “Teaching the Reformation after Five Hundred Years” directed by Karin
Maag, Katherine Van Liere, and David Whitford and enriched with visiting lecturers. It will take place at the Meeter Center of Calvin College in Grand Rapids,
Michigan, on July 11–29, 2016. Applications for scholarship support for faculty
members and graduate students are due by March 1, 2016. For more information,
visit http://www.calvin.edu/meeter/NEH/2016.

CONFERENCE
The arrival of the Carmelite Order in Mexico 450 years ago was the topic of
an international congress that took place in Mexico City on October 7–9, 2015.
Despite the Carmelites’ initial intentions to participate in the evangelizing mission,
the presence of other orders dedicated to that task and the reluctance of its head in
Spain led them to change directions. The Carmelites became an urban order dedicated to promoting its charisma. A newly minted book by Jessica Ramirez Mendes

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tracing that transformation in Mexico was welcomed at a special session of the congress. The Carmelites founded seven convents for women and fourteen convents
for men throughout colonial Mexico and practically disappeared in the nineteenth
century as a result of the political circumstances of the new nation.
Most of the papers delivered at the congress by thirty-one historians dealt
with the period prior to 1820 due to the abundance of sources. Among them were
the training of novices, the artistic expressions in the form of relics and iconography, the writings by Carmelites or inspired by Carmelite notables and saints, the
architecture of convents, and the foundational processes supported by endowed
Masses and chaplaincies, as well as willing bishops. The international papers dwelt
on the history and artistic patrimony of Peruvian Carmelites, the figure of a notable
Colombian nun, and the history of the order in Guatemala, as well as the continental devotion to a black saint, St. Iphigenia, who wore a Carmelite habit. There
was no specific emphasis on the celebration of St. Teresa of Ávila’s 500th birthday,
but several works examined some of the rich nuances of her writings and even her
representation in cinematic works. A Carmelite member, José de Jesús Orozco,
traced the order’s decline in the nineteenth century and its auspicious renaissance
toward the end of the first half of the twentieth century. The organizing committee
plans to publish a book with the presenters’ contributions in the hope of consolidating the historical knowledge of the order in the new historiography of the
Catholic Church in Spanish America.
—Submitted by Asunción Lavrin, Arizona State University (Emerita)
The University of Notre Dame is sponsoring an international academic conference on “The Promise of the Vatican Library” on May 8–10, 2016, with prominent plenary speakers who will address issues of Greek, Byzantine, and Latin manuscripts; Latin philosophy and theology; music; numismatics; Renaissance
humanism and philosophy; and the urban history of Rome. For additional details,
contact Chuck Lamphier at lamphier.1@nd.edu or tel. 574/631-1728.
The Istituto Sangalli of Florence and the Famiglia Artistica Reggiana Studioum Regiense Foundazione of Reggio Emilia are sponsoring the conference
“Orlando Furioso: 1516–2016” to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the publication of the editio princeps of Ludovico Ariosto’s masterpiece’s in Ferrara. The
conference will take place on May 19–20, 2016, at Reggio Emilia and Florence.
The author and his poem will be discussed by scholars from multidisciplinary perspectives. For more information, contact segreteria@istitutosangalli.it.
On June 1–2, 2016, the Canadian Catholic Historical Association will hold its
83rd Annual General Meeting at the University of Calgary with papers devoted to
the theme “Energizing Communities,” studying religious communities, the energized Canadian Church in the post–Second Vatican Council era, and Catholicism
in Western Canada. Proposals for individual papers, panels, or roundtables should
be sent to program chair Robert Dennis at rdennis@upei.ca.

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The Sixteenth Century Society and Conference will be sponsoring a conference on August 18–20, 2016, in Bruges, Belgium, at the Martins Hotel, the Crown
Plaza Hotel, and the Provinciaal Hof. Proposals for panels, roundtables, and workshops featuring precirculated papers, thorny translation or paleography questions,
or large issues should be submitted by February 15, 2016. For more information,
contact conference@sixteenthcentury.org.

PUBLICATIONS
A dossier of articles on “La Liturgie Hispanique” has been edited by Thomas
Deswarte for the October–December 2015 issue (vol. 58) of Cahiers de civilization
médiévale: “L’introduction de la liturgie romaine dans les monastères de Silos et de
San Millán à travers leurs manuscrits” by Miguel C. Vivancos (pp. 337–69); “Concurrence des rits et jugement de Dieu: une origine espagnole?” by Alain Rauwel
(pp. 371–76); “Existe-t-il une liturgie «mozarabe»?” by Cyrille Aillet (pp. 377–86);
“Les six paroisses mozarabes de Tolède” by Miquel S. Gros i Pujol (pp. 387–93);
and “Asymétrie temporellle: Les «renaissances» du rite wisigothique et leur valeur
identitaire” by Susana Zapke (pp. 395–406).
In commemoration of the quincentenary of the birth of St. Teresa of Jesus
(also known as Teresa of Ávila, 1515–82), four articles on her relations with St.
Augustine and the Augustinians have been published in the September-December
2015 issue (vol. CCXXVIII, no. 3) of La Ciudad de Dios: “La conversión de Santa
Teresa y el influjo de San Agustín” by Salvador Ros García, O.C.D. (pp. 613–41);
“Lo agustiniano en Santa Teresa de Jesús: San Agustín, las agustinas, los agustinos
y Santa Teresa” by Teófilo Viñas Román, O.S.A. (pp. 643–74); “Presencia de
Santa Teresa de Jesús en Quito. «Llegó» con sus hermanos y sus hijas espirituales,
las carmelitas” by Félix Carmona Moreno, O.S.A. (pp. 675–708); and “Presencia
de Santa Teresa en los agustinos de El Escorial” by Modesto González Velasco,
O.S.A. (pp. 709–36).
“Antisémitisme(s): un éternel retour?” is the theme of the April–September
2015 (vol. 62, no. 2/3) issue of the Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine. The
first section, “La religion, aux sources de l’enseignement du mépris?”, contains three
articles on the role of Christianity: “La hantise de la théologie dans l’historiographie médiévale de l’hostilité antijuive” by Elsa Marmursztejn (pp. 15–39); “La captation de l’enfant de converti. L’évolution des normes canoniques à la lumière de
l’antijudaïsme des XVIe–XVIIIe siècles” by Isabelle Poutrin (pp. 40–62); and “Tradition catholique et matrice de l’antisémitisme à l’époque contemporaine” by Nina
Valbousquet (pp. 63–88).
The issue of U.S. Catholic Historian for summer 2015 (vol. 33, no. 3), as the
editor, David J. Endres, writes in his foreword, “considers the role of language in
U.S. Catholic history” (p. i). Five writers develop this theme: Patrick W. Carey,
“The Confessional and Ex-Catholic Priests in Nineteenth-Century Protestant
America” (pp. 1–26); Herbert D. Miller, “Protestant Hermeneutics as the ‘Infidel

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Principle’ in Disguise: Bishop John B. Purcell’s Case against Sola Scriptura in His
Debate with Alexander Campbell” (pp. 27–49); Mary Elizabeth Brown, “The
Theory and Practice in Scalabrinian Parishes for Italian Immigrants in the
United States, 1887–1933” (pp. 51–68); Carlos Hugo Parra-Pirela, “Babel or
Pentecost? Language-Related Issues in Catholic Involvement in the 1893
World’s Parliament of Religions” (pp. 69–98); and Mariana Portolano, “‘Shun
not the struggle’: The Language and Culture of Deaf Catholics in the U.S.,
1949–1977” (pp. 99–124).
The next issue of U.S. Catholic Historian (fall 2015) contains the following
four articles: “Filibusterism and Catholicity: Narciso López, William Walker, and
the Antebellum Struggle for America’s Souls” by Andrew Denton (pp. 1–26);
“Beyond the Black Legend: Catholicism and U.S. Empire-Building in the Philippines and Puerto Rico, 1898–1914” by Katherine D. Moran (pp. 27–51); “Patrick
Peyton, C.S.C., and the International Rosary Crusade, 1948–1959” by Richard
Gribble, C.S.C. (pp. 53–78); and “William Donovan, the Office of Strategic Services, and Catholic Intelligence Sources during World War II” by Michael Graziano
(pp. 79–103).
The articles in Historical Studies, the journal published by the Canadian
Catholic Historical Association, for 2015 (vol. 81) all deal with “Irish Catholic Halifax: From the Napoleonic Wars to the Great War,” as follows: S. Karly Kehoe and
Darren Tierney, “‘Like a Kind Mother’: Imperial Concerns and Britain’s Changing
Perception of Rome, 1783–1815” (pp. 11–31); Peter Ludlow, “’Disturbed by the
Irish howl’: Irish and Scottish Roman Catholics in Nova Scotia, 1844–1860” (pp.
32–55); Terrence Murphy, “Transformation and Triumphalism: the Irish Catholics
of Halifax, 1839–1858” (pp. 56–81); Colin Barr, “‘Behold St. Patrick’s Kingdom’:
The Global Context of Holy Cross Cemetery, Halifax” (pp. 82–104); Bruce S.
Elliott, “Cemetery Reform, Ultramontanism, and Irishness: The Creation of Holy
Cross Roman Catholic Cemetery, Halifax, Nova Scotia” (pp. 105–38); James F. E.
White, “Mobility in Place: The Irish Catholics of Victorian Halifax” (pp. 139–66);
Katherine Crooks, “The Quest for Respectability: The Charitable Irish Society in
Victorian Halifax” (pp. 167–94); Patrick Mannion, “Halifax Catholics’ ‘Patriotic
Work’: Responses to Irish Nationalism, 1880–1923” (pp. 195–223); and Mark G.
McGowan, “The Imperial Irish of Halifax: Irish Catholic Recruitment and the
Wars of the British Empire, 1899–1919” (pp. 224–61).

PERSONALS
James Jay Carney of the Theology Department of Creighton University has
received the annual Bethwlll Ogot Prize of the African Studies Association for his
book Rwanda before the Genocide: Catholic Politics and Ethnic Discourse in the Late
Colonial Era (New York, 2014).

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225

OBITUARIES
John Antony Bossy
(1933–2015)
“The Tigers of Wrath are wiser than the Horses of Instruction.” Not many
writers could get away with invoking these words of the visionary poet William
Blake to preface a book. However, the historian John Bossy, who died aged eightytwo on October 23, 2015, in York, was no ordinary writer. Moreover, the book in
question—Christianity in the West, 1400–1700 (New York, 1985), his masterpiece—was no ordinary book, for it was nothing less than a visionary reimagining
of a religious “world we have lost,” whose consequences still shape the mental and
emotional landscape of the twenty-first century.
In a series of articles—as brief as they were brilliant—that culminated in
Christianity in the West, Bossy showed how Christianity ceased to be “a body of
people” and became merely “a body of beliefs.” He developed the idea, which had
also been sketched by his doctoral supervisor, H. Outram Evennett (in the latter’s
posthumously published Spirit of the Counter-Reformation [Cambridge, UK, 1968],
with a postscript by Bossy), that Protestantism and Catholicism shared a similar
agenda in a way that, characteristically, invited debate rather than assent. For
Bossy, the instrument of the catechism reduced Christianity to what could be
taught and learned, whereas the introduction of that new item of church furniture,
the confession box, made secret a sacrament—of penance—that had been previously semi-public and thus subjected “the average soul”—one of Bossy’s many
memorable phrases—to a regime of moral surveillance unprecedented in degree.
Such insights continue to offer an important corrective to the still widely held popular assumption that the “Reformation” witnessed the supersession of “bad” religion by “good.”
Bossy’s concern with understanding how actual social behavior was affected by
these changes had been the leitmotif of his first book, The English Catholic Community, 1570–1850 (London, 1975), in which, drawing creatively on the insights and
methods of social anthropology and particularly French religious sociology, he
showed how the “community” in question constituted a “body of people . . . with
its own internal structure and way of life” (p. 296). This wholly original book,
which after forty years still bears reading, also broke significantly with the existing
approach that had cast the story of English Recusant Catholicism essentially in
terms of isolated, embattled victimhood.
The third of Bossy’s books that still has strong claim on the attention of the
reader is the double prize-winning Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair (New
Haven, 1991). The fact that the awards in question were the Wolfson History
Prize and the British Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger for nonfiction (in
the same year that Ruth Rendell won the equivalent award for fiction) indicates
that Bossy had achieved a remarkable hat trick—in having written three succes-

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John Antony Bossy. Photo by David Wooton.
sive books of such remarkable originality and distinction, with each one utterly
different in style and method from the last. In this historical whodunit Bossy
turned his considerable skills as a writer to examine the specific challenges posed
by historical narrative. Although he later had to retract his claim that the Italian
philosopher Bruno was linked to a mole codenamed Henry Fagot inside the
household of the French ambassador to the court of Elizabeth during the 1580s,
this does not detract from the bravura and skill of its author’s evocation of the
cloak-and-dagger world of Elizabethan London. He mined the same rich seam
of extreme international uncertainty with his last book, Under the Molehill: An
Elizabethan Spy Story (New Haven, 2001). At the time of his death, he left an
incomplete, although long-meditated and substantial, study of Elizabeth I’s
“favorite Catholic”—Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton—which, it is hoped,
will see the light of day in due course.
During his early years at York, Bossy’s engagement with anthropology led to
the publication of his edited seminal volume, Disputes and Settlements: Law and
Human Relations in the West (New York, 1983). It was inspired, he said, by
the idea of a social history which would be a history of actual people; a feeling
that the record of law and especially litigation was a good place to find something about them; some experience in the social institutions of Christianity as
peace-making rituals, and a wish to pursue the subject of arbitration
and peace-making as an important matter in itself; and in interest in the
theory of marriage represented in Romeo and Juliet. (p. 287)

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He returned to these themes again in Peace in the Post-Reformation (Cambridge,
UK, 1998). Bossy’s ideas opened up a whole new field of historical inquiry, and he
became a revered figure among a younger generation of social historians, ensuring
that his legacy remains alive not only amongst historians of religion.
Bossy was born in Edmonton in north London to Catholic parents. His
father, Frederick, was an accounts clerk in the city but also taught English in
evening classes. His mother, Kitty (née White), came from a touring theatrical
family based in Nottingham. After an unhappy experience as an evacuee in Hertfordshire during World War II, John spent a happy time at the Jesuit school St.
Ignatius College in north London’s Stamford Hill. At Cambridge, he encountered
the historian of medieval political thought Walter Ullman, who “converted” him,
as Bossy put it, into a serious historian. After national service (1954–56), he
returned to Cambridge to undertake a doctorate (1961) on the relations between
Elizabethan Catholics and France. His love for French culture, to begin with at
least, encompassed Jean-Paul Sartre as well as his beloved Michel de Montaigne,
and the “total history” approach of scholars associated with the journal Annales
greatly influenced his approach to early-modern Christianity.
His first academic post was at Goldsmiths, University of London (1962–66),
before his move to Queen’s University, Belfast (1966–78), where he arrived a
Republican at the start of the Troubles and left a Unionist, considering the latter
community to be seriously misunderstood, and a conservative unaffiliated with an
ideology. He became a professor at York in 1979 and remained there until his
retirement in 2000. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1993.
He viewed friendship as being close to a sacrament and, since he did not wish
to formalize it, rejected the traditional teacher-disciple relationship. This was
arguably why he never had any “official” PhD students. His undergraduate teaching, too, was founded upon complete equality and mutual respect: he would consider the ideas of a first-year undergraduate as carefully and critically as those of an
established scholar. A seriously playful contrarian who suffered from bouts of
depression, Bossy was a man of great personal warmth with a sense of fun and
irreverence, and he showed enormous kindness to other scholars in reading their
draft manuscripts.
Bossy never married. He is survived by his sister, Marjorie, and his brother,
Michael, who is a member of the Society of Jesus.
SIMON DITCHFIELD

University of York
Dennis Dale Martin
(1952–2015)

Dennis D. Martin will always be recognized as a medieval scholar, specifically
related to monasticism and the Protestant Reformation. However, it is important
to analyze his academic production within the trajectory of his own spiritual jour-

228

NOTES AND COMMENTS

Dennis Dale Martin

ney—what he once called a search for a church “rooted in history” and a “thirst” for
a “tradition worth believing in, worth dying for, worth living from.”1
Martin was born in Elkhart, Indiana, and was descended from early-eighteenth-century Mennonites in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He learned later in
life that his heritage traced back to Canton Bern, where his forebears suffered
during the Anabaptist-Mennonite persecutions. His immediate family lines were
rooted in Mennonite, Brethren, and United Missionary Church (Mennonite
Brethren in Christ) soils in rural Elkhart County. He attended Grace College in
Winona Lake, Indiana, and Philipps-Universität in Marburg, Germany, and completed a BA degree in history at Wheaton College. Martin earned a MA degree in
history at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. As a Fulbright-Hays scholar, he
studied at Eberhard-Karls Universität in Tübingen, Germany. In 1982 he earned a
PhD degree in history at the University of Waterloo. His dissertation focused on
the monastic theology of the fifteenth-century Carthusian Nicholas Kempf.
Martin specialized in late-medieval reform movements, medieval monastic
history and social context, and monastic spirituality and mysticism. At the time of
his passing, he was associate professor of theology and member of the graduate faculty at Loyola University Chicago. In addition, he lectured on current topics within
Catholicism, including the Second Vatican Council and Pope John Paul II. He had
been a visiting fellow at the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin, and visiting scholar at the Medieval Institute, University of
Notre Dame. Prior to coming to Loyola in 1991, he was assistant professor of
church history at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart.
1. Dennis D. Martin, “Retrospect and Apologia: Radical Reformation and the Search
for Credible Radices,” Mennonite Quarterly Review, 76 (2003), 167–96, here 169–70.

NOTES AND COMMENTS

229

Martin’s books include Fifteenth-Century Carthusian Reform: The World of
Nicholas Kempf (New York, 1992) and Carthusian Spirituality: The Writings of Hugh
of Balma and Guigo de Ponte (Mahwah, NJ, 1997). Of late, he was working on a new
book: From Cloister to Chronicle: Mundane Carthusian Spirituality, 1175–1500.
Early in his career, he coedited the Mennonite Encyclopedia, vol. 5 (Scottdale, PA,
1990), and the Brethren Encyclopedia (Philadelphia, 1983). In addition to authoring
multiple academic journal entries, he contributed regularly to the book review section of The Catholic Historical Review.
Martin’s confessed “love affair with history” can be traced to his early Brethren
and Mennonite surroundings. However, it was his Christian faith in search of history that helped guide him into the Catholic Church in the middle of his scholarly
career. Martin once recalled that he was first drawn to medieval history by the
beauty and color of the era, as well as its striking display of the mundane. As his
scholarship progressed, he realized that the conventional Protestant account of
medieval Catholicism was wrong. He discovered that the medieval Catholic
Church, as in all ages, was replete with people who loved Christ sincerely. The
Catholic Church provided Martin with both spiritual and material continuity, and
helped complete his search for a church “rooted in history.” Martin’s own lived history in Protestant and Catholic communities made him irreplaceable at Loyola.
Many Catholic students appreciated his accurate knowledge and love of church
history. Additionally, several Protestant students at Loyola, including this author,
found in him a mentor who was empathetic to their immediate contexts.
Martin was a faithful member of Saint John Cantius Church in the Archdiocese of Chicago. He is survived by his wife, Carol, director of the Writing Center
at North Park University; and two brothers, Gary E. Martin of Goshen, Indiana,
and Stanley W. Martin of Bonners Ferry, Idaho.
Loyola University Chicago

ROBERT ANDREWS

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
It is clear from Ian Ker’s review of The Antagonist Principle: John Henry
Newman and the Paradox of Personality (ante, 101 [2015], 947–49) that he has no
interest in conveying to a reader what my book actually is about. Instead, he uses it
as a springboard for yet another one of his by now depressingly familiar assaults on
Frank M. Turner’s biography of Newman’s Anglican years, John Henry Newman:
The Challenge to Evangelical Religion (New Haven, 2002).
Ker writes that “the nearest . . . that we get to a thesis is Poston’s assumption
that Newman studies are dominated by a clash between so-called hagiographers
and iconoclasts, and that he sees himself standing in via media” (p. 948). Rehearsing the well-known history of the threats to the Church emanating from the
reformist Whig government of the early 1830s, a threat that sparked the creation
of the Oxford Movement, Ker declares that the truth of such a case “is not to be

230

NOTES AND COMMENTS

decided by attempting to compromise between the iconoclast and the hagiographers” (p. 948). Of course not. My reference to Newman’s biographers and critics
(hardly a thesis) is based on the late Martin J. Svaglic’s observation, in his chapter
on Newman in the MLA’s Victorian Prose: A Guide to Research (New York, 1973),
that “Newman continues to attract or repel readers quite strongly, with the result
that disinterested writing about him is relatively rare” (Svaglic, p. 117), which I
quote in the first paragraph of my introduction.
But Ker’s reframing of my purpose frees him to go after bigger game:
Turner’s thesis that Newman’s role in the movement was dictated by hatred
of the Evangelicals and not by opposition to the liberals does not make any
historical sense: for why should such a movement suddenly begin in 1833
when the Evangelical party was long established in the Church of England
and posed no such threat as did the liberal party allied to the Whig government? (p. 948)

If Ker had been more attentive to my discussion of this question on pp. 85ff, in a
chapter subsection titled “The Slippery Slope: From Evangelicalism to Liberalism,”
he might have seen that my line of argument is quite different from Turner’s. In
several writings of the mid-1830s, Newman was exploring what he felt was a kinship between Evangelicalism and religious Liberalism. After all, in the Apologia he
was to say—contrasting the Evangelicals of his day with the “simplicity and
unworldliness” of their predecessors—that “I thought little of the Evangelicals as a
class; I thought they played into the hands of the Liberals” (Apologia, ed. Svaglic
[Oxford, 1967], p. 40). In my book, I follow this quotation with the observation
that “just as Evangelicalism, in Newman’s view, pried intrusively into the believer’s
heart . . . so did Liberalism as a form of theological inquiry pry indecorously into
the meaning of terms” (p. 85). Although Ker continues to believe, somewhat overheatedly, that Turner was accusing Newman of lying, my own objection to Turner’s
thesis is that he tends to belabor a distinction without a difference—or rather, a
distinction that, although valid in itself (since Evangelicalism and religious Liberalism obviously begin from very different starting premises), collapses in terms of
their respective end results.
Ker’s continuing obsession with a book published in 2002 by an author who
died five years ago suggests that he regards it as a kind of lingering radioactive
threat to scholarly generations yet unborn. His penultimate paragraph makes the
most of a parenthetical comment of my own (“Turner overstates the case”) to
mount a vigorous challenge to Turner’s statement that Newman became a Roman
Catholic so that he could remain a monk in his Littlemore community. Ker’s primary opponent here is Turner, not me; but in seeing me as clinging hopelessly to
my alleged “via media thesis,” it is evident that, in Ker’s view, any attempt to lower
the polemical temperature reflects a lukewarm commitment to the primary task of
stamping out pernicious historiography. Presumably even to express gratitude to
Turner for his early encouragement, as I do in my preface, is already to have gone
over to the Enemy. In Ker’s world, you are either for Newman or against him; and

NOTES AND COMMENTS

231

nothing else, it seems to me, so surely demonstrates the continuing validity of
Svaglic’s judgment.
In his parting shot (p. 949), Ker writes, “A retired professor of English,
Poston reveals his lack of theology in his absurd assertion that Newman advised
Catholics that they were not required to give ‘adherence to a specific definition de
fide as long as they had made an active avowal of faith in the Church’s teaching.’”
What I actually said was, “His argument in counseling troubled Catholics was that
confession did not demand adherence to a specific definition de fide” as long as they
had made such an avowal (p. 219, emphasis added). My statement is embedded in
a paragraph on the question of papal infallibility in which I cite John R. Page’s
study, What Will Dr. Newman Do? John Henry Newman and Papal Infallibility,
1865–1875 (Collegeville, MN, 1994). In that study, Page argues that Newman
believed that faithful Catholics had an obligation to accept the definition. But
those who needed time should not be bullied and threatened. . . . A Catholic
who had made an act of faith in the Church’s teaching authority need not
confess doubts about the definition unless he or she had willfully dwelt on
them. (p. 409)

Whether what is at issue is more biographical than theological, turning primarily
on a question of ecclesiastical discipline, is a matter I will leave to others to decide.
University of Illinois at Chicago (Emeritus)

LAWRENCE POSTON

Ian Ker replies:
Lawrence Poston condemns my “depressingly familiar assaults” on and my
“continuing obsession” with Frank M. Turner’s book on Newman. I did review it
when it came out, unfavorably like most of the other reviewers. And I responded
to a letter he sent to the Times Literary Supplement complaining about my review.1
I also reviewed in this journal Turner’s edition of the Apologia pro Vita, where he
makes the same charges as in his book (CHR, 95 [2009], 405–07). In my recent
book Newman on Vatican II (Oxford, 2014), I devote seven pages to a discussion of
various criticisms of the historical accuracy of Newman’s Apologia, including two
pages on Turner’s criticisms. Finally (since I cannot recall writing about Turner
anywhere else), I refer to his book in my review of Poston’s book because Poston
refers to him and because I thought it was highly relevant to the one thesis that I
thought I had detected in Poston’s somewhat rambling book. I think that record
speaks for itself and that Poston grossly exaggerates my so-called “obsession.”
I might add two other relevant facts. First, at least two reviewers of the Cambridge Companion to John Henry Newman (Cambridge, UK, 2009) complained that
1. Ian Ker, “Slow Road to Rome,” TLS, December 6, 2002, 32; Frank M. Turner,
“John Henry Newman’s Conversion,” TLS, December 20, 2002; Ian Ker, “John Henry
Newman and the Tractarians,” TLS, January 3, 2003.

232

NOTES AND COMMENTS

none of the contributors had referred to Turner. If I suffer from an “obsession” with
Turner, it is odd that, as coeditor, I did not ensure that Turner’s book was criticized
in the Companion. In fact, there was only one chapter where a reference to Turner’s
book might have been appropriate; neither I nor my coeditor gave any instruction
to its author as to whether there should or should not be any such reference. It
seems that you are damned if you do refer to Turner but also damned if you don’t
refer to him! Second, I did not respond to Simon Skinner’s attack on me and other
so-called “hagiographers” for daring to criticize Turner’s book—which, in the
event, was answered by the eminent Cambridge historian Eamon Duffy.2
I gather from Poston’s letter that the thesis that I thought I had managed to
glean from his book is not what his book “actually is about.” In that case, I can only
confess that, having read the book carefully, I am now quite in the dark as to what
it is supposed “actually” to be about.
University of Oxford

IAN KER

2. Simon Skinner, “History versus Hagiography: The Reception of Turner’s Newman,”
Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 61 (2010), 764–81; Eamon Duffy, “The Reception of Turner’s
Newman: A Reply to Simon Skinner,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 63 (2012), 534–48.

Periodical Literature
GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
Un débat catholique sur la théologie de l’histoire. Michel Castro. Mélanges de Science Religieuse, 72 (3, 2015), 27–34.
Konzil, System und Recht—Die Perpetuierung der hierarchischen Verfassung in
der Ekklesiologie des Ordo Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani II Celebrandi. Thomas
Neumann. Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 45 (1, 2013), 83–114.
The Thieves of the Cross: Assyrian Charity Collectors and World History, 1860s–
1940s. Andrew MacDonald. Past & Present, No. 229 (Nov., 2015), 161–200.
Here Comes the Bride. Anne L. Clark. Church History & Religious Culture, 95 (2–
3, 2015), 155–81.
Jewishness as an Explanation for the Rejection of the Word. Vincent M. Evener.
Church History & Religious Culture, 95 (2–3, 2015), 203–21.
One City, Two Cathedrals: St. Patrick’s and Christ Church, Dublin. J. Barrington
Bates. Anglican and Episcopal History, 84 (Sept., 2015), 331–37.
Bringing It to Completion: American New Monastics and the Benedictine Tradition. Alden Bass. American Benedictine Review, 66 (Dec., 2015), 352–63.

ANCIENT
When, Where, and Why did the Change From Sabbath to Sunday Worship Take
Place in the Early Church? Robert K. McIver. Andrews University Seminary
Studies, 53 (Spring, 2015), 15–35.
El Depositum Fidei en la Iglesia de Esmirna (siglos I–IV). Mauricio Saavedra.
Estudio Agustiniano, 50 (May–Aug., 2015), 197–220.
Ea Superstitione: Christian Martyrdom and the Religion of Freelance Experts.
Heidi Wendt. Journal of Roman Studies, 105 (2015), 183–201.
“Reordering the Confusion”: Tatian, the Second Sophistic, and the so-called
Diatessaron. Matthew R. Crawford. Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum, 19 (2,
2015), 209–36.
Wer ist der Jüngling? Die Taufe des Gundaphor in Thomasakten und der Kult des
Asklepios. Clemens Leonhard. Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum, 19 (2,
2015), 237–59.
Irenaeus on Natural Knowledge. Anthony Briggman. Church History & Religious
Culture, 95 (2–3, 2015), 133–54.
233

234

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Clement of Alexandria’s Gnostic Exposition of the Decalogue. Robert G. T.
Edwards. Journal of Early Christian Studies, 23 (Winter, 2015), 501–28.
Public Aspects of Pain in Late Antiquity: The Testimony of Chrysostom and the
Cappadocians in the Graeco–Roman Context. Antigone Samellas. Zeitschrift
für Antikes Christentum, 19 (2, 2015), 260–96.
Las cartas de Agustín ‘Ad Donatistas’, y su importancia en la controversia antidonatista. Carles Buenacasa Pérez. Augustinus, LX (Jan.–Dec., 2015), 73–82.
El ‘relato milanés’ en las Confesiones de Augustín: espacios intelectuales y materiales en el Milán tardoantiguo. Therese Fuhrer. Augustinus, LX (Jan.–Dec.,
2015), 177–98.
Antes del encuentro de Agustín con Emérito: Donatismo mauritano primitivo.
Jane E. Merdinger. Augustinus, LX (Jan.–Dec., 2015), 255–65.
Placuit apostolicae (Ep. 1) of Zosimus of Rome and the Ecclesiastical Reorganization of Gaul. Geoffrey D. Dunn. Journal of Early Christian Studies, 23
(Winter, 2015), 559–81.
Simeon and Other Women in Theodoret’s Religious History: Gender in the Representation of Late Ancient Christian Asceticism. Ellen Muehlberger. Journal
of Early Christian Studies, 23 (Winter, 2015), 583–606.
Das sogenannte Bekenntnis des Ambrosius (CPL 167a) bei Theodoret und der
Brief in prolixitate epistolae Papst Anastasius’ II (CPL 1610, CPG 9160).
Wolfram Kinzig. Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum, 19 (Dec., 2015), 452–80.
El Bovalar (Serós, Lleida). ¿Un monasterio productor de pergamino en la Hispania
visigoda? Jordina Sales Carbonell. Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana, XC (2014),
423–63.
The Mirror, the Qnoma, and the Soul: Another Perspective on the Christological
Formula of Babai the Great. Marijke Metselaar. Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum, 19 (2, 2015), 331–66.
The Papal Apocrisiarii in Constantinople during the Pontificate of Gregory I, 590–
604. Joseph Western. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 66 (Oct., 2015), 697–714.

MEDIEVAL
Wissenstransformationen oder Verdrängungsmechanismen? Thesen zur Religions- und Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters. Rainer Berndt. Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, 97 (2, 2015), 291–314.
Buried together, buried alone: Christian commemoration and kinship in the early
Middle Ages. Irene Barbiera. Early Medieval Europe, 23 (Nov., 2015), 385–409.
In search of a Byzantine narrative canon: The Vita Basilii as an uncanonical work.
Patricia Varona Codeso. Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 39 (Sept.,
2015), 173–90.

P ERIODICAL LITERATURE

235

Fixing John Damascene’s Biography: Historical Notes on His Family Background.
Sean W. Anthony. Journal of Early Christian Studies, 23 (Winter, 2015), 607–
27.
The shaping of an icon: St. Luke, the artist. Rebecca Raynor. Byzantine and
Modern Greek Studies, 39 (Sept., 2015), 161–72.
Bede’s horologium: Observational Astronomy and the Problem of the Equinoxes in
Early Medieval Europe (c. 700–1100). C. Philipp E. Nothaft. English Historical Review, CXXX (Oct., 2015), 1079–1101.
Gli inganni della tradizione. Una silloge del Registrum di Gregorio Magno nei rapporti fra Carolingi e papato e nel dibattito sulle immagini sacre. Alberto Ricciardi. Studi Medievali, LVI (June, 2015), 79–125.
À l’origine du chant grégorien de la Messe et du sacramentaire gélasien. B. Étude
du sacramentaire gélasien. Jacques-Marie Guilmard. Revue Bénédictine, 125
(Dec., 2015), 409–42.
Contextualizing marriage: conjugality and Christian life in Jonas of Orleans’ De
institutione laicali. Francesco Veronese. Early Medieval Europe, 23 (Nov.,
2015), 436–56.
Incestuous marriages in late Carolingian Ravenna: the causa Deusdedit (878–81).
Maddalena Betti. Early Medieval Europe, 23 (Nov., 2015), 457–77.
Compétition autour d’un cadavre. Le procès du pape Formose et ses enjeux (896–
904). Laurent Jégou. Revue historique, CCCXVII (July, 2015), 499–522.
Observaciones acerca de los crismones en la documentación en escritura visigótica
de la diócesis lucense (917–1196). Ainoa Castro Correa. Scriptorium, LXIX
(1, 2015), 3–30.
Nikephoros II Phokas and Orthodox Military Martyrs. Meredith Riedel. Journal of
Medieval Religious Cultures, 41 (2, 2015), 121–47.
Byzantium—The Slavs—and the Rise of the Russian Orthodox Church. Predrag
Matejic. St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, 59 (4, 2015), 389–408.
I mundeburdi degli Ottoni per monasteri regi dalla Lombardia al Monte Amiata:
concetti e funzionamenti. Stefano Manganaro. Aevum, LXXXIX (May–Aug.,
2015), 265–300.
The Orthodoxy of the Anglo-Saxons: conversion and loyalty in the pre-conquest
English Church. Jack Turner. International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church, 15 (3, 2015), 199–213.
Bonsai of the consanguinities: cultivation and control of incest regulations in the
works of Bonizo of Sutri. William L. North. Early Medieval Europe, 23 (Nov.,
2015), 478–99.
The ‘Feast of the Liberation of Jerusalem’: remembering and reconstructing the
First Crusade in the Holy City, 1099–1187. John Simon. Journal of Medieval
History, 41 (4, 2015), 409–31.

236

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Crusading and political culture under Geoffrey, count of Anjou and duke of Normandy, 1129–51. Kathryn Dutton. French History, 29 (Dec., 2015), 419–44.
Visitations in Military Orders during the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. A. J.
Forey. Viator, 46 (3, 2015), 95–122.
The First ‘General Chapter’ of Benedictine Abbots (1131) Reconsidered. Steven
Vanderputten. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 66 (Oct., 2015), 715–34.
The kingdom of Portugal, homage and papal ‘fiefdom’ in the second half of the
twelfth century. Benedict G. E. Wiedemann. Journal of Medieval History, 41
(4, 2015), 432–45.
The Politics of the Tunic in Antelami’s Deposition in Parma. Elizabeth C. Parker.
Speculum, 90 (Oct., 2015), 995–1018.
The Language of the Liturgy in the Life and Miracles of William of Norwich.
Heather Blurton. Speculum, 90 (Oct., 2015), 1053–75.
‘Sovereignty belongs to God’: Text, Ornament and Magic in Islamic and Christian
Seville. Tom Nickson. Art History, 38 (Nov., 2015), 838–61.
The Cardinal’s music: musical interests at the Papal Curia c. 1200–1304. Julian
Gardner. Early Music History, 34 (Oct., 2015), 96–132.
San Francisco y el Apocalipsis. ¿Cuánto hay del Apocalipsis en el Cántico de las
criaturas? Claudio Bedriñán. Laurentianum, 56 (1, 2015), 15–31.
Litterae papali nell’Archvio della Curia Generale dei Frati Minori (1228–1261).
Inventario e regesto. Annarita De Prosperis. Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 108 (Jan.–June, 2015), 41–87.
Ecumenical Processes in the mid 13th Century and the First Union between Russia
and Rome. Alexander V. Maiorov. Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 126 (1,
2015), 11–34.
Die verschollene Vita Quasi stella matutina im Gesamt der frühen FranziskusQuellen. Paul Bösch. Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 108 (Jan.–June,
2015), 3–40.
“Daz ewige viwer, daz nimmer erlischet.” Ein bisher unbkannter Schwur gegen das
“Waldensertum” aus dem 13. Jahrhundert. Christof Paulus. Zeitschrift für
Kirchengeschichte, 126 (1, 2015), 1–10.
Quomodo Terra Sancta recuperari potest. Fidenzio da Padova, Raimondo Lullo e
il “superamento” della crociata. Luca Demontis. Antonianum, XC (July–Sept.,
2015), 545–61.
Costruire la comunità: l’apporto delle confraternite fra Due e Trecento. Alcuni
esempi dal Nord e Centro Italia. Marina Gazzini. Rivista di Storia della Chiesa
in Italia, LXVIII (July–Sept., 2014), 331–48.
Procesos del Maestro Eckhart. Walter Senner, O.P. AnáMnesis, 49 (Jan.–June,
2015), 95–129.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

237

Remembering Last Things and Regulating Behavior in the Early Fourteenth Century: From the De consideratione novissimorum to the Speculum morale. Constant J. Mews and Tomas Zahora. Speculum, 90 (Oct., 2015), 960–94.
Generations of Men and Masculinity in Two Late-Medieval Biographies of Saints.
Marta Weissenberg. Gender & History, 27 (Nov., 2015), 669–83.
I Miracula della Vergine per la chiesa di Santa Maria in strada Monza (sec. XIV):
storia politica e storia sacra nell’opera di Bonincontro Morigia. Renato Mambretti. Aevum, LXXXIX (May–Aug., 2015).
Geraldus Odonis, Franciscan Minister General and Scholar: The Life and
Thought of a Controversial Friar. Odd Langholm. History of Political Economy, 47 (Dec., 2015), 665–75.
Arguing with Lollards: Thomas Palmer, O. P., and De Translatione Scripture Sacre
in Linguam Barbaricum. Cornelia Linde. Viator, 46 (3, 2015), 235–54.
The Significance of St Davids and Its Bishops During the Fifteenth Century.
Ralph A. Griffiths. Welsh History Review, 27 (Dec., 2015), 672–706.
Catholic Puritanism in Pre-Reformation England. Peter Marshall. British Catholic
History, 32 (Oct., 2015), 431–50.
Anti-Judaism and a Hermeneutic of the Flesh. Erika Tritle. Church History & Religious Culture, 95 (2–3, 2015), 182–202.
Jean Huss: une réforme avant la Réforme. Daniel Bergèse. La Revue réformée,
LXVI (July, 2015), 39–65.
Preaching Peace: Sermon Literature from the Council of Constance. Christopher
M. Bellitto. Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 45 (1, 2013), 1–16.
Valutazioni umanistiche sui frati. Remo Guidi. Archivum Franciscanum Historicum,
108 (Jan.–June, 2015), 115–57.
Johannes Keck, das Konzil von Basel und der vergessene Osterstreit des Jahres
1444. C. Philipp E. Nothaft. Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters,
71 (1, 2015), 105–47.
Un volgarizzamento della bolla di Eugenio IV Ordinis tui a fra Giacomo Primadizzi in un codice bolognese. Juri Leoni, OFM. Archivum Franciscanum
Historicum, 108 (Jan.–June, 2015), 159–82.
The King’s Historiographer: John Capgrave, Austin Identity, and the Pursuit of
Royal Patronage. Rory G. Critten. Viator, 36 (3, 2015), 277–300.
Pauca de origine Enee suaque vita. Ein unbekanntes Selbstzeugnis Piccolominis, das
erste Buch der Commentarii und Platinas Vita Pii II. Claudia Märtl. Deutsches
Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 71 (1, 2015), 149–74.

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SIXTEENTH CENTURY
Doing the Paperwork: Early Modern Converts, Their Narratives and the
(Re)Writing of Religious Lives. Constantin Rieske. Medieval History Journal,
18 (Oct., 2015), 404–29.
Vom Humanismus zur Reformation: Girolamo Savonarolas Frührezeption im
Deutschland des beginnenden 16. Jahrhunderts. Tobias Daniels. Archiv für
Reformationsgeschichte, 106 (Oct., 2015), 7–38.
The Paradox of Christiam Epicureanism in Dialogue. Reinier Leushuis. Erasmus
of Rotterdam Society Yearbook, 35 (2, 2015), 111–36.
Exorcising the Borgia from Urbino: Timoteo Viti’s Arrivabene Chapel. Robert G.
La France. Renaissance Quarterly, 68 (Winter, 2015), 1192–1226.
The Closing of the Fifth Lateran Council (1512–1517). Nelson H. Minnich.
Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 45 (1, 2013), 17–58.
The Reformation of the Soundscape: Bell-ringing in Early Modern Lutheran Germany. Philip Hahn. German History, 33 (Dec., 2015), 525–45.
Zensiert und zerrissen: Alte Bücher und religiöse Differenzierung in Zürich und
Biberach, 1520–1532. Marc Mudrak. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 106
(Oct., 2015), 39–66.
Mysticism, Christianization, and Dissent: The Appropriation of Johannes Tauler
in Simon Haferitz’s Sermon on the Feast of the Three Holy Kings (1524).
Vincent Evener. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 106 (Oct., 2015), 67–91.
Una revisione delle tesi di André Chastel su alcune rappresentazioni contemporanee del Sacco di Roma (1527). Silvina Paula Vidal. Archivio Storico Italiano,
CLXXIII (2, 2015), 275–312.
Letting English Words Stand: Thomas More, William Tyndale and the Common
Expression of English Theology. Jan James Martin. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 106 (Oct., 2015), 92–114.
Die Rolle des Matthäusevangeliums für Martin Luthers antijüdische Äußerungen:
Eine Untersuchung seiner drei großen ‘Judenschriften’. Sören Swoboda.
Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 106 (Oct., 2015), 115–55.
Die erste lutherische Kanzel. Johann Anselm Steiger. Zeitschrift für
Kirchengeschichte, 126 (1, 2015), 35–57.
Los primeros hermanos jesuitas. Marcos Recolons de Arquer, SJ. Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, LXXXIV (I, 2015), 51–76.
Stranger than fiction in the archives: The controversial death of William Cowbridge in 1538. Thomas S. Freeman and Susan Royal. British Catholic History,
32 (Oct., 2015), 51–72.
Parliament and the Reformation of Edward VI. Diarmaid MacCulloch. Parliamentary History, 34 (Oct., 2015), 383–400.

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“Such defiant, obstinate disobedience”: Martin Luther’s Jonah and Michael Helding’s Recatholization Effort in Merseberg. Austra Reinis. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 106 (Oct., 2015), 156–83.
The Donation of Zeno: St. Barnabas and the Modern History of the Cypriot
Archbishop’s Regalia Privileges. Joseph P. Huffman. Church History, 84
(Dec., 2015), 713–45.
The House of God in Exile. Kenneth J. Woo. Church History & Religious Culture,
95 (2–3, 2015), 222–44.
A sound doctrine: Early modern Jesuits and the singing of the catechism. Daniele
V. Filippi. Early Music History, 34 (Oct., 2015), 1–43.
The limits of confessionalization: social discipline, the ban, and political resistance
among Swiss Anabaptists, 1550–1700. John D. Roth. Mennonite Quarterly
Review, 89 (Oct., 2015), 517–38.
Financing the Huguenot War Effort during the Early Wars of Religion, 1562–
1570. Hugues Daussy. French Historical Studies, 38 (Oct., 2015), 593–609.
Holy War or Sedition?: The Prophetism of Parisian Preachers and Catholic Militancy, 1558–1588. Thierry Amalou. French Historical Studies, 38 (Oct., 2015),
611–31.
V Centenário do Nascimento de D. Frei Bartolomeu dos Mártires—Pastor exímio.
José Marques. Theologica, L (1, 2015), 85–124.
The Waldensians, Bucer, Beza, Castellio, and French-German Confessional
Diplomacy 1566/7. Cornel Zwierlein. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 106
(Oct., 2015), 184–241.
Early Modern Purgatory: Reformation Debates and Post-Tridentine Change.
Tomáš Malý. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 106 (Oct., 2015), 242–72.
Donne devote nell’Italia post-tridentina: il caso delle Compagnie di Sant’Orsola.
Querciolo Mazzonis. Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia, LXVIII (July–
Sept., 2014), 349–85.
Les textes liturgiques des saints martyres dans le bréviaire et le missel de saint Pie
V: Les fêtes de juin et juillet. Philippe Beitia. Ephemerides Liturgicae, CXXIX
(July–Sept., 2015), 257–99.
Calvin, Daneau, and Physica Mosaica. David S. Sytsma. Church History & Religious
Culture, 95 (4, 2015), 457–76.
Music and Catholic culture in post-Reformation Lancashire: piety, protest, and
conversion. Emilie K. M. Murphy. British Catholic History, 32 (Oct., 2015),
492–525.
Convergence and Conversion: The Virgin Mary and Mazu as Maritime Patroness
in Late Imperial China. Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia. Urbaniana University Journal,
LXVIII (2, 2015), 149–72.

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Croatian Jesuit missionaries and the attempts to form a Union with the Orthodox
Church from the 16th to the 19th century. Mijo Korade and Dejan Pernjak.
Cris: Journal of the Historical Society of Križevci, XVII (Dec., 2015), 40–56.
“Il nostro re, e sua christianissima maestà”. Novità su Tommaso Bozio dinanzi
all’istanza di riconciliazione di Enrico IV. Gennaro Cassiani. Rivista di Storia
della Chiesa in Italia, LXVIII (July–Sept., 2014), 387–410.
Thesaurus Litaniarum: The symbolism and practice of musical litanies in CounterReformation Germany. Alexander J. Fisher. Early Music History, 34 (Oct.,
2015), 45–95.
Recognising the archpriest: seeking clarification or fomenting schism? Thomas M.
McCoog, S.J. British Catholic History, 32 (Oct., 2015), 473–91.
Between town and Church: public assistance and charity in the Clermont hospitals
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Gregory Goudot. French History,
29 (Dec., 2015), 469–90.

SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
Collage, Architectural Inscription, and the Aesthetics of Iconoclasm in Jacques
Perret’s Des fortifications et artifices (1601). Morgan Ng. Journal of Medieval
and Early Modern Studies, 45 (3, 2015), 573–94.
Geneva and the Myth of the Escalade. Karin Maag. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 106 (Oct., 2015), 273–89.
Literal and Spiritual Births: Mary as Mother in Seventeenth-Century Women’s
Writing. Victoria Brownlee. Renaissance Quarterly, 68 (Winter, 2015), 1297–
1326.
… Combatter coi tribulani dell’impero… Zum Konflikt und Jurisdiktion und
Rechtsprechung zwischen römischer Kurie and Reich in der Frühen Neuzeit.
Burkhard Roberg. Römische Quartalschrift, 110 (1–2, 2015), 60–102.
Feringhee Dharma, Augustinians, Amerindians and a Bengali deity in an early
modern Iberian World. Projit B. Mukharji. South Asian History & Culture, 7
(Jan., 2016), 37–54.
Paolo Sarpi, Caesar Baronius, and the Political Possibilities of Ecclesiastical History. Charles Keenan. Church History, 84 (Dec., 2015), 746–67.
Mennonites and Violence in Early Modern Amsterdam. Troy Osborne. Church
History & Religious Culture, 95 (4, 2015), 477–94.
Von den Miniaturen zu den Katakomben. Sante Avanzini, Maler aus Siena. Massimiliano Ghilardi. Römische Quartalschrift, 110 (1–2, 2015), 48–59.
Canonising San Carlo: Sermonising, the sounding word, and image construction
in the music for Carlo Borromeo. Christine Getz. Early Music History, 34
(Oct., 2015), 133–89.

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241

University of Utrecht 1636–1676: res ecclesia, res publica and…res pecunia. Henk van
Rinsum. History of Education, 45 (Jan., 2016), 1–17.
Les constitutions synodales du patriarche de Venise Andrea Bondumier (16 août
1640). Présentation, étude et édition. Pascal Vuillemin. Le Moyen Age, CXXI
(2, 2015), 321–59.
La Société du spectacle. Jésuites et jansénistes face aux arts éphémères et spectaculaires. Ralph Dekoninck and Caroline Heering. Rivista di Storia e Letteratura
Religiosa, L (3, 2014), 515–30.
D’un palais (1643) l’autre (1668): les bibliothèques Mazarine(s) et leur décor. Yann
Sordet. Journal des Savants, (Jan.–June, 2015), 79–138.
Religious Toleration and Ecclesiastical Independence in Revolutionary Britain,
Bermuda and the Bahamas. Polly Ha. Church History, 84 (Dec., 2015), 807–
27.
Lieutenant Colonel John Rede: West Country Leveller and Baptist pioneer. John
Rees. Seventeenth Century, 30 (3, 2015), 317–37.
Divided by Toleration: Paradoxical Effects of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia and
Multiconfessionalism. David Mayes. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 106
(Oct., 2015), 290–313.
Qui a écrit Les Provinciales? Gérard Ferreyrolles. Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa, L (3, 2014), 563–83.
Educational travel in Protestant families from post-Restoration Ireland. Richard
Ansell. Historical Journal, 58 (Dec., 2015), 931–58.
Il canto del Paradosso. Musica barocca e Giansenismo al tempo di GuillaumeGabriel Nivers. Mariel Mazzocco. Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa, L
(3, 2014), 531–46.
Une “fastueuse singularité”: La Relation de captivité d’Angélique de Saint-Jean.
Christian Belin. Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa, L (3, 2014), 547–60.
Applying the right measure: architecture and philology in biblical scholarship in
the Dutch early Enlightenment. Jetze Touber. Historical Journal, 58 (Dec.,
2015), 959–85.
Pietists, jurists, and the Enlightenment critique of private confession in Lutheran
Germany. Terence McIntosh. Modern Intellectual History, 12 (Nov., 2015),
627–56.
Religious Interests and Scholarly Exchange in the Early Enlightenment Republic
of Letters: Italian and Dutch Scholars, 1675–1715. Jetze Touber. Rivista di
Storia della Chiesa in Italia, LXVIII (July–Sept., 2014), 411–36.
Confessional identity and models of aristocratic conversion in seventeenth- and
eighteenth-century Hungary. Gabriella Erdélyi. Social History, 40 (Nov.,
2015), 473–96.

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Una iconografia de Nuestro Padre Jesús Nazareno en los origenes de la Semana
Santa: El Santo Cristo de los Ajusticiados, la Catedral de Sevilla y el pintor
Luis de Vargas. José Gámez Martín. Isidorianum, XXIII, No. 46 (2014), 327–
41.
William Whiston: No Longer an Arian. Paul R. Gilliam III. Journal of Ecclesiastical
History, 66 (Oct., 2015), 755–71.
La grandeur à l’épreuve de la mort: à propos de l’oraison funèbre de Louis XIV par
Massillon. Stéphane Macé. XVIIe siècle, 67 (Oct.–Dec., 2015), 623–32.
Shifting between Religious and Economic Leadership. Michael-W. Serruys.
Church History & Religious Culture, 95 (2–3, 2015), 274–92.
Giansenisti e cattolici illumniati: gli studi di Ettore Passerin d’Entrèves sul Settecento delle riforme. Mario Rosa. Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa, L (3,
2014), 487–508.
Leopoldina Naudet, l’Amicizia Cristiana e la Bibbia: l’influenza dei gesuiti nell’apostolato del libro. Adriana Valerio. Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu,
LXXXIV (I, 2015), 79–108.
Un pasteur “rouge” de la Révolution française, Jacques Molines. Nathalie Alzas.
Annales du Midi, CXXVII (Apr.–June, 2015), 183–201.
La salvación del alma en Osuna durante los siglos XVIII y XIX. Carlos de la Puerta
Lomelino. Isidorianum, XXIII, No. 46 (2014), 343–97.

NINETEENTH, TWENTIETH, AND TWENTY-FIRST CENTURIES
No Easy Heritage: The Vicars Apostolic and the Welsh Missions, 1780–1850.
Nicholas Lee. Downside Review, 133 (Oct., 2015), 414–53.
Reformationstheorien um 1800. Charles de Villers und die Preisaufgabe des
französischen Nationalinstitutes. Martin Kessler. Zeitschrift für Theologie und
Kirche, 112 (3, 2015), 300–35.
Ludwig Uhland—die romantische Religion. Volker Leppin. Zeitschrift für
Kirchengeschichte, 126 (1, 2015), 58–72.
Gran expolio artístico del Real Monasterio del Escorial durante la invasión
francesca (1808–1814). José Rodríguez Díez, O. S. A. La Ciudad de Dios,
CCXXVIII (Sept.–Dec., 2015), 805–35.
Rethinking Britishness: Religion and Debates about the “Nation” among Britons
in Company India, 1813–1857. Joseph Sramek. Journal of British Studies, 54
(Oct., 2015), 822–43.
The Missionary Movement in African and World History: Mission Sources and
Religious Encounters. David Maxwell. Historical Journal, 58 (Dec., 2015),
901–30.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

243

Intertextuality as a Means of Negotiating Authority, Status, and Place—Forms,
Contexts, and Effects of Quotations of Christian Texts in Nineteenth-Century Missionary Correspondence from Yorùbáland. Sandra Nickel. Journal of
Religion in Africa, 42 (2, 2015), 119–49.
Les missions étrangères au cœur du rétablissement da la Compagnie de Jésus en
France. Philippe Lécrivain, SJ. Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, LXXXIV
(I, 2015), 15–48.
Ein “verworrener Quark”—Goethe und das Dritte Evangelische Jubelfest in
Weimar 1817. Kay Ehling. Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, 97 (2, 2015), 395–426.
La Chiesa di Messina dalla ristrutturazione territoriale agli anni della crisi (1817–
1867). Giovan Giuseppe Mellusi. Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia,
LXVIII (July–Sept., 2014), 483–537.
Citizens or faithful? Religion and the liberal revolutions of the 1820s in southern
Europe. Maurizio Isabella. Modern Intellectual History, 12 (Nov., 2015), 555–
78.
The campaign for the Catholic workhouse children, 1834–68. Jean Olwyn Maynard. British Catholic History, 32 (Oct., 2015), 526–56.
British High Churchmen, Continental Church Tourism and the Roman Connection in the Nineteenth Century. J. N. Morris. Journal of Ecclesiastical History,
66 (Oct., 2015), 772–91.
Narthex reclaimed: Reinventing disciplinary space in the Anglican mission field,
1847–1903. G. A. Bremner. Journal of Historical Geography, 51 (Jan., 2016),
1–17.
The Clifton Tracts and the Clifton Tales. Julian Russell. Downside Review, 133
(Oct., 2015), 386–413.
Juliet Got It Wrong: Conversion and the Politics of Naming in Kumaon, ca. 1850–
1930. Sanjay Joshi. Journal of Asitan Studies, 74 (Nov., 2015), 843–62.
L’origine giansenista della formula cavouriana “Libera Chiesa in libero Stato”.
Francesco Margiotta Broglio. Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa, L (3,
2014), 509–14.
“The Surgeon’s Knife”: George Errington’s Administration of the Diocese of
Clifton, 1855–1857. Serenhedd James. Downside Review, 133 (Oct., 2015),
454–71.
William Brownlow, Church History, and Evangelisation. Giles Mercer. Downside
Review, 133 (Oct., 2015), 472–529.
Pius XI., die Römische Kurie und die Juden in den letzten Jahren des Pontifikats.
Eine Überlegung zur “Einsamkeit des Papstes” und zur “Einsamkeit der Historiker.” Paolo Valvo. Römische Quartalschrift, 110 (1–2, 2015), 103–16.
Three Priests: Barron, Buchanan, and Bickerstaffe-Drew. Gillian Hogarth. Downside Review, 133 (Oct., 2015), 338–65.

244

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Wesleyan Methodists, Humanitarianism and the Zulu Question, 1878–87.
Hiroaki Osawa. Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History, 43 (Sept., 2015),
418–37.
“A Rare and Wonderful Sight”: Secularism and Visual Historiography in Ben Hur.
Phillip Maciak. J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists, 3 (Fall,
2015), 249–75.
El Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Regla en la restauración de las Órdenes Religiosas en España (1880–1882). Jorge Alberto Jordán Fernández. Isidorianum,
XXIII, No. 46 (2014), 399–435.
Des serviteurs de Dieu et du pouvoir laïque. Le clergé paroissial dans la communauté grecque orthodoxe d’Istanbul au tournant du XXe siècle. Méropi Anastassiadou. Archives de sciences sociales des religions, 60 (July–Sept., 2015), 81–
101.
Briefe von Bischof Eduard Herzog an Bischof John Wordsworth zur Utrechter
Union. Ewald Kessler. Internationale Kirchliche Zeitschrift, 105 (July–Sept.,
2015), 169–89.
Die Einordnung des Altkatholizismus in Konfessions- und Kirchenkunden. Urs
von Arx. Internationale Kirchliche Zeitschrift, 105 (July–Sept., 2015), 190–248.
Francesco Maria Di Francia (1853–1913) e i Frati Minori Cappuccini. Salvatore
Vacca. Laurentianum, 56 (1, 2015), 121–68.
El I. Concilio Provincial de Valladolid de 1887. Un intento de renovación de la
Iglesia en España a finales del siglo XIX (1. Teil). Juan Vallinas García.
Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 45 (1, 2013), 115–218.
Anglicanism, Japan, and the Perception of a Higher Civilization in the Early
Twentieth Century 1. Mark Chapman. Anglican and Episcopal History, 84
(Sept., 2015), 298–320.
D. José María Salvador y Barrera, Obispo, Senador y Académico. Pablo Ramírez
Jerez. Isidorianum, XXIII, No. 46 (2014), 437–53.
Contested heritage: Multi-layered politics and the formation of the sacred space—
the Church of Gethsemane as a case-study. Masha Halevi. Historical Journal,
58 (Dec., 2015), 1031–58.
Frank Weston, the Kikuyu Controversy, and the necessity of episcopacy. David R.
Law. International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church, 15 (3, 2015),
214–43.
‘Ireland’s sister nations’: internationalism and sectarianism in the Irish struggle for
independence, 1916–22. M. C. Rast. Journal of Global History, 10 (Nov.,
2015), 479–501.
Russian Mennonite organizational collapse and the failed attempts to form an
independent organization, 1917–1989. Walter Sawatsky. Mennonite Quarterly
Review, 89 (Oct., 2015), 539–651.

P ERIODICAL L ITERATURE

245

Church, Society, and the Challenges of Modernity in the Anglican Diocese of
Auckland, 1918–1940. Geoffrey Troughton. Anglican and Episcopal History,
84 (Sept., 2015), 279–97.
Bishop Burton and “Bosie.” J. A. Harding. Downside Review, 133 (Oct., 2015),
322–28.
Pubblicistica evangelica italiana e VI centenario della canonizzazione di Tommaso
d’Aquino (1923). Barbara Faes. Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia, LXVIII
(July–Sept., 2014), 437–63.
The Christian Front against Godlessness: Anti-Secularism and the Demise of the
Weimar Republic, 1928–1933. Todd H. Weir. Past & Present, No. 229 (Nov.,
2015), 201–38.
Youssef Karam, Charles Malik, Youakim Moubarac. Une élite arabe chrétienne,
trois vocations (années 1930—anneées 1970). Dominique Avon. Archives de
sciences sociales des religions, 60 (July–Sept., 2015), 103–19.
An Eventful Journey from Christian Feminism to Christian Humanism. Una
Kroll. Women’s History Review, 24 (Dec., 2015), 996–1013.
A Russian Version of Christian Realism: Spiritual Wisdom and Politics in the
Thought of S. L. Frank (1877–1950). Philip Boobbyer. International History
Review, 38 (1, 2016), 45–65.
‘The writings of querulous women’: contraception, conscience, and clerical authority in 1960s Britain. Alana Harris. British Catholic History, 32 (Oct., 2015),
557–85.
Les mouvements de jeunesse chrétiens face au marxisme durant la “crise
catholique.” Bernard Giroux. Bulletin de Littérature Ecclésiastique, CXVI
(Oct.–Dec., 2015), 121–39.
In textu conciliari equivoca dicenda non sunt. I contributi del card. Giuseppe Siri ai
lavori del Concilio Vaticano II alla luce dei suoi interventi ufficiali. Carlo
Pioppi. Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 45 (1, 2013), 59–82.
From Religion to Revolution: Theologies of Secularisation in the British Student
Christian Movement, 1963–1973. Sam Brewitt-Taylor. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 66 (Oct., 2015), 792–811.
Counter-Insurgency against ‘Kith and Kin’? The British Army in Northern Ireland, 1970–76. Edward Burke. Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History,
43 (Sept., 2015), 658–77.
Catholics, the “Theory of Gender,” and the Turn to the Human in France: A New
Dreyfus Affair? Camille Robcis. Journal of Modern History, 87 (Dec., 2015),
892–923.
Abūnā Sam’ān un prêtre bâtisseur en Égypte. Gaétan du Roy. Archives de sciences
sociales des religions, 60 (July–Sept., 2015), 165–84.

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The dynamics of Orthodox and Muslim religiosity in Russia, 1989–2012. Yuliva
Sinelina. Religion, State and Society, 43 (3, 2015), 292–308.
Geschichte der Christlichen Archäologie in Russland vom 18. bis ins 20. Jahrhundert (6. Folge). Liudmila G. Khrushkova. Römische Quartalschrift, 110 (1–2,
2015), 117–35.
Les associations chrétiennes de Damas et leur rapports variables au religieux (2000–
2010). Laura Ruiz de Elvira. Archives de sciences sociales des religions, 60 (July–
Sept., 2015), 121–37.

AMERICAN AND CANADIAN
Roger Williams not a seeker but a “witness in sackcloth.” J. Stanley Lemons. New
England Quarterly, 88 (Dec., 2015), 693–714.
Naked Quakers Who Were Not So Naked: Seventeenth-Century Quaker Women
in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Heather E. Barry. Historical Journal of Massachusetts, 43 (Summer, 2015), 116–35.
Native American Men—and Women—at Home in Plural Marriages in Seventeenth-Century New France. Sarah M. Pearsall. Gender & History, 27 (Nov.,
2015), 591–610.
Native Spirits, Shaker Visions: Speaking with the Dead in the Early Republic. Erik
R. Seeman. Journal of the Early Republic, 35 (Fall, 2015), 347–73.
Principles of Ordination in the Early Seventh-day Adventist Church, 1844–1900.
Theodore N. Levterov. Andrews University Seminary Studies, 53 (Spring,
2015), 5–13.
Irish Origins and the Shaping of Immigrant Life in Savannah on the Eve of the
Civil War. Tyler Anbinder. Journal of American Ethnic History, 35 (Fall, 2015),
5–37.
Vincent Colyer (1824–1888): Controversial American Humanitarian. Ruth Levitt.
Quaker History, 104 (Fall, 2015), 1–17.
Marching to the Beat of a Newer Drum: Cultural Continuity and Revival in
Nisga’a Church Armies, 1894–1970. Nicholas May. Ethnohistory, 60 (Oct.,
2015), 781–801.
A Church Divided: Roman Catholicism, Americanization, and the SpanishAmerican War. Benjamin Wetzel. Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive
Era, 14 (July, 2015), 348–66.
Nineteenth-Century American Tourists to Wittenberg, the “Protestant Mecca.”
Hartmut Lehmann. Lutheran Quarterly, XXIX (Winter, 2015), 420–38.
Transformation in the Tabernacle: Billy Sunday’s Converts and Emotional Experience in the Progressive Era. Jeremy C. Young. Journal of the Gilded Age and
Progressive Era, 14 (July, 2015), 367–85.

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247

Splitting the Vote in Massachusetts: Father Charles E. Coughlin, the Union Party,
and the Political Divisions in the 1936 Presidential and Senate Elections.
Michael C. Connolly. Historical Journal of Massachusetts, 43 (Summer, 2015),
90–115.
Perspectives on Research on the Post-1939 History of Polish-Americans. Joanna
Wojdon. Polish American Studies, LXXII (Autumn, 2015), 83–101.
“How Come There’s Only Men Up There?” Catholic Women’s Grassroots AntiAbortion Activism. Karissa Haugeberg. Journal of Women’s History, 27
(Winter, 2015), 38–61.
Use of Archives by Catholic Historians, 2010–2012: A Citation Study. Jillian M.
Slater and Colleen Mahoney Hoelscher. Archival Issues, 36 (1, 2014), 43–56.

LATIN AMERICAN
Las Casas and Serra as Representative Figures of the Beginning and the End of
Spanish Colonial Missionary Enterprise. David Thomas Orique, O.P.
Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissenschaft, 99 (1–2, 2015),
90–107.
Lay Brothers: The Other Men in the Mendicant Orders of New Spain. Asunción
Lavrin. The Americas, 72 (July, 2015), 411–38.
Medicinal Flora and the Jesuits in Latin America (XVI–XVII centuries). Isabel
Maria Madaleno. Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, LXXXIV (I, 2015),
111–47.
“By means of tigers”: Jaguars as Agents of Conversion in Jesuit Mission Records of
Paraguay and the Moxos, 1600–1768. Karin Vélez. Church History, 84 (Dec.,
2015), 768–806.
Devotion, Domination, and the Work of Fantasy in Colonial Peru. Rachel Sarah
O’Toole. Radical History Review, No. 123 (Oct., 2015), 37–59.
El proceso de fundación de las capillas de Magdalena y San Vicente en el contexto
bonaerense del periodo colonial tardío. Diego Citterio. Historia, No. 9 (2015),
158–70.
Mestizaje y cambio jurisdiccional de pueblo de indios a parroquia: el caso de Oiba,
siglo XVIII. Alvaro Acevedo Tarazona, Johan Sebastián Torres Güiza. Historia, No. 9 (2015), 117–33.
Los cristeros en Sinaloa. Una forma de bandolerismo. Gilberto López Alfaro.
Jerónimo Zurita, 89 (2014), 37–61.
In Plain View of the Catholic Faithful: Church-Peasant Conflict in the Peruvian
Andes, 1963–1980. Miguel La Serna. Hispanic American Historical Review, 95
(Nov., 2015), 631–57.

Other Books Received
Agamben, Giorgio. Stasi: Civil War as a Political Paradigm. Trans. Nicholas Heron.
[Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics.] (Stanford: Stanford University Press. 2015.
Pp. xii, 75. $15.95 paperback.)
Anderson, Michael Alan. The Singing Irish: A History of the Notre Dame Glee Club.
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. 2015. Pp. xiv, 226. $35.00
clothbound.)
Baker, Keith Michael, and Dan Edelstein (Eds.). Scripting Revolution: A Historical
Approach to the Comparative Study of Revolutions. (Stanford: Stanford University Press. 2015. Pp. x, 438. $29.95 paperback.)
Bernardini, Giovanni, and Günther Pallaver (Eds.). Dialogo vince violenza. La
questione del Trento-Alto Adige/Südtirol nel contesto internazionale. [Annali
dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento. Quaderni, 94.] (Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino. 2015. Pp. 315. €26,00 paperback.)
Carpenter, Anne M. Theo-Poetics: Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Risk of Art and
Being. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. 2015. Pp. xvi, 250.
$32.00 paperback.)
Clark, Mary Ryllis, Heather O’Connor, and Valerie Krips (Eds.). Perfect Charity:
Women Religious Living the Spirit of Vatican II. (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock.
2015. Pp. 214. $25.00 paperback.)
Clark, Patrick M. Perfection in Death: The Christological Dimension of Courage in
Aquinas. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press. 2015.
Pp. xxii, 317. $65.00 clothbound.)
Crisp, Oliver D. Jonathan Edwards among the Theologians. (Grand Rapids, MI:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing. 2015. Pp. xx, 198. $25.00 paperback.)
Dembowski, Peter F. Memoirs Red and White: Poland, the War, and After. (Notre
Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. 2015. Pp. x, 205. $25.00 paperback.)
Durand, William. Rationale, Book Five. Commentary on the Divine Office. Introd.,
trans., and annot. Timothy M. Thibodeau. [Corpus Christianorum in Translation, Vol. 23.] (Turnhout: Brepols. 2015. Pp. 227. €50,00 paperback.)
Gresko, Jacqueline. Traditions of Faith and Service: Archdiocese of Vancouver 1908–
2008. (Vancouver, Canada: Archdiocese of Vancouver. 2008. Pp. 285.)
Hardy, Richard P. John of the Cross: Man and Mystic. (Washington, DC: Institute
of Carmelite Studies Publications. 2015. Pp. xi, 178. $15.95 paperback.)
Originally published by Pauline Books in 2004; now reprinted with some
additions to the bibliography and an updated introduction.
248

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

249

Háry, Nicoletta Mattioli. The Vatican Library and the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace. The History, Impact, and Influence of Their Collaboration
(1927–1947). [Studi e Testi, 455. (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. 2009. Pp. xx, 749. €150,00 paperback.)
Houellebecq, Michel. Submission: A Novel. Trans. Lorin Stein. (New York: Farrar,
Strauss and Giroux. 2015. Pp. v, 246. $25.00 clothbound.)
Kelly, Joseph F. History and Heresy: How Historical Forces Can Create Doctrinal
Conflicts. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press. 2012. Pp. xii, 215. $29.95
paperback.)
Lupieri, Edmondo. In the Name of God: The Making of Global Christianity. Trans.
Giovanna Lammers. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing.
2011. Pp. xx, 271. $25.00 paperback.)
Martin, Jennifer Newsome. Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Critical Appropriation of
Russian Religious Thought. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
2015. Pp. xii, 310. $35.00 paperback.)
McGregor, Michael N. Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax. (Bronx, NY:
Fordham University Press. 2015. Pp. x, 444. $34.95 clothbound.)
Mora, Fabio. Religious Historical Observatory 2014. (Charleston, SC: Createspace.
2015. Pp 198. $27.00 paperback.)
Nuzzi, Gianluigi. Merchants in the Temple: Inside Pope Francis’s Secret Battle Against
Corruption in the Vatican. (New York: Henry Holt. 2015. Pp. xiv, 224. $28.00
clothbound.)
Politi, Marco. Pope Francis among the Wolves: The Inside Story of a Revolution.
Trans. William McCuaig. (New York: Columbia University Press. 2015. Pp.
xviii, 270. $27.95 clothbound.)
Prodi, Paolo, and Maria Teresa Fattori (Eds.). Le Lettere di Benedetto XIV al
Marchese Paolo Magnani. [Italia Sacra: Studi e Documenti di Storia Ecclesiastica, 85. Istituto per la Storia della Chiesa di Bologna, Saggi e Ricerche, 22.]
(Rome: Herder Editrice e Libreria. 2011. Pp. 681. €102,00 paperback.)
Rayski, Adam. The Choice of the Jews under Vichy: Between Submission and Resistance.
Trans. William Sayers. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press and
the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 2015. Pp. xviii, 388. $25.00
paperback.)
Rivera, Mayra. Poetics of the Flesh. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 2015. Pp.
viii, 207. $22.95 paperback.)
Rollason, Lynda (Ed.). The Thorney Liber Vitae. London, British Library, Additional
MS 40,000, fols. 1–12r. Edition, Facsimile and Study. (Rochester, NY: Boydell Press. 2015. Pp. xxxiv, 317. $165.00 clothbound.)
Schiffman, Zachary Sayre. The Birth of the Past. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2011. Pp. xviii, 316. $65.00 clothbound.)

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OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

Taylor, Patrick. An Irish Doctor in Love and at Sea. [An Irish Country Novel.] (New
York: Forge. 2015. Pp. 495. $29.95 clothbound.)
Theognostos. Treasury. Introd., trans., and annot. Joseph A. Munitiz. [Corpus
Christianorum in Translation, Vol. 16.] (Turnhout: Brepols. 2013. Pp. 310.
€ 50,00 paperback.) The source text of this volume appeared with the title
Theognosti Thesaurus as volume 5 in the Corpus Christianorum Series Graeca in
1979.
Thompson, T. Jack. Light on Darkness? Missionary Photography of Africa in the
Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. [Studies in the History of Christian
Missions.] (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing. 2012. Pp.
xviii, 286. $45.00 paperback.)
True, Micah. Masters and Students: Jesuit Mission Ethnography in Seventeenth-Century New France. (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. 2015. Pp.
xviii, 242. C$32.95 paperback.)
Vann, Theresa M., and Donald J. Kagay (Eds.). Hospitaller Piety and Crusader
Propaganda: Guillumes Caoursin’s Description of the Ottoman Siege of Rhodes,
1480. (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing. 2015. Pp. xiv, 380. $139.95
clothbound.)
Weil, Simone. Late Philosophical Writings. Ed. and introd. Eric O. Springsted.
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. 2015. Pp. viii, 204. $20.00
paperback.)