Liam Matthew Brockey
(Photo credit: Kurt Stepnitz, Michigan State University)

THE CATHOLIC
HISTORICAL REVIEW
VOL. 103

SPRING 2017

NO. 2

Books of Martyrs:
Example and Imitation in
Europe and Japan, 1597–1650
LIAM MATTHEW BROCKEY*
The early modern period witnessed a revival of the cult of martyrs in
Western Christendom due to the bloody struggles over religion within
and beyond Europe. One of the most important sources for this
renewal within Catholicism was the period of persecution of clergy
and laity in Japan which began in 1597. Despite the horrors found in
the accounts that circulated in Europe and its colonial empires, the
profusion of texts and images inspired still other priests and friars to
seek missionary assignments in Japan for the express purpose of
obtaining martyrdom.
Keywords: Japan, Jesuits, Cristóvão Ferreira, martyrdom, apostasy,
early modern

C

atholics in the United States have recently been reminded of the
ancient cult of martyrs by news stories from two unlikely places,
Oklahoma and Hollywood: Oklahoma because Father Stanley Rother’s
status as a martyr was recently announced by the Vatican.1 In early
December 2016, Pope Francis officially recognized that this priest from
the archdiocese of Oklahoma City was murdered in Guatemala in 1981
“in odium fidei” [in hatred of the faith]. Rother thus entered the long list

*Dr. Brockey is a professor of early modern European history at Michigan State University, email: brockey@msu.edu. In 2016 he served as the 96th president of the ACHA.
1. The notice of official recognition can be found on the website of the Archdiocese of
Oklahoma City (http://www.archokc.org/rothercause), while a discussion of the news
appears here: Dan Bilefsky, “U.S. Priest Killed in 1981 Is Declared a Martyr,” New York
Times, Dec. 3, 2016, p. A8.

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of martyred men and women that the Church has kept for nearly two
thousand years; his distinction is to be the first American citizen added
to that roll. But if this news from OKC has not yet reached a wide audience, the narrative from Hollywood certainly has. renowned director
Martin Scorsese has released a film titled Silence about the mid-seventeenth century anti-Christian persecutions in Japan. In it, odium fidei
fills the silver screen for more than two hours as scores of Japanese
Christians are shown being martyred by drowning, crucifixion, immolation, and decapitation. In recreating the trials of that mission church,
Scorsese has reminded us of the brutal suffering of individuals put to the
test for their beliefs. Some met death at the hands of their tormentors;
others, through apostasy, chose life. At the center of Silence is Cristóvão
Ferreira (c. 1580–1650), a Portuguese priest who renounced Christianity during the gruesome torture of the pit, and two of his Jesuit brethren
who, refusing to believe that such an act of betrayal was possible, risked
all to confront him.2
These stories from Oklahoma and Hollywood attest to the continuing
presence of martyrs within the Christian consciousness and to the vitality
of this ancient form of church history. By officially recognizing those who
died for the faith, by invoking their memory on the calendar, and by soliciting prayers for their intercession, the Church has preserved and promoted
the cult of martyrs since roman times. So important was the designation
of martyr that the cult endured even through the Middle Ages, as it
became difficult to court death for “hatred of the faith.” Only if one traveled to the Dar al-Islam or ventured into the wilds of northeastern Europe
with the intention of provocation, or used coercion to extinguish heterodoxy within the bounds of Christendom, was it possible to be killed for
professing orthodox beliefs. It is therefore no surprise that during the age
of religious renewal which saw the emergence of mendicant orders, the
new bands of friars quickly sought to associate themselves with the pious
heroes of the past: the Franciscans, for example, promoted the cult of their
Five Martyrs of Morocco, and the Dominicans that of their confrere the
Inquisitor Peter of Verona (later known as Peter Martyr).3 The venerable
badge of bravery that had marked true confessors of the faith was therefore
2. Scorsese’s 2016 film is based on the novel of the same name by Shusaku Endō; see
Silence, trans. william Johnston (New york, 1969).
3. On the swift Franciscan response to the deaths of the five friars in Morocco, see
André Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, trans. Jean Birrel (Cambridge, 2005), pp.
113–19, esp. 115; a recent account of the life and cult of Peter of Verona is found in Karen
Sullivan, The Inner Lives of Medieval Inquisitors (Chicago, 2011), pp. 99–123.

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209

affixed to the friars’ cowls within Francis’s own lifetime and within a few
decades of Dominic’s death.4
New martyrs were nevertheless rare until the early modern period. It
was only with the recovery of classical scholarship, the rending of the
Church, and the discovery of new worlds that martyrdom and its cult
returned to the forefront of the Christian consciousness. Seeking ancient
pedigrees for Church traditions, as well as classical models of eloquence,
renaissance scholars pored over the writings of Eusebius, Lactantius, and
Tertullian. The wars and persecutions that accompanied both Protestant
and Catholic reformations greatly increased the risk that men and women
would suffer death for their religious convictions.5 And the exploration and
settlement of unknown lands beyond Europe, with the concomitant desire
to transmit the gospel to new populations, led to a surge in missionary
activity among peoples who at times reacted violently. The religious turmoil of the reformations combined with the effects of European Expansion to produce seemingly inexhaustible wellsprings of martyrs, while the
renaissance engendered celebrations of the heroic deeds of moderns at
home and abroad which ceded nothing to their ancient counterparts. In
the words of John Foxe, their most famous English publicist, martyrs old
and new “declare to the worlde what true fortitude is, and a waye to conquer, which standeth not in the power of man, but in the hope of the resurrection, to come, and is now I trust at hand.” Further, Foxe wrote in his
1563 Actes and Monuments (better known as his “Book of Martyrs”),
me thinkes I haue good cause to wish, that lyke as other men, euen so the
heroical wittes of kinges and princes, which for the most part are delited
with heroicall stories, woulde carye about with them such monumentes
of Martyrs as this is, and lay them alwaies in sight, not alonely to reade,
but to follow, and would paint them vpon their walles, cuppes, ringes,
and gates. For vndoubtedly these martyrs are much more worthy of this
honor, then. 600. Alexāders, Hectors, Scipioes, and warring Iulies.6

4. A useful overview of the cult of martyrs in the Middle Ages can be found in robert
Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?: Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to
the Reformation (Princeton, 2013), pp. 174–85.
5. The best overview and analysis of early modern martyrdom in Europe is Brad S.
Gregory, Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA,
1999); for the specific case of France and French-language martyrologies, including accounts
from Japan, see Christian Biet and Marie-Madeleine Fragonard, Tragédies et Récits de Martyres en France (fin XVI e–début XVII e siècle) (Paris, 2009), pp. 9–116 and 1261–1328.
6. John Foxe, Actes and Monuments of these latter and perilous dayes, touching matters of the
Church . . . (London, 1563), in the preface (titled “The vtility of this history”), p. 15; the full

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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE ACHA

It is precisely the martyrs’ feedback loop proposed by Foxe—deeds to
representations to more deeds—that this essay will consider. Foxe suggests
that the contemplation of martyrs’ exemplary faith would inspire others to
emulate their heroic virtues and selfless acts. In other words, he explains the
dynamism of the cult of martyrs within early modern, and indeed modern,
Christianity. But did this dynamic function as he claimed? An excellent test
case can be found in the Catholic martyrs in seventeenth-century Japan,
whose travails have recently benefitted from a Hollywood publicity campaign that is nearly on par with the one launched by John Foxe himself.
Between the outbreak of violent persecutions in 1597 and the ultimate
destruction of the Japanese church in the 1640s, many thousands of new
martyrs entered the Church’s rolls.7 There had been no persecution of
Christians on this scale since roman times, and its intensity stands as testament to the missionary élan that produced one of the largest new
churches outside Europe. But the fact that the persecution took place on
the other side of the world meant that the news of the martyrdoms would
pass through many transforming filters on its way out of Japan, reaching
the rest of the Catholic world in an altered state.
This transformation can be seen if we consider the protagonists of the
earliest reports of martyrdoms in Japan that reached Europe. In them one
sees a clear paradox: while it is incontrovertible that the vast majority of
those who died for the faith in Japan were laymen and women, the reports
dwell primarily on the deaths of priests and friars.8 The reason for this lies
in the fact that laymen were not responsible for promoting the cult of martyrs; members of religious orders were, and these authors first memorialized their own. So the memory of the martyrs among early modern
Catholics outside Japan was cloaked in clerical robes. News of the martyrdoms left the island empire primarily through the orders’ conduits, travel-

text of the 1563 edition is available online at https://www.johnfoxe.org/index.php. For an
insightful analysis of the early editions of Foxe’s works, see John King’s Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and Early Modern Print Culture (Cambridge, 2006).
7. The best overall analysis of the anti-Christian persecution in early modern Japan
remains George Elison’s Deus Destroyed: The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan, 3rd
ed., (Cambridge, MA, 1991), pp. 109–254; a useful complement to Elison remains C. r.
Boxer’s The Christian Century in Japan, 1549–1650 (Berkeley, 1951), pp. 308–61.
8. For example, one recent attempt to calculate the total number of martyrs in Nagasaki
alone reveals that only 48 of a possible 373 individuals executed in the city between 1597 and
1639 were clergy. The overwhelming majority, therefore, were laymen and women. See
reinier H. Hesselink, The Dream of Christian Nagasaki: World Trade and the Clash of Cultures,
1560–1640 (Jefferson, NC, 2016), pp. 219–21.

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ing from community to community: Priests and friars commemorated their
brethren locally in Macau and Manila, and then sent word to other communities in India and Mexico. In due course, stories of Franciscan, Jesuit,
Augustinian, and Dominican martyrs arrived in Europe, where the wellestablished network of intra-order communication and commemoration
circulated the news to even the remotest houses. The widespread practices
of celebrating memorial masses and praying rosaries for deceased members
of one’s order soon put the names of these martyrs on the lips of clergy
around the globe. And the fact that religious communities celebrated their
own martyrs, in both text and image, led to the cult’s distinctly clerical
character, even in the minds of its lay devotees.
The first widely-known Catholic martyrs in Japan belonged to a group
of twenty-six men who were crucified and lanced at Nagasaki on February
5, 1597.9 Of these, six were Franciscans and three were Jesuits; it therefore
fell to these orders to spread the news of their deaths. Using the manuscripts of eyewitness accounts as a starting point, clerical promoters in
Europe swiftly prepared narratives for publication in Europe.10 The first of
these appeared in 1598 in two Spanish editions; an Italian translation was
issued in the same year, while German and French editions were published
in 1599.11 The title of the original text gives a clear indication of how the
cult would develop over subsequent decades: Relacion . . . de seys Frayles
Españoles de la Orden de San Francisco, que crucificaron los del Iapon, este año
9. According to one martyrology with rather generous criteria for inclusion, Catholics
had died in Japan out of hatred for the faith prior to 1597. Those deaths, however, did not
produce repercussions, whether in Japan or Europe, on par with the crucifixion of the twentysix martyrs of Nagasaki. See Juan G. ruiz-de-Medina, SJ, El Martirologio del Japón, 1558–
1873 (rome, 1999), pp. 275–87. The events of February 1597 have been recently described
in detail in Hesselink, Dream of Christian Nagasaki, pp. 108–13.
10. The best comprehensive study of the books about the martyrs of Japan is in Ana
C.M. Fernandes Pinto, “‘Tragédia mais Gloriosa que Dolorosa’: O Discurso Missionário
sobre a Perseguição aos Cristãos no regime Tokugawa na Imprensa Europeia (1598–1650)”
(Ph.D. Diss., Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2014), esp. pp. 168–211. Many of the works
themselves are available in digital format at the Laures Kirishitan Bunko Database:
http://digital-archives.sophia.ac.jp/laures-kirishitan-bunko/.
11. Francisco Tello de Guzmán, Relacion que Don Francisco Tello, governador y capitan
general de las Philippinas embio de seys Frayles Españoles de la Orden de San Francisco, que crucificaron los del Iapon, este año proximo passado de 1597. Con otras veynte personas Iapones que
murieron juntamente con ellos animados por los sanctos Frayles y convertidos a su Predicacion
(Seville, 1598) and (Granada, 1598); the Italian edition appeared at rome in 1598, while the
French edition appeared at Paris in 1599, the same year that the German edition was printed
in Mainz. A bibliographical study of these works is found in Agustín Millares Carlo and
Julián Calvo, Los Protomártires del Japón (Nagasaki, 1597): Ensayo Biobibliográfico (Mexico
City, 1954).

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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE ACHA

proximo passado de 1597, con otras veynte personas Iapones que murieron juntamente con ellos animados por los sanctos Frayles y convertidos a su Predicacion
[Report . . . of six Spanish Friars of the Order of Saint Francis whom those of
Japan crucified this past year of 1597. With twenty other Japanese people who
died alongside them animated by the holy Friars and converted by their Preaching]. Clearly missing from the brief synthesis of the events given in this
title is the fact that three of those twenty Japanese were Jesuit brothers:
Diogo Kisai, Paulo Miki, and João de Goto. A later account of the same
events rectified their uncharitable effacement: Relacion del Martirio que seys
Padres Descalços Franciscos, tres hermanos de la Compañia de Iesus, y decisiete
Iapones Christianos padecieron en Iapon [Report of the Martyrdom that six
Discalced Franciscans, three brothers of the Society of Jesus, and seventeen
Japanese Christians suffered in Japan].12
These titles reveal that more was at issue than merely the recognition
of martyrs; the orders’ honor was also at stake. The Jesuits had not only
pioneered the mission to Japan but had also sent the largest contingent of
priests and brothers there. And by being the first to shed their blood on
Japanese soil, the Franciscans gained a major publicity victory in Europe.
It is worth remembering, however, that contemporary Europeans’ idea of
Japan—as a flourishing mission field somewhere in the East—was a Jesuit
creation. For nearly half a century, Jesuits had been sending reports from
Japan and on one occasion had even organized an “embassy” of young
Japanese “princes” to Portugal, Spain, and Italy.13 It was therefore with
surprise that European readers learned of Franciscan heroism in Japan,
especially since in 1585, Gregory VIII had granted the Jesuits a monopoly
on missions there (something that later popes retracted). The question was
quite quickly raised over whether the Franciscans had any right to be in
Japan at all, even implying that they had deliberately provoked the ire of
the Japanese lords, putting the whole mission church at risk. And so the
years after 1600 saw mutual recriminations between Jesuits and Franciscans issue forth from European presses, disputes that lingered since there

12. Fr. Juan de Santa Maria, Relacion del martirio que seys Padres Descalços Franciscos, tres
hermanos de la Compañia de Iesus, y decisiete Iapones Christianos padecieron en Iapon (Madrid,
1601). A previous edition of this work, whose title makes no mention of the three Jesuit
brothers, was published in Madrid in 1599.
13. This embassy has recently been discussed in J.S.A. Elisonas, “Journey to the West,”
Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 34, no. 1 (2007), 27–66. A contemporary account of the
embassy by Luis Fróis, “Tratado dos Embaixadores Iapões que forão de Iapão à Roma no
anno de 1582,” is included in La Première Ambassade du Japon en Europe, 1582–1592, ed. J. A.
Abranches Pinto, Yoshitomo Okamoto, and Henri Bernard, S.J. (Tokyo, 1942).

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213

were few new martyrs (most of whom were Japanese laymen anyway) to
talk about during that span.14
This situation changed dramatically in 1614 with the expulsion of
Catholic missionaries by Tokugawa Hidetada and the proscription of
Christianity in Japan. Not only did the rigor of the persecutions increase,
but the image of Japan came into clearer focus for Catholics in Maritime
Asia and Europe through the figure of Francis Xavier. His beatification in
1619 and canonization in 1622 led to a spate of publications that reminded
readers of his crucial role in founding the Jesuit mission to Japan. Now the
Society of Jesus could promote his cult with vigor, using both texts and
images to re-establish the link between the Jesuits and Japan in the minds
of their European congregations. Jesuit churches could thenceforth display
images that depicted the highlights of Xavier’s Japanese travels, such as his
barefoot pilgrimage from yamaguchi to the court at Miyako (Figure 1) or
his preaching to indigenous lords under the wings of the dove of the Holy
Spirit. Up to that point, such images had been previously restricted to
internal Jesuit consumption since rome had not given its approval for their
public distribution.15 After Xavier’s beatification, however, Jesuit churches
across Europe and around the world erected altars and commissioned
depictions of the “Apostle of the Orient.”16
while there is no doubt that the rigors of the persecution in Japan
would have sufficed to merit an enduring legacy for the Japanese martyrs,
the emergence of Xavier’s cult in the late 1610s and 1620s was crucial for
14. For a discussion of the dispute of the monopoly over the missions in Japan, see
Liam Matthew Brockey, “Conquests of Memory: Franciscan Chronicles of the East Asian
Church in the Early Modern Period,” Culture and History Digital Journal (ISIC Madrid), 5,
no. 2 (2016), 6–13; the full text is available online at http://cultureandhistory.revistas.csic.es/
index.php/cultureandhistory/article/view/102/348; on the disputes in Nagasaki itself, along
with those conducted in print, see Carla Tronu, “The rivalry between the Society of Jesus and
the Mendicant Orders in Early Modern Nagaski,” Agora: Journal of the International Center for
Regional Studies (Japan), 12 (2015), 25–39.
15. The story of Xavier’s trials during his journey to Miyako (today’s Kyoto) is a central
feature of his hagiography, as is the miraculous effect of his preaching in yamaguchi. See, for
example, João de Lucena, Historia da Vida do Padre Francisco Xavier e do que fizerão na India
os mais Religiosos da Companhia de Iesu (Lisbon, 1600), pp. 562–63 and 673–81.
16. The cult of Xavier, as well as its devotional images and texts, has recently been the
object of considerable interest from historians and art historians alike. See, for example, Maria
Cristina Osswald, “The Iconography and Cult of Francis Xavier, 1522–1640,” Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 71, fasc. 142 (2002), 259–77; Maria Cristina Osswald, “La imagen del
Santo en Goa y en el Oriente” in Congreso Internacional Los Mundos de Javier (Pamplona, 2008),
pp. 239–62; and Liam Matthew Brockey, “Sympathy from the Devil: Francis Xavier the Saint,
1600–1650,” Oriente: Revista Quadrimestral da Fundação Oriente, 13 (Dec 2005), pp. 40–57.

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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE ACHA

FIGURE 1. André Reinoso, Francis Xavier en route to Miyako (c. 1619), Sacristy of
São Roque Church, Lisbon (Photo credit: Júlio Marques, Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa/Museu de São Roque). This painting depicts a famous episode in St.
Francis Xavier’s hagiography and belongs to a cycle produced for the Jesuit Professed House in Lisbon on the occasion of Xavier’s beatification. In the winter of
1550–1551 the saint walked from Yamaguchi to the imperial court of Japan in
Miyako (modern-day Kyoto). His escort drove ahead on horseback with little
regard for the barefoot priest following behind, who, despite the hardships of his
journey, nevertheless exclaims, “Mais! Mais! [More! More!]”

cementing their place in the early modern Catholic imagination. Reports
of ongoing martyrdoms continued to make their way from Asia to Europe,
where they resonated with the faithful. Year after year, printed narratives
of “grandes y nuevas persecuciones” [great and new persecutions] and
accounts of the “estat de la Chrétienté au Japon” [the state of the Christian
community in Japan] heralded new heroic deeds.17 Still other quarto- and

17. Anon., Relacion de las grandes y nuevas persecuciones que al presente se han levantado en
el Japon contra los Christianos, y religiosos que andan predicando en aquel reyno [Report of the Great

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215

octavo-sized volumes told in their titles of those who perished “per la santa
fede nel Giappone” [for the Holy Faith in Japan] and “ihr Blut vergossen und
die Marter Cron erlangt” [poured out their blood and gained the martyr’s
crown].18 So great was the number of pious exaggerations and outright
falsehoods contained in these publications that, according to one veteran of
the Japan mission charged with writing a definitive history of its activities,
“if an Angel came and wiped the falsehoods from the books, we would
have clean paper in abundance for some years.”19
The quantity of ink spilled about the martyrs of Japan surely surpassed
the amount of blood that came from their bodies. But instead of serving as
the seed of the church, in Tertullian’s phrase, it watered the seeds of discord. The competition that had begun between Jesuits and Franciscans
expanded to include Dominicans and Augustinians, each vying for the prestige that came from having martyrs in their ranks.20 For example, works
printed in 1626 and 1624, respectively, told of the “prestante & eccelente
and New Persecutions that until present have been raised in Japan against the Christians and Religious who go about preaching in that Kingdom] (Seville, 1619); and Anon., Histoire de l’Estat de
la Chrestienté au Japon, et du glorieux martyre de plusieurs Chrestiens. En la grande persecution de
l’an 1612, 1613, et 1614 [History of the State of the Christian Community in Japan, and of the
Glorious Martyrdom of several Christians in the Great Persecution of the Years 1612, 1613, and
1614] (Douai, 1618).
18. Fabio Ambrosio Spinola, Vita del P. Carlo Spinola della Compagnia di Giesù morto
per la santa fede nel Giappone [Life of Fr. Carlo Spinola of the Society of Jesus, killed for the Holy
Faith in Japan] (Rome, 1628); and Anon., Kurtze Relation, was inn den Königreichen Iapon
unnd China In den Jahren 1618, 1619, und 1620 mit außbreittung deß Christlichen Glaubens sich
begeben: Auch was massen vil Christen / so wohl Geistliche als Weltliche / darüber ihr Blut vergossen
un die Marter Cron erlangt [Short Relation of what transpired with the dilation of the Christian
Faith in the kingdoms of Japan and China in the years 1618, 1619, and 1620, as also of how many
Christians, both religious and lay folk, spilt their blood and gained the martyr’s crown on that
account] (Augsburg, 1621).
19. “. . . Se viera hum Anjo e a limpara o falso dos livros, papel limpo teriamos pera
alguns annos em abundancia” (João Rodrigues to Muzio Vitelleschi, Nov. 30, 1627, Macau,
Codex 18–I, fol. 89r, Japonica-Sinica Collection, Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Rome).
20. In one instance, all four orders were represented in the same publication. See
Domingo González, OP, Relatione del martirio del B.P. Alonso Navarrete dell’ordine de Predicatore & del suo compagno il B.P. Fra Ernando di S. Gioseppe dell’ordine di Santo Agostino, del
B.P. Fra Pietro dell’Assuntione dell’ordine di S. Francesco, et del B.P. Gio. Battista Tavora della
Compagnia de Giesù [Report of the martyrdom of Blessed Fr. Alonso Navarrete of the Order of
Preachers & of his companion Blessed Fr. Friar Hernando de San José of the Order of St. Augustine,
of Blessed Fr. Friar Pedro de la Asunción, and of Blessed Fr. João Batista Távora of the Society of
Jesus] trans. Fr. Raimundo Palascandolo, O.P. (Naples, 1620). The celebration of Alonso
Navarrete’s martyrdom by the Dominicans included the commissioning of a dramatization of
his final days by the famed Spanish playwright Lope de Vega. See Lope de Vega, Los Mártires
de Japón, ed. Christina H. Lee (Newark, DE, 2006).

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martirio di dieci religiosi dell’Ordine de Predicatori” [the beautiful and excellent martrydom of ten religious of the Order of Preachers] and the “grandes
y rigurosos martirios que el año passado dieron en el Japon a ciento y diez y ocho
martyres de valor insigne” [the great and rigorous martyrdoms that in the
past year were given in Japan to one hundred and eighteen illustrious martyrs].21 While such titles suggest that there was a surfeit of glory to go
around, obtaining official recognition from the papacy was not easy; and in
that competition the Jesuits were relative newcomers. The mendicant orders
had existed for centuries by the mid-1600s and were well placed to advance
the causes of their friars. But the papacy was savvy about the competition
between orders and keen to remind them of their subordinate place within
the church hierarchy. Rome therefore deliberately turned its bureaucratic
wheels very slowly; thus it was not until 1627, thirty years after their deaths,
that the Franciscans and Jesuits who had been crucified at Nagasaki were
beatified.22 It would take another few centuries for Roman authorities to
work through the lists of martyrs that Jesuits and friars drew up during the
years of the persecutions: the Japanese Jesuit Pedro Kibe Kasui and 187
companions martyred in 1639 were beatified only in 2008.23
With the first beatifications came consolidation of the cult of the martyrs of Japan, in large part due to the widespread deployment of images in
print and in paint. The 1627 papal pronouncements were duly published
21. Fr. Melchior de Manzano, OP, Relatione vera del prestante, & eccellente martirio de
dieci religiosi dell’Ordine de Predicatore, sostenuto nel popolato Impero del Giappone per l’amore di
Christo Nostro Signore l’anno 1622 & d’un’altro religioso dello stesso Ordine nel detto regno l’anno
1618 [True Report of the beautiful and excellent martrydom of Ten Religious of the Order of
Preachers, undergone in the populous Empire of Japan for the love of Christ Our Lord in the Year
1622, and of another Religious of the same Order in said Kingdom in the Year 1618] (Venice,
1626); and Anon., Relación breve de los grandes y rigurosos martirios que el año passado de 1622.
dieron en el Japón, a ciento y diez y ocho illustrissimos martyres, sacada principalmente de las cartas
de los padres de la Compañia de Jesús que allí residen [Brief Report of the Great and Rigorous Martyrdoms that in the past year of 1622 were given in Japan to One Hundred and Eighteen Illustrious
Martyrs, drawn primarily from the Letters of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus who reside there]
(Lisbon, 1624).
22. Simon Ditchfield discusses the process of making saints in Post-Tridentine
Rome (with specific reference to the early Jesuit saints) in two recent essays: “‘Coping with
the beati moderni’: Canonisation Procedure in the Aftermath of the Council of Trent,” in
Ite infiammae omnia: Selected historical papers from conferences held at Loyola and Rome in
2006, ed. Thomas McCoog, SJ (Rome, 2010), pp. 413–39; and “Tridentine Worship and
the Cult of the Saints” in Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 6, ed. R. Po-Chia Hsia
(Cambridge, 2006), pp. 201–24, esp. 205–16.
23. The notice of the beatifications (in Spanish) by Juan Esquerda Bifet, from L’Osservatore Romano, Nov. 28, 2008, p. 10, is available on the Vatican website at
http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/2008/ns_lit_doc_20081124_giappone_sp.html

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and sent around the world, while paintings, frescoes, and statues of these
martyrs were installed for public veneration in churches in Asia, America,
and Europe. Images of crucified friars and Jesuits holding their heavenly
palms were commissioned to increase the fervor that the printed word continued to inspire with each new publication (Figure 2). This new cult
quickly achieved parity with better-established ones. For example, Jesuits
at the Professed House of São roque in Lisbon added life-sized images of
the three martyred brothers to the main altarpiece at the Society’s recently
completed church within a year of their beatification, alongside Loyola,
Xavier, Borja, and Gonzaga (Figure 3).
Is it possible to gauge the effect of the promotion of the cult of martyrs?
John Foxe asserted that constant exposure to these models of sanctity would
exert an influence on men’s hearts. To be sure, inducements to piety were not
lacking in Catholic Europe during the early modern period, and the addition
of another cult did not necessarily raise the general tenor of fervor there. But
some testimony does exist for the effects of the martyrs’ memorialization. An
annual letter from the Jesuit Province of Goa in 1641 describes how a series
of painted portraits brought about a change of heart in one viewer. The
report describes how on Holy Thursday of that year, a man threw himself at
the feet of a priest “with such commotion of tears and sighs,” begging to
recount his sins after many years’ absence from the confessional. Asked what
had finally moved him, the penitent said that while touring the city’s
churches, “more out of curiosity than devotion, without any thought of my
salvation and much less of the sacrament of penance,” he had visited the
cloister of the Jesuits’ Professed House, where he glimpsed the image of “the
martyrs of Japan, and among them the holy martyr Sebastião Vieira, whom
. . . [he] knew, and dealt with.” Upon recognizing the face of the man who
in 1634 had been burned alive while suspended over a pit at Edo, the penitent’s “heart jumped with a vehement desire for salvation.”24

24. “Quinta feira mayor se lançou aos pês de hum confessor nosso certo homem com tal
alvoroço de lagrimas, e suspiros, que logo o confessor reparou no estillo, avendo que o impulso
era necesside spiritual, e effeito mais que ordinario da Divina graça. E assy perguntando ao
penitente que o movera a confessarse, respondeo Padre, eu hâ annos que me não confesso, e
oje mais por curiozidade que por devação corry as Igreias sem pençamento algum de minha
salvação, e muito alheo do sacramento da penitencia. Acazo passey pela crasta da caza professa, e nella vy os martyres de Jappão, e entre elles o Santo Martyr Sebastiam Vieira, a quem
conhecy, e tratey, e tanto que o vy, logo me saltou o coração hum dezeio vehemente da minha
salvação. . .” (anonymous Jesuit, annual letter from the Province of Goa for 1641 [Jan. 1642?],
Codex 34, fol. 121v, Goana Collection, ArSI). The story of Vieira’s martyrdom is recounted
in Liam Matthew Brockey, The Visitor: André Palmeiro and the Jesuits in Asia (Cambridge,
MA, 2014), pp. 385–408.

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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE ACHA

FIGURE 2. Jacques Callot, Les Martyres du Japon (c. 1627), reproduced courtesy of
the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence (Photo credit: Erik
Gould). This devotional image, printed to commemorate the first martyrs of
Nagasaki on their beatification and produced by one of the most-renowned
engravers of the day, reveals confusion about the events that it depicts. Its caption
reads: “The Portrait of the First 23 Martyrs put upon Crosses for the preaching of
the Holy Faith in Japan under the Emperor Taicosam in the City of Mongasachi,
from the order of the Observant Friars Minor of Saint Francis.” Not only were 17
Japanese laymen promoted to membership as Franciscans, but mention of the three
Jesuit brothers who were also martyred is omitted.

Other documents reveal the impact of the martyrs’ stories and images
even more clearly. Eager students from across Europe submitted petition
after petition to the Superior General in Rome begging for an assignment
to Japan. Gruesome tales of martyrdom in volumes with such titles as Elogios e Ramalhete de Flores borrifado com o Sangue dos Religiosos da Companhia
de Jesu, a quem os tyrannos do Imperio de Iappão tirarão as vidas por odio da Fé
Catholica [Praises, and Bouquet of Flowers sprayed with the Blood of the
Religious of the Society of Jesus whose lives were taken by the tyrants of

LIAM MATTHEW BROCKEY

219

FIGURE 3. View of the High Altar, Church of São Roque, Lisbon (Photo credit:
Júlio Marques, Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa/Museu de São Roque). The
life-size statues of Gonzaga (above) and Xavier (below) standing in niches on the
right side of the altar are flanked by portraits of João de Goto (above) and Diogo
Kisai (below). The figures are part of a gilt retable and art ensemble that was constructed between 1625 and 1628.

220

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE ACHA

the Empire of Japan out of hatred for the Catholic Faith] provoked desires
to “spill blood and give up life” for the faith.25 Still others who made it to
the mission fields of Asia wrote to friends and relatives in Europe of how
eagerly they awaited their chance to suffer. As one Italian priest wrote to a
former patron from his station in southern India: “I have no opportunity
for martyrdom since the infidels are at peace with the Christians; I am
sighing so lamentably for il mio Giappone, where I hope I will leave life and
cares behind with Holy Martyrdom.”26
It is one thing to exhort others to piety or even to send them on journeys around the globe, and another to encourage them to sacrifice their
lives. But the cult of the martyrs of Japan served precisely this end during
the 1630s. All priests, brothers, or friars who made their way to Japan
understood that their journey was one-way: Bartolomé Gutierrez, an
Augustinian from Mexico, knew it when he sailed back to Japan after
spending some years in exile. So did Jacobo Tomonaga, a Japanese
Dominican, who returned to his native land in 1632 only to die over the
pit in the following year.27 But perhaps the most impressive story was that
of Marcello Mastrilli, a young Neapolitan Jesuit who claimed to have been
visited by Xavier’s ghost while he convalesced from a near-fatal accident in
early 1634.28 In exchange for restoring his health, Xavier had Mastrilli
swear to travel to Asia to win the martyr’s crown that the Apostle of the
Orient had not obtained. Less than a year later Mastrilli embarked on his
globe-spanning journey towards death in Japan. Guided by Xavier’s spirit,
Mastrilli braved storms, pirates, and superiors who tried to dissuade him.
when he at last reached Kyushu, the young Jesuit was immediately seized
by the Tokugawa authorities and suspended over the pit, where he died in
agony.29 Moved by his example, men like those depicted in Scorsese’s film

25. Francisco de Betancor to Claudio Aquavivia, Apr. 10, 1587, Coimbra, Codex 70,
fol. 322r, Lusitania Collection, ArSI. The treatise mentioned here is António Francisco
Cardim, Elogios, e Ramalhete de flores borrifado com o sangue dos religiosos da Companhia de Iesu,
a quem os tyrannos do Imperio de Iappão tirarão as vidas por odio de Fé Catholica (Lisbon, 1650).
26. “Non tengo occasione de martirii, per stare l’infideli con li Xpiani in pace, sto suspirando per il mio Giappone tanto pianto, dove spero che lasciera la vita e piaccia con il S.
martirio” (Giacinto de Magistris to Antonio Goretti, Mar. 25, 1639, Cochin, Codex 18, fol.
158r, Goana Collection, ArSI).
27. ruiz-de-Medina, Martirologio del Japón, p. 703.
28. Mastrilli’s martyrdom has recently been reconsidered in an article by Ines G.
Županov, “Passage to India: Jesuit Spiritual Economy between Martyrdom and Profit in the
Seventeenth Century,” Journal of Early Modern History, 16, no. 2 (2012), 121–59.
29. Contemporary European accounts of Mastrilli’s heroism contrast starkly with
Japanese reports of the events of his torture and death. See, for example, Geronimo Perez,

LIAM MATTHEW BROCKEY

221

embarked on the same journey, thereby making the martyr cult a perpetual-motion machine, at least for a few years in the middle of the seventeenth century, just as John Foxe had predicted.
There is something deeply disturbing about the later martyrs of Japan:
Their stories incited emulation even when going to Nagasaki would be not
only futile but suicidal. The cult of martyrs in early modern Catholicism
evoked zeal potent enough to drive men around the world to certain death.
There was at least one man, however, who resisted its deadly call. This
man knew the agonies of persecution firsthand; indeed, he had penned a
moving eyewitness account of Christian fortitude, in which he described
seeing others tortured by scalding at the boiling springs of Unzen in
1632.30 He had suffered imprisonment in the infamous Ōmura jail and had
been taunted by the Japanese regime’s inquisitors and their minions.
Moreover, he had been assured of a place among the blessed. Speaking
with a Portuguese merchant at Nagasaki, he had asked for news of the
devotions at the College of Macau, from whence he had come to Japan
more than a quarter-century earlier. The merchant had told him that the
Jesuits there displayed portraits of their brethren who had died for the faith
(Figure 4). In that line of heroes, the final one depicted was Sebastião
Vieira, “next to which was an empty spot, which everyone understood was
to be yours.”31 There in Macau, far from the pits on Nishizaka Hill, young
Jesuit brothers gathered to hear stories of the martyrdoms, each one’s face
alight with courage, “so that all together like burning embers they made a
great bonfire of zeal and charity.”32 But these inducements to join the ranks
of the beatified did not produce their desired effect on the man. In

S.J., Relacion de lo que asta agora se a sabido de la vida, y Martyrio del milagroso Padre Marcelo
Francisco Mastrilli de la Compañia de Iesus, martyrizado en la ciudad de Nãgasaqui del Imperio de
Japõ a 17 de Octubre de 1637 [Report of what has been learned until now of the life and Martyrdom
of the miraculous Father Marcello Francesco Mastrilli of the Society of Jesus, martyred in the city of
Nagasaki of the Empire of Japan on the 17th of October of 1637] (Manila, 1639), pp. 69–70; and
Elison, Deus Destroyed, p. 199.
30. Cristóvão Ferreira to André Palmeiro, Mar. 22, 1632 [Nagasaki?], Codex 18–I, fol.
113r–v, Japonica-Sinica Collection, ArSI.
31. Testimony of Manuel Mendes de Moura transcribed in a letter from Manuel Dias
to Muzio Vitelleschi, Jan. 26, 1636, Macau, Codex 18–I, fols. 238v–239r, Japonica-Sinica
Collection, ArSI.
32. “. . . Acodião todos huma pratica dos martirios, que la ouve tam afervorada e
abrasada em desejos de os buscar, que se lhe inflamavão os rostos e cada hum dezia seu pensamento, e consderação naquella materia, que todos juntas como brazas vivas fazião huma
grande fogueira de zelo e charidade” (Manuel Dias to Cristóvão Ferreira, June 22, 1635,
Macau, Codex 18–I, fol. 232v, Japonica-Sinica Collection, ArSI).

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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE ACHA

FIGUrE 4. Portrait of the martyr Diogo Kisai (c. 1627/1628), Church of São
roque, Lisbon (Photo credit: Júlio Marques, Santa Casa da Misericórdia de
Lisboa/Museu de São roque). This church formerly belonged to the Jesuit Professed House in Lisbon, which was then a residence for the senior members of the
order’s Province of Portugal.

Nagasaki, his world had turned upside down as he was suspended from a
scaffold over the dreaded pit (Figure 5). Once there, the pain and the fear
of death were unbearable; they obscured the vision of glorious crowns or
palms. This man’s name was Cristóvão Ferreira.

LIAM MATTHEW BROCKEY

223

FIGURE 5. Engraving of António de Sousa, reproduced from António Francisco
Cardim, Elogios, e Ramalhete de flores borrifado com o sangue dos religiosos da Companhia de Iesu, a quem os tyrannos do Imperio de Iappão tirarão as vidas por odio de Fé
Catholica (Lisbon, 1650), p. 209v (courtesy of the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal,
Lisbon). One of the last Jesuits to be martyred in Japan, de Sousa first arrived there
in 1616 but was expelled the following year. Returning in 1621, he ministered to
communities in central Honshu, often hiding aboard a boat. De Sousa was captured near Osaka and marched in shackles to Nagasaki, where he was subjected to
the torture of the pit on October 19, the same day as Cristóvão Ferreira, and
endured this torment until he died on October 26, 1633.

Bernardino da Feltre’s Vision of Social and
Economic Justice
MICHAEL F. CUSATO, O.F.M.*
This article examines the vision of a properly-functioning Christian
society propagated by the late-medieval Franciscan preacher
Bernardino da Feltre. Heir to a rich legacy of economic thought within
the Franciscan tradition, da Feltre focused on injustices suffered by the
poor of his day at the hands of rich and powerful Christian bankers and
especially Jewish lenders throughout Italy. To counter these abuses,
Bernardino (and others) were instrumental in founding low-interest
lending institutions—known collectively as the Monte di Pietà—that
provided service to the struggling poor. The discussion contextualizes
da Feltre’s alleged Anti-Semitism within a profound ethic of socioeconomic justice that expresses core Franciscan principles.
Keywords: Franciscan, economics, Bernardino da Feltre, Jews,
social justice
Introduction
Vel etiam dicitur inequitatis, idest non equitatis, qui non est eque divisa . . .1

R

ecent historiography on the medieval roots of modern economic
thought and the forms of capital-driven economies has focused on the
unique and formative role played by thinkers and preachers of the Franciscan order in the development of nascent economic theory. Pioneering work
by Odd Langholm, for example, over the past four and a half decades—
especially his magisterial tome Economics in the Medieval Schools, which
devotes no fewer than seven chapters to Franciscan writers—has helped to
situate the contributions of medieval Franciscans to this evolving discus-

*Fr. Michael F. Cusato, O.F.M., is a former director of the Franciscan Institute and
dean of its School of Franciscan Studies as well as Distinguished Professor of Franciscan History at St. Bonaventure University; email: mcusato@sbu.edu. He is currently an independent
scholar at the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in Washington, DC.
1. “For that which is said to be iniquitous is that which is not equitable because it is not
equally divided” (Bernardino da Feltre, Sermo 18, vv. 14–15; see note 53 below for a full citation).

224

MICHAEL F. CUSATO, O.F.M.

225

sion within the context of Parisian scholasticism in the High Middle
Ages.2 In a rather different vein, the Italian historian Giacomo Todeschini
grounds his analysis in the dynamics of the early Franciscan movement and
then projects its ramifications and import forward to the fifteenth-century
reflections of the great Franciscan Observant preachers, particularly
Bernardino da Siena,3 placing special emphasis on the pivotal role played
by Peter of John Olivi in articulating the theoretical foundations and practical utility of Franciscan economic theory.4
Franciscans were not merely economic theorists, however. Already in
the wide-ranging corpus of Peter of John Olivi, most notably in his multipart treatise Traité des contrats,5 we see indications of how a specifically
Christian economic theory (or, better, how Christian ethical reflections on
economic matters) contains within it concrete pastoral implications for the
realities of daily life in the marketplace. This salient Franciscan orientation
combined theory and praxis, ethical norms and pastoral applications, that
came to fruition during the latter half of the fifteenth century, when the
Friars Minor championed the creation of lending institutions known col-

2. Cf. Economics in the Medieval Schools: Wealth, Exchange, Value, Money and Usury
according to the Paris Theological Tradition, 1200–1350 (Leiden, 1992), chapters 5 (Alexander
of Hales and John of La Rochelle); 6 (Bonaventure); 13 (Matthew of Acquasparta, Richard
of Middleton and others); 14 (Peter of John Olivi); 16 (John Duns Scotus, John of Bassolis
and Francis of Meyronnes); 17 (Alexander of Alessandria); and 18 (Gerald Odonis and
William of Rubio). This tome had been preceded by others from the same author: Price and
Value in the Aristotelian Tradition (Oslo, 1979), followed by The Legacy of Scholasticism in Economic Thought: Antecedents of Choice and Power (Cambridge, 1998) and The Merchant in the
Confessional: Trade and Price in the Pre-Reformation Penitential Handbooks (Leiden, 2003).
The contributions of these Franciscan writers constitute a significant part of the larger story.
3. See, for example and most recently, Nicola Riccardi, “Bernardino e il pensiero economico dell’Osservanza: bene comune e interesse private,” Antonianum 88 (2012), 91–110.
4. Beginning with his landmark article on the “Oeconomica franciscana” (in Rivista di
storia e letteratura religiosa 12 [1976], 15–77 and 13 [1977], 461–94) and culminating in his
synthetic monograph, Franciscan Wealth: From Voluntary Poverty to Market Society (St.
Bonaventure, NY, 2009) [orig. publ. in Italian (Bologna, 2004)], Giacomo Todeschini
emphasizes the critical role played by Franciscan writings on these subjects in the elaboration
of pre-modern economic theory. The author has gone on to write a number of subsequent
articles on the use of these ideas in the fifteenth-century sermons and treatises of a range of
Franciscan authors, most notably by Bernardino da Siena.
5. Cf. Pierre de Jean Olivi, Traité des contrats. Texte et traduction, ed. and trans. Sylvain
Piron (Paris, 2012), with an important and lengthy introduction to the text by the translator.
Piron contends that the three major sections were probably written somewhat separately and
that a significant expansion (that which he calls “précisions” [pp. 192–245]) was inserted into
a thoroughly reworked and synthesized text in the early to mid-1290s. An English translation
of the full text is not available from Franciscan Institute Publications (2016).

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BERNARDINO DA FELTRE’S VISION

lectively as the Monte di Pietà, particularly in northern and central Italy.
Here, a handful of Franciscans—relatively unknown to contemporary
scholars but notable in their own day—toiled to establish banks where
bourgeois merchants but also members of the poorer classes, struggling to
climb out of debt or to set up fledgling businesses, could receive interestfree loans, thus improving their own fortunes and contributing to the economic dynamism and prosperity of society itself. No modern scholar has
been as devoted to an understanding of this important institution as Maria
Giuseppina Muzzarelli has been.6 And of all the Franciscans, renowned or
obscure, who participated in the development of these monti throughout
Italy, none was more prominent or worked as tirelessly as did Bernardino
da Feltre. This article offers an overview of the central role he played in this
late-medieval movement for economic justice.
*****
Standing approximately 4 feet 7½ inches tall, the diminutive Franciscan friar Bernardino da Feltre was a leading member of the Order of Friars
Minor in late-fifteenth-century Italy (Figure 1).7 Known among the people

6. Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli, “Un ‘deposito apostolica’ per i poveri meno poveri,
ovvero l’invenzione del Monte di Pietà,” in Povertà e innovazioni istituzionali in Italia, ed.
Vera Zamagni (Bologna, 2000), pp. 77–94; eadem, “Città, credito, solidareità. La concezione
del credito del Monte di Pietà,” in Ideologia del credito fra Tre e Quattrocento, dall’Astesano ad
Angelo da Chivasso, ed. Barbara Molina and Giulia Scarcia (Asti, 2001), pp. 145–64; eadem,
Il denaro e la salvezza: l’invenzione del Monte di Pietà (Bologna, 2001); eadem, “Le sedi dei
Monti di Pietà: caratteristiche e significati delle loro localizzazioni urbane tra Medioevo ed
Età Moderna,” in L’eredità culturale di Gina Fasoli, ed. Francesca Bocchi and Gian Maria
Varanini (2005; rpt. Rome, 2008), pp. 283–96; eadem, “I Monti di Pietà, ovvero scommettere
sui poveri meno poveri,” in Dal Monti di Pietà al microcredito oggi, ed. Alessandro Chili
(Bologna, 2006), pp. 17–27; eadem, “I Monti di Pietà: le cure prestate e quelle richieste,”
Italia francescanar 85 (2010), 101–11; eadem, “Considerazioni preliminari: un cumulo, anzi
un monte di pegni,” in In pegno: oggetti in transito tra valore d’uso e valore di scambio (secoli
XIII–XX), ed. Mauro Carboni and M. G. Muzzarelli (Bologna: 2012), pp. 9–19; eadem,
“Monti di Pietà e banchi ebraici nella predicazione osservante: il caso di Bernardino da
Feltre,” Studi francescani 110 (2013), 327–43; eadem, “I Monti di Pietà fra etica economica ed
economia politica,” in Orientamenti e tematiche della storiografia di Ovidio Capitani, ed. Maria
Consiglia De Matteis and Pio Berardo (Spoleto, 2013), pp. 135–47; eadem, “Un’idea a lungo
nuova: il credito ai poveri meno poveri e la creazione dei Monti di Pietà,” in I Frati osservanti
e la società in Italia nel secolo XV (Spoleto, 2013), pp. 339–57; and, most recently, eadem,
“Pawn-broking between Theory and Practice in Observant Socio-Economic Thought,” in A
Companion to Observant Reform in the Late Middle Ages and Beyond, ed. James D. Mixson and
Bert Roest [Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition 59] (Leiden, 2015), pp. 204–28.
7. For the biographical details of the life of Bernardino, see, in order of composition:
Bernardino Guslino, “Vita del b. Bernardino da Feltre. Prima edizione integrale con note
illustrative,” ed. A. Ghinato, in Le Venezie francecane 25 (1958), 1–43; 26 (1959), 1–47; 27

MICHAEL F. CUSATO, O.F.M.

227

FIGURe 1. Detail of a portrait of Bernardino da Feltre, attributed to Piermatteo
d’amelia (or collaborators) and now housed in the Museo eroli, Narni, Italy. In his
hand da Feltre holds a monte di pietà, that is, a three-tiered green hill topped by a
standard bearing the inscription Curam illius habe (Luke 10:35) from the parable of
the Good Samaritan in the Latin Vulgate.

(1960), 1–24; and 28 (1961), 1–24 and 81–105; e. Flornoy, Le Bienheureux Bernardin de
Feltre (Paris, 1898); Ludovic de Besse, Le Bienheureux Bernardin de Feltre et son oeuvre, 2 vols.
(tours–Paris, 1902); V. Meneghin, Documenti vari intorno al B. Bernardino da Feltre (Rome,
1966); idem, Bernardino da Feltre e i Monti di Pietà (Vicenza, 1974); Giampaolo Paludet,
Bernardino da Feltre: piccolo e poverello nel quinto centenario del beato transito, 1494–1994
(Venice, 1993); Saverio amadori, Nelle bisacce di Bernardino da Feltre. Gli scritti giuridici in
difesa dei Monti di Pietà (Bologna, 2007); and, most recently, Matteo Melchiorre, A un cenno
del suo dito: Bernardino da Feltre (1439–1494) et gli ebrei [early Modern, 24] (Milan, 2012).
It is the first volume of the work of the Capuchin friar, Ludovic de Besse, which has the most
exhaustive treatment of the life and work of the friar since he synthesizes so much of the historical testimonies on and about this friar. Finally, it should also be noted that Ghinato’s
redaction of Guslino’s Vita of Bernardino da Feltre has now been superseded by a new critical
edition: La vita del beato Bernardino da Feltre, ed. Ippolita Checcoli (Bologna, 2008). See also
Checcoli’s more wide-ranging recent article “the Vitae of Leading Italian Preachers of the
Franciscan Observance: Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Hagiographical Constructions,”
Franciscan Studies 71 (2013), 281–96.

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BERNARDINO DA FELTRE’S VISION

as “Piccolino” (a nickname we might today render as “Shorty”), this popular
homilist delivered, at least by one estimate, no fewer than 3,600 sermons
between 1468, the date of his ordination, and 1494, the year of his death.8
Da Feltre was born in 1439 as Martino Tomitano, the eldest son of a
powerful family in the town of Feltre, which was then federated to the
Republic of Venice. Bookish by temperament, this young man was sent to
study secular subjects at the university in nearby Padua, where one day in
1460 he heard the venerable Observant Franciscan James of the Marches
preach a sermon. As a result of this experience, the young Martino decided
to enter the Order of Friars Minor, becoming a novice within the Observant
wing of the First Order of St. Francis. Given the religious name of
“Bernardino” by James of the Marches, in honor of the great preacher from
Siena who had been declared a saint in 1450, da Feltre spent the next few
years in Venice, studying theology.9 The Feltrenese friar was ordained in
1463 and, after his ordination, was tasked with teaching some of the younger
friars the basics of a liberal-arts education while delivering the occasional
funeral oration.10 So it was not until 1468 that he began his career of preaching in earnest. Having developed his own rhetorical style, punctuated with
citations that showed his prodigious learning, he was designated a preacher
of the Order and began crisscrossing northern and central Italy in this capacity. An official member of the Observant province of St. Anthony of Padua,
da Feltre nevertheless spent much of his ministerial life banned from preaching in Venice by its Senate, even while serving as the republic’s provincial
minister for 17 months between 1483 and 1484. During that period his strict
compliance with the interdict placed on the city by Pope Sixtus IV prompted
the exodus of more than 200 friars to surrounding towns and exacerbated
both his denunciations of Jewish moneylenders and his pointed attacks on
various sectors of civil society for immoral and unjust practices.11 But our
prolific preacher is perhaps best known to historians and anecdotalists
alike—then as now—as a successful founder and reformer of the charitable
lending banks known as the Monti di Pietà. This essay aims to situate his
8. Drawing on Ludovic de Besse’s introductory chapter on his sources (I, pp. 17–31),
we can single out three important testimonies used by this author: the unedited journal of
Bernardino’s longtime and steadfast friar-companion, Francesco da Feltre; the important
treatise by his contemporary confrère, Bernardino da Busti: the Defensorium montis pietatis
contra figmenta omnia aemulae falsitatis, written in 1497 (three years after the death of
Bernardino da Feltre); and the seventeenth-century biography written to the glory of his
native city of Feltre by the layman Bernardino Guslino.
9. De Besse, Le Bienheureux Bernadin de Feltre, I, pp. 56–69.
10. Ibid., I, pp. 73–74.
11. Ibid., I, pp. 164–68.

MICHAEL F. CUSATO, O.F.M.

229

achievement within the context of da Feltre’s wider vision of Christian society, for he represents one of the most eloquent voices for the cause of social
justice in medieval Franciscan history.12
Sources
Before delving into the heart of the matter, a word is in order regarding the sources in which this Franciscan vision of Christian society can be
found. For, despite his prodigious sermonizing over the course of some 25
years, preaching especially during the Advent and Lenten cycles, we do
not have at our disposal in either edited or manuscript form, records/transcriptions of the bulk of his sermons. What we do have, thanks to a 1964
edition in three volumes, is a collection of sermons da Feltre gave during
Advent of 1492 in Brescia, a Lenten cycle preached the next year in Pavia,
and a third volume of various other sermons.13 Varying in length (for he
was sometimes known to go on for two-to-three hours at a stretch), these
texts make for difficult reading due to their curious mixture of Latin and
12. Over the past thirty years, several American historians of the Franciscan movement—including David Flood, Paul Lachance, and myself—have attempted to retrieve the
social vision of the early Minorite fraternity, rooted in a close reading of the socioeconomic
content of the Early Rule (the first layers of the document which will eventually be known in
history as the Regula non bullata or Rule of 1221). Such an exegesis of the Early Rule brings
to the fore an important aspect of early Franciscanism which, however, will come to be
eclipsed already by the early 1220s, with the entrance into the community of a new generation
of clerics formed beyond the confines of the Umbrian Valley and unfamiliar with the social
vision of the earliest friars. And yet this vision will live on, particularly among those who
maintained their distance from the cities up in the remote hermitages of the region. Such men
constituted what will eventually be called “the tradition of the Companions” whose social
vision became formative of several generations of the Spiritual Franciscans, especially in central Italy. This socio-ethical reading of the Minorite charism (and its stance toward the nefarious dynamics operative within medieval society) were passed on and revived by some of the
members of the Observant reform movement in Italy during the fifteenth century, most
notably by Bernardino da Siena and, as we will see, Bernardino da Feltre. On this historiographical perspective on the early Franciscan movement, see, for example: David Flood,
Francis of Assisi and the Franciscan Movement (Quezon City, 1989); Michael F. Cusato, “The
Renunciation of Power as a Foundational Theme in Early Franciscan History,” in The Propagation of Power in the Medieval West, ed. M. Grosman, A. Vanderjagt, and J. Veenstra
[Mediaevalia Groningana 23] (Groningen, 1997), pp. 265–86 (rpt. in idem, The Early Franciscan Movement (1205–1239): History, Sources and Hermeneutics [Medioevo francescano.
Saggi 14] (Spoleto, 2009), pp. 29–47; and, as a brief overview, in idem, “The Early Franciscan
Movement (1181–1226),” in The Cambridge Companion to Francis of Assisi, ed. Michael J. P.
Robson (Cambridge, 2012), pp. 17–33.
13. Cf. Sermoni del beato Bernardino Tomitano da Feltre, nella redazione di Fra
Bernardino Bulgarino da Brescia, minore osservante, 3 vols., ed. Carlo Varischi da Milano
(Milan, 1964).

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early vernacular Italian and their exhortatory rather than catechetical
nature. Indeed, as the early-twentieth-century historian Ludovic de Besse
has rightly remarked, one would be hard-pressed to derive a coherent
sense of da Feltre’s vision of Christian life from these occasional set
pieces, which have little direct connection with each other.14 A synthetic
view of his thinking on these matters is more easily gleaned from two
other sources: first, the daily journal compiled between 1483 and 1491 by
his faithful friend and socius Francesco da Feltre (or Canali), a record of
helter-skelter observations about Bernardino’s preaching tours which
remains unedited;15 and, second, the extremely important volume written
by another trusted friar-friend, Bernardino da Busti, concerning our
preacher’s indefatigable efforts to create or, in some cases, reinvigorate
several monti, a work bearing the title Defensorium montis pietatis contra
figmenta omnia aemulae falsitatis [A Defense of the Monte di Pietà against all
the False Inventions [caused] by Jealousy].16 Although I had originally hoped
to trace the theme of economic justice through da Feltre’s sermons, the
immensity and complexities of the Feltrenese corpus can hardly be compassed in a single article. I have therefore relied on secondary testimony
from Bernardino Busti (which provides its own unique insights into the
values dear to his confrère) while using excerpts from the reportationes to
illustrate the matters at hand.
The General Social Vision of Bernardino da Feltre
Bernardino was no one-note preacher, harping on the same issue
time and again. He did have his favorite subjects, as we will see; but his
was a holistic vision of the human person and of Christian civil society. In
it, we see a quintessential expression, as it were, of Franciscan applied
anthropology. In other words, the sermons of Bernardino da Feltre allow
us to examine how the Franciscan understanding of the human person
(and, by extension, of human society)—rooted in the writings of the
Poverello himself and then integrated into scholastic thought by Francis14. However, in our own day, Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli has shown more clearly
how these sermons, even in the fragmented form in which they have come down to us, can
be used quite effectively. On the problems posed by the reportationes of the sermons of
Bernardino (if they can indeed even be characterized as sermons in the classic sense), see:
Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli, “Appunti per un’analisi della struttura dei ‘sermones’ di
Bernardino da Feltre,” Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia 32 (1978), 153–80.
15. Francesco’s diary, moreover, served as a prime source for Bernardino Guslino’s seventeenth-century Vita, as well as for the one written by Bartolomeo Simoni, Vita del beato
Bernardino da Feltre detto il Piccolino, ed. Francesco Ferrari (Venice, 2000).
16. Bernardino da Busti, Defensorium montis pietatis (Milan, 1497).

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231

can philosophers and theologians—came to be applied on a pastoral level
to the men and women of his day.
Da Feltre’s sermons during the 1493 Lenten cycle in Pavia addressed a
wide range of topics, including avarice, luxury, restitution, justice, peace and
reconciliation, charity, usury, and the specific details of setting up a Monte
di Pietà.17 However, each of these themes fits into a broad vision of the
society that God intends, one united by the bonds of charity. Hence, civic
life—the communal life of human beings living, working, and worshipping
in relatively close proximity to one another, along with those in the villages
and hamlets dotting the countryside—represented for da Feltre the promise
of a vision of Christian community; yet all too often that promise remained
unfulfilled or was tarnished through wrongful choices and sin.
As noted above, Bernardino was invited throughout his thirty-year
career to preach in the towns of northern and central Italy during the
Advent or Lenten cycles (and sometimes even both).18 The edited sermon
literature and contemporary accounts of his preaching indicate that da
Feltre considered the incessant warfare between rival groups within cities
or between rival cities within the same region to be the chief evil of the
day.19 He himself has not left us any analysis of the causes of these chronic
conflicts, except for the commonplace observation that such warfare was
either a struggle for control over resources or the result of naked greed, a
craving to acquire more and more wealth and material goods for one’s own
enjoyment. Power allowed one access to luxury.
In addition to all of the usual disruptive effects, these armed conflicts
had devastating long-term ramifications for the economic status and livelihoods of the regions’ inhabitants, setting in motion a cycle that frequently
resulted in widespread famine—with crops, livestock, and dwellings
destroyed either in the course of combat or vindictively in a scorched-earth
17. By way of example, see the following sermons, edited by Varischi da Milano: 29 (I,
381–91), on the lies of merchants; 37 (I, pp. 467–74), on restitution; 52 (II, pp. 147–63), on
the common good; 67 (II, pp. 317–26), on the causes of social discord; 88 (III, pp. 13–16);
on the love of neighbor; 96 (III, pp. 81–91), on the causes of social discord; 102 (III, pp. 145–
53), on extravagances. And, specifically on the Monti di Pietà, see: 55 (II, pp. 185–94); 57
(II, pp. 205–12; and 73 (III, pp. 393–98).
18. On this, see Maria Giuseppina Muzzarella, Pescatori di uomini: predicatori e piazze
alla fine del Medioevo (Bologna, 2005).
19. For this general dynamic, see: Yoko Kimura, “Preaching Peace in Fifteenth-Century Italian Cities: Bernardino da Feltre,” in From Words to Deeds: The Effectiveness of Preaching in the Late Middle Ages, ed. M. G. Muzzarelli (Turnhout, 2014), [Sermo 12], pp. 171–83.

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policy of retribution. Famine, in turn, often led to the outbreak of plague
and illness as nutritional and sanitary conditions deteriorated.
For Bernardino, warfare and its predictable consequences were not just
secular matters or unhappy byproducts of clashing political, social, economic,
and military forces. Rather, our Franciscan perceptively linked two other
dynamics operative within the medieval communes. First, in their pursuit of
gain and advantage over their rivals, members of the ruling classes tended to
ignore or even flout the civil laws of their society. Viewed as important protections for them when out of power, such laws were easily cast aside by the
elites as irrelevant once they had achieved an advantage over their rivals. But,
as da Feltre notes, their cavalier treatment of civil laws mirrors their attitude
toward the moral laws established by religion which define the boundaries of
ethical and Christian behavior within the civic community.20 Some of da
Feltre’s sermons within a given cycle dealt with the social problems of justice,
peace, equity, restitution, and generosity; others addressed luxury, greed, lack
of charity, mendacity, arrogance, libertine excesses, and so forth.21 Whereas
modern observers tend to compartmentalize these concerns as either sacred
or secular, religious or social, the late-medieval preacher viewed them as two
sides of the same coin.
Finally, it must be noted that, although rival factions of the ruling
elites were the instigators of these regional conflicts, their most deleterious
effects were suffered by the most vulnerable sectors of society: those whom
we might call, somewhat generically, “the poor,” people who had never
belonged to the ruling elites or the great families that wielded power. It
was these “poor” whose fate most concerned Bernardino in his preaching.
The Poor
Just who were these “poor”? The question is crucial because the words
of the late-medieval Franciscan preachers, among others, had as their pri20. See the remarks on the dynamics at play in the city of Parma by Ludovic de Besse,
Bienheureux Bernardin, I, pp. 188–89.
21. Indeed, these were themes quite commonly addressed by preachers who followed in
the line of the great exemplars of popular preaching like Bernardino da Siena. For an overview
of these themes, see: Francesco Mormando, The Preacher’s Demons: Bernardino of Siena and the
Social Underworld of Early Renaissance Italy (Chicago, 1999); Cynthia L. Polecritti, Preaching
Peace in Renaissance Italy: Bernardino of Siena and His Audience (Washington, DC, 2000);
Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby, Renaissance Florence in the Rhetoric of Two Popular Preachers: Giovanni Dominici (1356–1419) and Bernardino da Siena (1380–1444) (Turnhout, 2001); and
eadem, The Renaissance Pulpit: Art and Preaching in Tuscany, 1400–1550 (Turnhout, 2007).

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mary target people referred to in their sermons as “the poor.” Indeed, both
Bernardino da Siena and Bernardino da Feltre divided society into three
classes of people: (1) the wealthy and powerful members of the ruling class,
which often comprised the great families in particular cities and regions;
(2) the middle class, composed of artisans, merchants, small entrepreneurs,
and farmers, who each enjoyed some means of subsistence but who, due
either to the ravages of war, personal misfortune, or failed investments,
often found themselves in need of credit and thus at the mercy of exploitative lenders; and (3) the truly indigent, for whom food, shelter, and other
basic necessities were a daily struggle.22 Bernardino da Siena used a similar
schema for societal groups, as did his contemporary, the Dominican
preacher Antonino da Firenze.23 Indeed, this socioeconomic classification
was already in evidence by the early 1230s in the sermons of Anthony of
Padua and the mendicant preachers during the Great Devotion.
The indigent survived only through the alms and generosity of others.
The middle class embraced a subgroup that Bernardino da Siena called the
necessitosi (“the needy”), a category sometimes referred to in Latin as the
pauperes pinguiores (literally, “the fatter poor” or “the better-off poor” or
“the not-quite-so-desperate poor”).24 This often-overlooked contingent—
the struggling commercial and artisanal classes—became the primary focus
of the economic writings and sermons by the great preachers of the epoch,
22. On 8 May 1492, the Dominican friar, Annius of Viterbo (sometimes called Nanni
of Viterbo), was sent by Pietro Barozzi, the bishop of Padua, to note down, in a more systematic manner, the wide-ranging thoughts of Bernardino da Feltre on civil society, economic
dynamics and his rationale for founding and propagating the various Monti di Pietà across
Italy. He published the results of his discussions and observations in an orderly treatise—the
Quaestiones duae disputate super mutuo iudaico et civili et divino—which was edited and
expanded several times before being incorporated into a larger work called Pro monte pietatis.
It lays out the thought of our Franciscan in a manner which he, indefatigable preacher that
he was, never had had time to do. As could be expected, Ludovic de Besse offers us a fulsome
summary of the substance of Bernardino’s perspective (seen through the lens of Annius) on
the socioeconomic context of his day, with selected quotations from the work of the Dominican in French translation. On the tripartite division of Italian society, based on economic
means at the end of the fifteenth century, see: de Besse, Bienheureux Bernardin, II, pp. 25–26.
On this conception of social classes or divisions, see Nicola Di Mauro, I Monti di Pietà nel XV
secolo: origini e aspetti generali della loro fondazione (Cantalupo [Turin], 2013), pp. 17–19.
23. Cf. in general, Raymond De Roover, San Bernardino da Siena and Sant’Antonino of
Florence: The Two Great Economic Thinkers of the Middle Ages [The Kress Library of Business
and Economics 19] (Boston, 1967). More expansively and pointedly, see the chapter titled
“Quale povero?” in Pietro Delcorno, Lazzaro e il ricco epulone: metamorforsi di una parabola fra
Quattro e Cinquecento (Bologna, 2014), pp. 187–232.
24. In Italian, the wording is somewhat more telling: “I poveri meno poveri” (the lesspoor poor). See the discussion in de Besse, Bienheureux Bernardin, II, pp. 23–35.

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including our Franciscan, Bernardino da Feltre.25 These people, along with
the class of wealthy powerful citizens, constituted the civitas: the citizenry
of the communes. Members of the third group, unable to contribute anything to the circulation of goods (and thus to the commercial life of the
city), were not, strictly speaking, citizens of the res publica.26 Bernardino da
Feltre seems to have felt that only by saving the struggling middle class of
“less-needy” poor from disaster could urban communities preserve their
integrity as Christian societies and have the wherewithal to care for the
truly indigent poor of their cities and towns.
The Problem of Usury
The devastation wrought by incessant warfare generated predictable
problems for all the peoples of the northern and central Italian communes,
but war affected each of the three social classes differently. Disruption of
commercial relations between sectors of the cities and with the outlying
contado inevitably forced merchants, artisans, and farmers to seek loans in
order to get back on their feet in the aftermath of war, once normal trade
and commerce resumed. For the rich and powerful—those with access to
inherited wealth to pay high interest rates or with sufficient stockpiles of
luxury items to use as collateral in such exchanges—obtaining a loan
involved minimal risk and was usually a simple matter. For the indigent
poor, securing a loan of any kind was out of the question, as they possessed
25. Cf., for example, the pertinent articles (cited above in n. 5) by M. G. Muzzarelli,
namely: “Un ‘deposito apostolico’ per i poveri meno poveri, ovvero l’invenzione del Monte di
Pietà” (2000); “I Monti di Pietà, ovvero scommettere sui poveri meno poveri” (2006); and,
most recently, “Un’idea a lungo nuova: il credito ai poveri meno poveri e la creazione dei
Monti di Pietà” (2013). But see also: Franca Sinatti-D’Amico, “I Monti di Pietà e la povertà
operose,” in San Giacomo della Marca nell’Europa del ‘400, ed. Silvano Bracci [Centro Studi
Antoniani 28] (Padua, 1997), pp. 91–112.
26. These socioeconomic distinctions need to be read in the broader context of Giacomo
Todeschini’s examination of the important dynamic of social exclusion and inclusion, for
example: G. Todeschini, “Il denaro come fattore di inclusione o di esclusione da Graziano a
Cusano,” in I beni di questo mondo: teorie etico-economiche nel laboratorio dell’Europa medievale,
ed. Roberto Lambertini and Leonardo Sileo [Textes et Études du Moyen Age 55] (Porto,
2010), pp. 17–36; idem, “La ricchezza come forma di inclusione sociale e religiosa in Italia alla
fine del Medioevo,” in Ricos y pobres: opulencia y desarraigo en el occidente medieval, Actas de la
XXXVI Semana de Estudios Medievales de Estella (Pamplona, 2010), pp. 105–25; and idem,
“Morale economica ed esclusione sociale nelle città di mercato europee alla fine del Medioevo
(XIII–XIV secolo),” in El mercat: un món de contactes i intercanvis, ed. Flocel Sabaté and Maite
Pedrol [Aurembiaix d’Urgell 16] (Lleida, 2014), pp. 43–56. And, specifically with reference to
the Friars Minor, see: idem, “Guardiani della soglia. I Frati Minori come garanti del perimetro
sociale (XIII secolo),” in I Francescani e la politica : atti del Convegno internazionale di studio :
Palermo, 3-7 dicembre 2002, 2 vols., ed. Alessandro Musco (Palermo, 2007), pp. II, 1051–68.

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neither capital nor collateral to cover the value of the loan. But the middle
class of “not-so-needy poor”—entrepreneurs and artisans struggling to
maintain their small businesses in the midst of cities wracked by
internecine conflict—were at tremendous risk when taking out a loan to
reestablish their commercial standing. For, even if these merchants and
artisans could manage to put up collateral to secure the loan, they might be
unable to repay the interest when the loan came due and thus lose both the
capital or collateral and their livelihoods.
This economic cycle led to a problem that challenged Christian communities throughout the High Middle Ages: usury. As is well known, the
Church wrestled with the vexing question of charging interest on loans in
its attempts to reconcile scriptural prohibitions and patristic commentaries.27 But with the expansion and complexification of the medieval
economy that occurred after the year 1000 in the wake of the Commercial
Revolution, the issue was hotly debated among clerics and in the schools.
Interestingly, it was the Franciscan school (culminating, to some degree, in
the works of Peter of John Olivi) that progressively argued for a redefinition of usury and refused to condemn the charging of low interest rates,
deeming them just compensation to creditors for their assumption of
risk.28 But seemingly liberal attitudes were often vitiated—at least according to preachers like Bernardino da Feltre—by the rapacious abuses of
unscrupulous and predatory lenders. The fifteenth century thus saw a concerted effort by preachers of the mendicant orders to abolish the excessive
interest rates charged by both Jewish and Christian creditors. The Franciscan Order itself, led by Bernardino da Siena, made the practice of usury a
prime focus of its preaching apostolate.29 Indeed, so effective were their
27. See, for example, the classic works of T. P. McLaughlin, “The Teaching of the
Canonists on Usury (XII, XIII and XIV Centuries,” Medieval Studies 1 (1939), 81–147, and 2
(1940), 1–22; and John T. Noonan, The Scholastic Analysis of Usury (Cambridge, MA, 1957).
28. See notes 1 and 3, above. Sylvain Piron has studied several of the critical concepts
used innovatively by Olivi in elaborating his nascent economic theory. For example: “Temps,
mesure et monnaie,” in La rationalisation du temps au XIII e siècle. Musique et mentalités, ed.
Catherine Homo-Lechner (Grâne, 1990), pp. 47–63; “Marchands et confesseurs: le ‘Traité
des contrats’ d’Olivi dans son contexte (Narbonne, fin XIII e—début XIV e siècle,” in L’argent
au Moyen Age (Paris, 1998), pp. 289–308; “L’apparition du risicum en Méditerranée occidentale, XII e–XIII e siècles,” in Pour une histoire culturelle du risque: genèse, évolution, actualité du
concept dans les sociétés occidentales, ed. E. Collas-Heddeland et al. (Strassburg, 2004), pp. 59–
76; and “Le traitement de l’incertitude commerciale dans la scolastique médiévale,” Journal
électronique d’histoire des probabilités et statistique 3, n. 1 (2007), 31 pp.
29. To date, there is no single monograph that has brought together this consistent but
highly diverse emphasis within the Franciscan order—most notably among the Observant
wing of that community—on the development of a comprehensive Christian ethic of eco-

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sermons that during the first half of that century many Christian usurers
allegedly fled northern Italy to ply their trade in France.30
Usury and Jewish Lenders
Unlike Christian bankers, Jewish moneylenders were unconstrained
by biblical tradition when dealing with the goyim. Enterprising Jews who
engaged in this profitable exercise, unless curtailed by laws explicitly
designed to curb the practice, had a more or less free hand. Evidence
shows, however, that civil authorities themselves were often in need of
funds to carry out their own agendas and sometimes paid exorbitant rates
(as high as 40 percent on occasion) to Jewish lenders in their towns. But
interest rates were a matter of little concern to most members of the ruling
class, since they usually had the wherewithal to absorb the risk entailed by
their ambitious financial ventures, military campaigns, and costly construction projects—hence the symbiotic relationship between civil power and
Jewish financial resources,31 which Bernardino da Feltre considered the
pre-eminent social ill of his day.32
Da Feltre is often excoriated for what modern critics and scholars perceive as a virulent anti-Semitism peppered throughout his sermons. It is
nomic behavior. One must rely on the numerous studies by scholars such as Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli or Giacomo Todeschini; or one can delve into any number of selected sermons of various Franciscan preachers of the period. As to the contemporary literature, one
can consult, for example: M. G. Muzzarelli, Il denaro e la salvezza: l’invenzione del Monte di
Pietà (Bologna, 2001); or G. Todeschini, I mercati e il tempio: la società cristiana e il circolo virtuoso della ricchezza del Medioevo ed Età Moderna (Bologna, 2002).
30. De Besse, Bienheureux Bernardin, II, p. 19.
31. The bibliography on the complex relationship of the Jews to medieval Christian
society is vast. For an overview of the subject, see, for instance, the general essays in: The
Mediterranean and the Jews: Banking, Finance and International Trade (XVI–XVIII Centuries),
ed. Ariel Toaff and Simon Schwarzfuchs (Ramat Gan, 1989). More specific observations
with respect to the situation in Italy can be found, for example, in The Jews in Piedmont, vol.
1: (1297–1582), ed. Renata Segre [The Documentary History of the Jews in Italy, 5]
(Jerusalem, 1986); Ariel Toaff, The Jews in Umbria, vols. 1 and 2 (Leiden, 1992–94); Matteo
Melchiorre, A un cenno del suo dito: Fra Bernardino da Feltre (1439–1494) e gli ebrei (Milan,
2012); and, most recently, Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli, “The Effects of Bernardino da
Feltre’s Preaching on the Jews,” in The Jewish-Christian Encounter in Medieval Preaching, ed.
Jonathan Adams and Jussi Hanska (New York, 2015), pp. 170–94.
32. Indeed, if Bernardino da Feltre is treated at all by historians, it is usually with reference to his denunciations of and actions against local Jewish merchants and bankers in the
towns of Italy. Cf. M. G. Muzzarelli, “I banchi ebraici, il monte pio e i mercati del denaro a
Bologna tra XIII e XVI secolo,” in Bologna nel Medioevo, ed. Ovidio Capitani (Bologna,
2007), pp. 977–1016; and eadem, “Monti di Pietà e banchi ebraici nella predicazione osservante: il caso di Bernardino da Feltre,” Studi francescani 110 (2013), 327–43.

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vital, however, to contextualize his remarks not just within his own historical milieu but, more importantly, within his overarching vision of social
justice, informed by the Franciscan ethos.
What may have motivated Piccolino’s fulminations on the Jews of his
day? On several occasions da Feltre opposed the practice of usury in the
communes, most of which was carried on by Jewish lenders. Nine such
instances in chronological order demonstrate this claim.
1.

2.

3.

4.

In 1484, while preaching a Lenten cycle in Mantua in the presence of
Duke Frederick and his entourage, da Feltre denounced the duke’s
courtesans for welcoming the presence of Jewish lenders in their city
and for drawing into their elite company a man by the name of Eusebius the Jew.33
In 1485, around the feast of St. Francis, he excoriated Assisi’s civil
leaders for permitting Jews to establish a bank and encouraging their
presence there. The foundations for an explicitly Christian society, he
noted, rest upon justice—a justice undermined by the practices of
Jewish lenders.34
In 1489, when preaching in L’Aquila against the usury of Jewish
lenders, da Feltre found himself denounced by the podestà of Naples,
who commanded the friar to appear before King Alphonso, former
duke of Calabria, to receive correction for disrupting civic life in the
region. Da Feltre refused to obey unless instructed to do so by his
superiors, and he expressed astonishment that so-called Christian
leaders would pander to “oppressors of the poor.”35
Da Feltre next chastised Siena’s leaders for their friendly social and
professional relationships with a number of Jewish residents. During
one of his great discourses, he cited a decree issued by Innocent III36
that prohibited Christians from having Jews as doctors, since it was
feared that these physicians might not, when death was at hand, advise
their patient to call for a priest and receive the last rites.37 As in
Mantua, the Sienese authorities had welcomed a Jewish doctor into
their inner circle.38

33. De Besse, Bienheureux Bernardin, I, pp. 170–73.
34. Ibid., p. 187.
35. Ibid., pp. 233–34.
36. Innocent III, De usuris (Letter CXXI), in a section titled Post miserabilem, PL 215,
p. 694, cited in de Besse, Bienheureux Bernardin, I, p. 173.
37. De Besse, Bienheureux Bernardin, I, pp. 235–37.
38. Ibid., p. 236.

238

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

BERNARDINO DA FELTRE’S VISION
Between 1491 and 1492, Christian bankers in Piacenza began to
demand the same exorbitant interest rates from their clientele that
their Jewish counterparts were charging.39 Da Feltre specifically excoriated in his sermons this increasingly troubling practice.
Ravenna, which in 1441 had become federated to the Republic of
Venice, had been granted, as part of the negotiations, permission to
establish a Jewish lending bank, ostensibly for the purpose of helping
“the poor.” Instead, the institution generated lucrative profits for the
bankers. While da Feltre was in the region between 1492 and 1493,
the city fathers, at the behest of their Jewish citizens, petitioned the
Venetian Senate to prohibit Bernardino from preaching in Ravenna.
The Senate agreed to do so, but the prohibition was later rescinded,
and ultimately the Venetian Senate ordered that the synagogue there
be razed.40
During this same period, a Jewish banker and physician by the name
of Lazarus in Faenza was allowed to practice both professions, again
under the pretext of “helping the poor.” Over the years, he amassed a
fortune by making high-interest loans. To prevent extortion in the
guise of philanthropy and to limit interactions between Jewish and
Christian residents, da Feltre advocated restricting Jews to one neighborhood of the city, a proposal that in 1516 would be realized in
Venice with the establishment of the first Jewish ghetto.41
Venetian Jews had frequently succeeded in blocking da Feltre from
preaching against their practice of usury by parlaying their leverage
with the city authorities to silence him. In 1492 they would have done
so again but for the intervention of Leonardo Loredano, a leading senator (and eventually Doge) of the Republic.42
Finally, in 1494, Jews in Venice again prevented da Feltre from
preaching, this time in the city of Cremona. Eventually, he delivered
a great sermon there on these events. He declared, first, that for a
Christian to be saved, he or she must be just to the Jews, who are
human beings created by God and therefore our brothers and sisters.
Though canon law forbade any particular affection for or sustained
contact with Jews, Christians were still obliged to do them justice, for
justice is the very foundation of society.43 Second, canon law also forbade Christians to enjoy the company of Jews, to use them as physi39. Ibid., p. 254.
40. Ibid., pp. 265–66.
41. Ibid., pp. 266–67.
42. Ibid., pp. 291–92.
43. Ibid., p. 292.

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239

cians, and to attend their banquets, weddings, and other ceremonies.
Da Feltre cited the example of the lavish nuptials recently celebrated
by a prominent Venetian citizen known as Leo the Jew. But the chief
problem, da Feltre claimed, was that Jewish lenders charged uxorious
rates of interest that drained the lifeblood of the poor. Such people
merited Christian charity but not friendship. Thus, he said, was he
raising his voice, like a watchdog warning of imminent danger, sounding the alarm on behalf of the Master of Christian society.44
The extortion perpetrated by local creditors—whether Jewish or Christian—was the sin against which Piccolino preached most ardently, particularly after the year 1484. For if justice was indeed the foundation of Christian
society, then the exploitation of the vulnerable—suffering in the aftermath of
war and victimized by greed—had to be opposed. It was this vision of justice,
rather than an ingrained anti-Semitism, that first and foremost motivated this
Franciscan to preach against usury in towns throughout Italy. Caught
between sliding into beggary or agreeing to the exorbitant interest rates
charged by local moneylenders, the “less-needy” poor frequently found themselves and their families ruined. When unable to repay such loans—which
required not only high interest but also collateral in excess of the loan
amount—these pauperes pinguiores ended up in prison or in exile, with the
female members of the family reduced on occasion to prostitution for survival.
The Monte di Pietà
Da Feltre realized that, despite his efforts to prevent the Jewish as well
as Christian creditors from plying their trade in Italy, another, more positive action had to be taken—namely, the creation or reinvigoration of the
Monte di Pietà. A brief summary of this novel and singularly effective
institution will add to this discussion of da Feltre’s Franciscan ministry.45
The Monte di Pietà network was designed to provide a place where strug-

44. Ibid., pp. 292–93.
45. The standard works are: Heribert Holzapfel, Die Anfänge der Montes Pietatis (1462–
1515) (Münich, 1903) [also available in Italian translation]; Paolo Prodi, “La nascita dei
Monti di Pietà tra solidarismo cristiano e logica del profitto,” in La presenza francescana tra
Medioevo e Modernità, ed. Mario Chiesa [Emilia Romagna: Arte e Storia, 40] (Florence,
1996), pp. 17–28; Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli, Il denaro e la salvezza. L’invenzione del
Monte di Pietà (Bologna, 2001); Riccardo Fubini, “San Bernardino e l’origine dei Monti di
Pietà,” in Praeterita facta: scritti in onore di Amleto Spicciani, ed. Alessandro Merlo and
Emanuele Pellegrini (Pisa, 2006), pp. 145–50; Nelson H. Minnich, “The Decree Inter multiplices of Lateran V on Montes pietatis,” Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum 38 (2006), 415–40;
Saverio Amadori, Nelle bisacce di Bernardino da Feltre: gli scritti giuridici in difesa dei Monti di

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gling Christian entrepreneurs, fallen on hard times, could secure loans that
would get them back on their feet. By loaning variable amounts at a low—
or, more rarely, at no—cost, the risk to the borrower could be minimized.
All that was required, in addition to a pledge to repay the loan, was some
kind of collateral that could protect the lending institution from being
defrauded by the unscrupulous or by a failure to clear the debt in a timely
fashion. Even the indigent poor were permitted to borrow, albeit in small
amounts.46 But considerable capital investments were needed to create
such an institution: in Italian this sum was called the monte, and it was
gathered through appeals to the local community and especially to the
elites. In answering the call of charity and justice, these investors were performing an act of pietà—hence the name “Monte di Pietà.”
The Christian duty to aid those struggling to survive is firmly based in
the Scriptures, and da Feltre often cited two texts in particular to justify the
monti. The first was Deuteronomy 15:7–8, which states: “If one of your
brothers dwelling within the gates of your city in the land which the Lord,
your God, will give you, comes upon hard times [ad paupertatem venerit],
you shall not harden your heart nor close your hand; but you shall open it
to the poor man; you shall lend him [et dabis mutuum] that which you perceive he needs.” The second text, from Luke 6:35, was equally clear: “But
love your enemies, do good and lend [benefacite, et mutuum date], hoping
for no return, and your reward will be great.”
Bernardino da Feltre preached long and often on these themes,
imploring the rich to open their hearts as well as their treasure chests in
order to support one or more of these monti (Figure 2). His sermons were
usually followed by elaborate religious processions from the church or
piazza where he had spoken to the place where the local Monte di Pietà
would be established. This apparently winning formula varied slightly
depending on the town and its particular circumstances.
In December of 1484, da Feltre was again preaching in Mantua,
where earlier that year he had confronted stern resistance from local
Pietà (Bologna, 2007); Mario Sensi, “Un aspect singulier des deux ‘âmes’ du franciscanisme:
Monts de Piété à titre onéreux et monts ‘sine merito,’ in Pauvreté et capitalisme. Comment les
pauvres franciscains ont justifié le capitalisme et le capitalisme a préféré la Modernité, ed. Luca
Parisoli (Palermo, 2008), pp. 153–74; and Antonino M. Clemenza, “Dai Monti di Pietà
all’etica della solidarietà: il ruolo dei francescani,” Quaderni Biblioteca Balestrieri 13, no. 3
(2010), 29–43. To these can be added the many works on the Monti di Pietà by M. G. Muzzarelli (cited above in n. 5).
46. De Besse, Bienheureux Bernardin, II, chap. 3, esp. pp. 22–35.

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241

FIGURE 2. Bernardino da Feltre Preaches on the Monte di Pietà according to Vittorino Meneghin in Bernardino da Feltre e i Monti di Pietà (Venice, 1974), Tav. 9
opposite p. 529. This oil-on-panel painting was acquired by Henry Walters in
1902 (acc. no. 37.507) and is housed in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD
(http://art.thewalters.org/detail/3376/a-franciscan-monk-preaching/).

Jewish lenders who had the support of the town’s ruling elite.47 But on
this occasion his appeal was hugely successful, and from this point forward
until the end of his life, Piccolino pursued his calling, creating completely
new monti or reviving those that were failing or had already closed their
doors.48
Bernardino da Feltre did not originate the idea of the Monte di Pietà.
Since the early 1460s other Franciscans—most notably friars such as
Michele da Carcano,49 Marco di Matteo Strozzi, and Marco di Monte47. De Besse, Bienheureux Bernardin, I, pp. 176–79.
48. The most accurate way to study this phenomenon is through an examination of the
particular histories of each Monte established in specific towns. But see also the more general remarks made by M. G. Muzzarelli, “Le Sedi dei Monti di Pietà,” pp. 283–96 (cited
above in n. 5).
49. Rosa Maria Dessì, “Usura, caritas e Monti di Pietà. Le prediche antiusurarie e
antiebraiche di Marco da Bologna e di Michele Carcano,” in I Frati osservanti e la società in
Italia nel secolo XV [Atti dei Convegni della Società internazionale di studi francescani e del
Centro interuniversitario di studi francescani, n. s. 23] (Spoleto, 2013), pp. 169–226.

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gallo50—had likewise attempted to set up institutions of this kind, with
varying success. Indeed, da Feltre realized early on that, for such an institution to realize its vision of helping the struggling poor, it would have to
charge interest on the loans being made.51 But this practice conflicted with
the Church’s longstanding prohibition against charging interest at all,
which most commentators viewed as usury, plain and simple. For the
record, the Dominicans were the most steadfast opponents of lending at
interest, though two notable exceptions to this rule were Annio da Viterbo
and Girolamo Savonarola. Relying on the economic writings of his namesake, Bernardino da Siena (who, in turn, had drawn many of his ideas from
the writings of Peter of John Olivi), da Feltre insisted that each Monte di
Pietà should and indeed must charge a low interest rate—perhaps around 4
percent—to cover operating costs and safeguard the investments of the
original principals—the monte.52 By creating lending banks that served the
lower and middle classes, da Feltre hoped to put the Jewish lenders out of
business or force them to reduce their exorbitant interest rates in order to
remain competitive with these Christian institutions.
Conclusion: The Sermon on the Feasting Rich Man
and the Poor Lazarus
Uppermost in the mind of our Piccolino was the creation of a just
society in which a sufficiency of food, clothing, housing, and the means to
earn a living would enable people to live in relative peace with one another.
In this society the needs of all could be met in accord with their dignity as
children of God.
This vision of a Christian society grounded in justice and united in
charity recurs throughout the reported sermons of Bernardino da Feltre
and in contemporary accounts of his activities. By way of example, there is
the content of a sermon he delivered in Pavia during Lent of 1493. It is
listed as Sermo 18 in the published edition of the Capuchin Carlo Varischi
da Milano under the title De Divite epulone et Lazaro paupere [On the Feasting Rich Man and the Poor Lazarus].53 A variant of the famous “Dives and
50. Cf., Mario Sensi, “Marco da Montegallo, apostolo dei Monti di Pietà,” in Marco da
Montegallo (1425–1496): il tempo, la vita, le opere, ed. Silvano Bracci [Centro Studi Antoniani
30] (Padua, 1999), pp. 231–54; but see also his remarks on Marco’s particular achievement
in: idem, “Un aspect singulier,” pp. 163–68 (cited above in n. 45).
51. This was a practice already employed by Michele da Carcano in his first Monte.
52. De Besse, II, chaps. 3 and 4, pp. 36–48, but esp. pp. 46–47.
53. The text of the sermon can be found in: Sermoni del beato Bernardino Tomitano da
Feltre, ed. Carlo Varischi da Milano, I, pp. 231–45.

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243

Lazarus” sermons popular in the Middle Ages, this discourse explores the
dynamics between rich and poor and sets forth the demands of Christian
charity.54 While the announced divisions and subdivisions of the sermon
are difficult to follow (since they were not always consistently realized in
practice), its content affords an opportunity to reiterate certain points
made in this presentation.
Da Feltre begins with a favorite citation from 1 John 2:15: “Nolite
diligere mundum necque ea quae in mundo sunt” [Love neither the world nor
the things that are in the world]. He then recalls several elements of Luke
16:19–31, the story of the poor man feasting with Lazarus at his table. In
the first part of the sermon, da Feltre lays out a traditional interpretive
framework for the passage: namely, that the poor man, despite his material
poverty, is in fact rich whereas the rich man, despite an abundance of possessions, is spiritually poor. For, while the wealthy enjoy many things in
this life, it is the poor who will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.55 This
classic medieval reading of the relationship between rich and poor has been
deliberately heightened for da Feltre by his own embrace of the Franciscan
ethos.56 Nevertheless, to state baldly that the poor are more content and
happier in their poverty than the rich are in their wealth seems to betray a
certain insulation from the grinding poverty of the truly indigent. But
assertions of this kind also help us to appreciate the focus of much Franciscan preaching, which has tended since the 1230s to be on the pauperes
pinquiores rather than the pauperes indigentes, who were relegated, more or
less, to the almsgiving and charity of the Christian faithful.
The next section of the sermon treats the issue of physical or bodily
needs (beyond the inner, spiritual dispositions of Christians). Da Feltre
does finally acknowledge that the poor are those who live in acute need,
54. Cf., for example, the study of Jussi Hanska, “And the Rich Man also died, and He was
buried”: The Social Ethos in Mendicant Sermons (Helsinki, 1997); and, more recently, see the
previously mentioned commentary of Pietro Delcorno, Lazzaro e il ricco epulone, pp. 196–209.
55. Bernardino da Feltre, Sermo 18, in Sermoni, ed. Varischi, I, p. 233, vv. 23–36,
passim: “Or, dic mihi: quid habet divus?—O, habet domos, possessiones, viridaria, merces,
denarios, etc. . . Quando haverà ben consumato el corpo e perduta l’anima, quid habebit post
hec? Dic ergo: ubi est maior possessio: divitis vel pauperis? [. . .] Vult enim Deus divitem salvare per pauperem, omnia sua illis dedit. Pauperibus celum, divitibus terram; facta est certa,
paupertas est investita de celo. Lk. 6, 20: ‘Beati pauperes quoniam vestrum est regnum celorum’.
Etiam Mt. 5, 3 dicit: ‘Est,’ non dicit: ‘erit’; sed ‘est’ de presenti; ne sono investiti; post mortem
intrabunt in possessionem.”
56. Indeed, he refers to Francis of Assisi no less than three times in the sermon; and
among the numerous citations from Christian as well as pagan authors, he refers to Alexander
of Hales three times as well.

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exclaiming: “Debemus adiuvare pauperes, et subvenire eis. . .” [We must help
the poor and come to their aid].57 In da Feltre’s view, lawyers have a special
duty to advocate for the poor, lest they be defrauded by the wealthy and
powerful.58 But the Franciscan emphasis remains on the rich, who need to
aid the poor in three ways: First, by providing basic necessities to alleviate
their immediate physical suffering. The well-off, he says, must assist the
poor, not work against them. “Do you have clothes? Well, then help the
poor! Then you will make a mansion for yourself in Heaven rather than in
Hell!” “Give to the poor and help yourself,” he says.59 Second, if the
wealthy try to hold on to what they have, hoarding their riches, they will
realize on their deathbeds that they failed in their duty to aid the poor and
that the only thing they can bring across the threshold of death is the merit
of having helped them.60 Third, and most pointedly, da Feltre lays out the
absolute duty of the wealthy to give from their abundance to the poor. For
iniquity, he says, is equated with two things in particular: First, “vel iniquitatis, idest superfluitatis” [Iniquity consists in superfluity, that is, the
abundance which is hoarded to oneself]. Quoting Luke 11:41, he warns:
“Whatever is left over to you, give in alms. . . .”61 Second, referencing
Alexander of Hales, he states unequivocally: “vel etiam dicitur iniquitatis,
idest non equitatis, quia non est eque divisa” [That which is said to be iniquitous is that which is not equitable because it is not equally divided].62

57. Bernardino da Feltre, Sermo 18, I, p. 239, vv. 35–36.
58. Ibid., p. 240, vv. 3–10: “. . . dicit Hostiensis et Thomas 2, 2, q. 71, ar. 1, quod advocatus tenetur amore Dei advocare pro pauperibus, quia, sicut ille obligatur sibi dare de pane qui
habet, quando est in necessitate, sic tu obligaris ei subvenire tuo adminiculo, alias diabolus te
ne portarà; et si perdet causam suam contra justiciam, Deus te ne dimandarà rasone come se li
havesti spoliati li dinari; sicut illi imputabitur quod occiderit, si non paverit esurientem. . . .”
59. Ibid., vv. 15–17: “Adiuva te, adiuva te, et aiuta li poveri a sublevarli e non a desfarli!
Donna, tu hai de la roba?—Sì.—Adiuva pauperes. Heu, est talis que posset facere palatium
in celo, et utinam non faciat in inferno.”
60. Ibid., vv. 23–38 and throughout: “Conservativa. Vis bene conservare? Da pauperibus, nunquam perdes pur un bagatino, mette in bone mane. . . . Si das pauperibus, tu hai
la scritta dal patrone che te li renderà cum lucro; etiam quod pauper abuteretur, serva scripturam et chrygraphum, che non poteris farne male. Fac ut vis, che omnino oportet relinquere
in morte, licet nolis. . .” [then, citing Gregory’s Moralia, 18, 9]: “Dives res suas, cum moritur,
secum tolleret, si ad petentis vocem cum viveret sibi tulisset. Nam terrena omnia, que servando amittimus, largiendo servamus, patrimoniumque nostrum retentum perditur, manet
erogatum. Diu enim cum rebus nostris durare non possumus, quia, aut nos illas moriendo
deserimus, aut ille nos viventes quasi deserunt pereundo; agendum ergo nobis est ut, res
absolute perituras, in non merituram cogamus transire mercedem, etc.”
61. Ibid., p. 242, vv. 11–13: “Vel iniquitatis, idest superfluitatis, quia necessaria retinere
possumus, superflua erogare: Lk. 11, 41: ‘Quod superest date elimosynam,’ etc.”
62. Ibid., vv. 14–15.

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245

This equation of iniquity with inequity (defined as the unequal distribution
of goods) is a key theme of early Franciscan social praxis which had already
been alluded to in the Sacrum commercium, where a subtle reference appears
to the famous “Song of the Vineyard” (from Isaiah 5:7), in which the concepts of iniquity and inequity are likewise equated.63 Social instability and
the hardship and poverty it creates could be remedied, according to our
preacher, only by helping the struggling poor of the middle classes, whose
economic wellbeing was so essential to urban concord.
And this is why da Feltre and others of his era insisted that the poor
actually helped the wealthy to inherit the Kingdom of God. He concludes
by asserting: “Regnum caelorum est pauperum: si recipitis eos in hoc mundo, illi
vos recipient in alio” [To the poor belongs the Kingdom of Heaven: so if
you welcome them in this world, they will welcome you into the next].64
The foundation of Christian society, says da Feltre, is justice for the poor.

63. Cf. Michael F. Cusato, “Social Action or Fraternal Presence: Medieval Franciscanism at the Crossroads (1220–1247),” Franciscana 15 (2013), 49–88, here 71–72 and nn. 20–
21. The allusion to Isaiah 5:7 was made in the Sacrum commercium beati Francisci cum Domina
paupertate, c. 49.
64. Bernardino da Feltre, Sermo 18, I, p. 242, vv. 15–16.

Crossing Cultures: The Mental World and
Social Subversion of
St. John Baptist de La Salle
RICHARD M. TRISTANO*
The public life of John Baptist de La Salle (1651–1719) as saint and
educational innovator is better known than his private life as a nonconforming ascetic. This article examines de La Salle’s attitudes toward
Augustinianism, Jansenism, and mortification practices. It then explores
the connection between his role as a social subversive and his mental
world. While de La Salle’s motivations were religious, his renunciation
of the privileges of birth, office, and wealth often evoked hostility, especially from members of the social elites. Most radical was de La Salle’s
determination to be poor, which entailed psychological and physical challenges that were powerfully expressed in his relationship with food.
Keywords: John Baptist de La Salle, Brothers of the Christian
Schools, Jansenism, social subversion, asceticism, mortification,
food.

W

hen recalling the iconography of John Baptist de La Salle (1651–
1719), the figure of the saint in an inspirational pose accompanied by
two young students comes immediately to mind. The best-known sculptural
example is surely Cesare Aureli’s statue of the saint, created in 1903 and
located in the upper reaches of the nave of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome
(Figure 1). This public image reflects de La Salle’s contribution to education
as the patron saint of teachers and founder of the Brothers of the Christian
Schools (Fratres Scholarum Christianarum or F.S.C.), the purpose of which
was to provide gratuitous schooling for the sons of artisans and the poor in
seventeenth-century France. While some of the trials and vicissitudes de La
Salle experienced as he pursued this charism are well known, his private life
has been more admiringly narrated than analyzed, and assessed from a theological perspective. This essay hopes to situate de La Salle’s mental world—
*Richard M. Tristano is professor of history at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota,
email: rtristan@smumn.edu. This study was supported by a Lasallian Research Grant
awarded by Saint Mary’s University. He acknowledges the kind assistance and valuable advice
of John O’Malley, S.J.; Louis de Thomasis, F.S.C.; and the referees of this journal.

246

RICHARD M. TRISTANO

247

FIGURE 1. Statue of St. John Baptist de La Salle in the Basilica of St. Peter, Vatican
City (1903) sculpted by Cesare Aureli (1844–1923)

what he thought and how he thought it—within the social and cultural context of his time and place. This historical approach is in contradistinction but
not contradiction to the predominantly theological approaches of such giants
of Lasallian studies as Michel Sauvage, F.S.C., and Miguel Campos, F.S.C.
De La Salle’s connection to the dévots in seventeenth-century France, to
Augustinianism, Jansenism, the monastic tradition, and mortification practices are some of the crucial components of that world. This study then shifts
focus to de La Salle’s rather complex relationship to the social order in the
France of Louis XIV. What sort of thinker was de La Salle? What were the
origins of his ideas? How was he perceived by others? Even if his motivations
were wholly religious, how did he subvert the social order? Three episodes—
the Marseilles experience, the Clément affair, and de La Salle’s fraught relationship to food—constitute case studies that can provide the data needed to
answer these questions.
De La Salle’s relationship to Jansenism offers a valuable entrée into his
mental world because of the traditional assertion that he was not a Jansenist
and because of the complex nature of and vital role played by Jansenism in
contemporary French society. The term mental world here means the complex of ideas and the web of political and social attitudes, and so a context

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into which the individual is placed.1 De La Salle was not a Jansenist,
because he refused to become an appellant—that is, he would not publicly
align himself with those who sought to appeal to a French church council
against Pope Clement XI’s Unigenitus, the apostolic constitution of 1713
that condemned 101 propositions found in Pasquier Quesnel’s book Moral
Reflections on the New Testament.2 But this refusal did not exclude Jansenism
from the complex of ideas that constituted his mental world.
De La Salle’s nephew, Jean-François Maillefer, had been suspended
from his post as canon of the Church of St. Symphorien in Reims for
refusing to accept the validity of Unigenitus and appealing to a secular
authority. Sometime early in 1717, de La Salle chided Maillefer in a letter
for disobeying his bishop and seeking recourse from a civil authority: “How
can you recognize laymen as your judges in a matter that is as surely the
province of the Church as ever there was?”3 Two years later, on January 28,
1719, de La Salle defended himself against accusations that he had joined
the appeal, pointing out that his name had been confused with that of his
brother, Jean-Louis, and declaring: “I have too much respect for our Holy
Father the Pope and too great a submission to the decisions of the Holy
See not to give my assent to them.”4 While de La Salle certainly understood the theological questions involved in the papal condemnation, it is
also clear that he declined to debate them and focused instead on the issue
of obedience to legitimate ecclesiastical authority, something that many
Jansenists challenged by citing the Gallican church’s independence and the
primacy of conscience.5
De La Salle’s early biographers, especially Jean-Baptiste Blain, and
nearly everyone since has emphasized de La Salle’s orthodoxy in rather
absolute terms.6 But very little about who a Jansenist was qualified as
absolute. The remarks of the duke of Saint-Simon are a case in point:
1. Linda Levy Peck, The Mental World of the Jacobean Court (Cambridge, 1991), p. 149.
2. See Brian E. Strayer, Suffering Saints: Jansensists and Convulsionnaires in France,
1640–1799 (Portland, OR, 2008), pp. 156–91.
3. Jean Baptist de La Salle, The Letters of John Baptist de La Salle, ed. Augustine Loes,
F.S.C., and trans. Colman Molloy, F.S.C. (Romeoville, IL, 1988), Letter 120, pp. 238–40.
4. De La Salle, Letters, Letter 132, pp. 251–54.
5. Strayer, Suffering Saints, p. 18.
6. Jean-Baptiste Blain, The Life of John Baptist de La Salle, Founder of the Institute of the
Brothers of the Christian Schools: A biography in three books (1733), ed. Luke Salm, F.S.C., trans.
Richard Arnandez, F.S.C. (Landover, MD, 2000), pp. 615–17, hereafter cited as Blain, The
Life of de La Salle. The challenges of using Blain’s work are expertly outlined by the editor of
the English translation of Blain’s Life, Luke Salm, who describes Blain’s text as “an authentic
documentary source” (p. xi). Despite the difficulties of his style, which Salm describes as

RICHARD M. TRISTANO

249

I hold all party divisions detestable in Church and State. There is no
party but that of Jesus Christ. I also hold to be heretical the five famous
propositions [condemned in Cornelius Jansen’s Augustinus], direct or
indirect, and equally so all books, without exception, which contain
them. I believe also that there are persons who hold them to be good and
true, who are united among themselves and form a party. Therefore, in
these respects I am not a Jansenist.

But Saint-Simon does not stop here. Immediately thereafter he proclaims
the formulary oath accepting condemned propositions as heretical, as a
“pernicious invention,” and voices his support for the liberties of the Gallican church. He then praises Jansenism for producing persons who are
“most saintly, purest, most learned, most instructive, most practical, and,
nevertheless, most elevated, most luminous, most shining, issued from that
school and from what is known under the name of Port Royal.” Finally, he
asserts “that the name of Jansenist and Jansenism is a convenient pot of
paint with which to blacken those it is desirable to ruin; and that out of a
thousand persons daubed with it there may not be two who deserve it.”7 In
short, Saint-Simon denounces the formulary; asserts his support of Gallicanism; praises Jansenists for their moral rectitude and learning; and testifies to the rampant abuse of the term Jansenism to discredit foes—all while
declaring himself not a Jansenist, which suggests just how complicated
identifying a Jansenist could be.
At the heart of this movement was an Augustinian anthropology, a
conviction that human nature was so deformed by original sin that
humans were totally dependent on God’s grace for salvation. Augustinianism was so widespread during the Reformation that one could accept its
view of human nature and freedom and not be a Jansenist. The dévots, a
group of reformers associated with the French Reformation and Cardinal
Pierre de Bérulle, one of its most influential figures, expressed a dim view
of human nature, advocated a life of strict morality, and defended the
right of bishops against papal authority.8 In sum, there were those who
identified with Jansenism, and those who denied being Jansenists, and
being “prone to repetition, digression, exaggeration, extended apologetics, and outmoded
rhetorical devices” (p. xi), he ultimately concludes: “In spite of these shortcomings, there is
perhaps no better way to immerse oneself in the spirituality and mindset of the seventeenth
and early eighteenth century than to read Blain’s account” (p. xi). I shall have the opportunity
both to highlight the value of Blain’s text and to point out some of its inconsistencies.
7. Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon, The Age of Magnificence; The Memoirs of the
Duc de Saint-Simon, trans. Sanche de Gramont (New York, 1963), pp. 321–23.
8. Strayer, Suffering Saints, p. 50.

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often one could detect few differences between the two. Then there were
those who leveled accusations of Jansenism either at people who really
were Jansenists or at others who were merely the object of a polemical
attack. The combination of this ambiguity with de La Salle’s narrow definition of Jansenism invites a more comprehensive analysis of de La
Salle’s relationship to this movement. The episode of de La Salle at Marseilles can clarify this complicated situation.
De La Salle and the Jansenists in Marseille:
The Account of Jean-Baptiste Blain
The Lasallian movement was northern in origin. A native of Reims,
de La Salle moved in 1688 to Paris to staff a parish school and then to
Rouen. It was not until 1703 that he initiated the opening of schools in the
south, first in Avignon and then in some smaller towns heavily populated
by French Protestants who had been forced to convert to Catholicism in
1685 when Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes. De La Salle arrived in
Marseille sometime in mid-1712 with plans for the Brothers to take over
the existing gratuitous schools. This required the establishment of a novitiate to train native teachers for the southern schools.
Initially the Brothers enjoyed widespread support, but sermons by an
unnamed Jesuit on the value of the Christian Schools set off a very negative
reaction among members of what appears to be a significant Jansenist faction of the Marseilles clergy. The key figure in this sequence of events was
the pastor of Les Accoules, identified as Joseph Arnaud.9 Once a supporter
of de La Salle and the Brothers, Arnaud soon became their greatest foe,
and Blain considers Arnaud and his faction responsible for the Marseille
novitiate’s demise. Blain’s account also reveals how de La Salle was perceived by the Jansenists.
According to Blain, when Arnaud “made the first overtures, he did not
get very far without noticing in de La Salle’s attitude and on his countenance that the Founder did not care for the new doctrine [i.e., Jansenism].”
While Blain’s intention is to show de La Salle’s orthodoxy, his inference
that Arnaud approached de La Salle thinking he might be a fellow Jansenist
is more intriguing. When Arnaud concluded to the contrary, the Jansenists
decided to defame de La Salle, but his life was so exemplary that they could
find no moral failing with which to do so. Instead, they chose to tack and
9. Alfred Calcutt, F.S.C., La Salle, a City Saint and the Liberation of the Poor through
Education, 2nd ed. (Essex, UK, 2004), p. 696.

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focus not on the legitimacy of his religious rigor but on the excesses of his
piety, its extreme severity, and exaggerated regularity. The Jansenists
found fault with the different kinds of penance and mortification that de
La Salle had learned from the saints and had introduced into his Community. They represented him as unconventional, harsh, un-balanced,
inflexible—a man who never changed his mind. According to them,
caprice was at the root of all his behavior. He was hard headed and agreed
with nobody, and what was worse still, he wanted to mold everyone else
to resemble him. He laid impossible burdens on the shoulders of the
Brothers and subjected them to an impractical and outlandish lifestyle.10

It is ironic that Blain describes de La Salle in terms typically applied to
Jansenists, for they were the ones often accused of excessive severity, inflexibility, and stubbornness.
There must have been some plausible basis for the defamation campaign, because it succeeded: the schools remained in the hands of clerics,
the novitiate plans were abandoned, and de La Salle accepted with a “submissive mind and heart” his former backers’ withdrawal of support. The
Jansenist faction then tried to win de La Salle over to their side. Having
already successfully maneuvered the Brothers out of the schools, why
would they do this if they were convinced that De La Salle was a Molinist,
a supporter of free-will and papal authority? Their pursuit of De La Salle
provides an intriguing opportunity to examine his attitude toward
Jansenism and how he was perceived by the Jansenists.
Members of the Jansenist faction visited de La Salle often, flattered
him, and offered him gifts, all of which, according to Blain, he rebuffed.
They invited him to join their theological discussions. “The clerics, who
held conferences regularly on certain days, were happy to have de La Salle
in attendance. The discussions were not always on topics of piety; the current theological issues were the matters ordinarily discussed.” Why did de
La Salle attend these meetings and what is the difference between “topics
of piety [Les discours . . . de pieté]” and “current theological issues [Les
matières du tems]”? The following remark from Blain hints at an answer to
these questions and again suggests de La Salle’s narrower disciplinary view
of Jansenism: “De La Salle was always amazed to hear from the same
mouths the language of angels when they spoke of God and the language
of Luther and Calvin when they spoke of the pope and the bishops.” 11

10. Blain, The Life of de La Salle, pp. 615–17.
11. All quotations in this paragraph are drawn from Blain, The Life of de La Salle, p. 614.

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when Jansenists spoke of God, they spoke de La Salle’s language—not so
when they expressed their relationship to the hierarchical church.
The attempts to defame de La Salle have something in common: they
hover around alleged excesses of devotion. References by the early biographers (Brother Bernard, François-Elie Maillefer, and Blain) to de La
Salle’s penitence and mortification are legion. Maillefer references de La
Salle’s mortifications as “continual,” including the use of a hair shirt and
sleeping on the floor of his room, while Bernard relates how the mortification practices of the first Brothers were so severe that the common
people sometimes responded by throwing stones at them.12
The attitude of those outside the community, such as de La Salle’s
nephew, Maillefer, provides the most convincing evidence for why de La
Salle’s penance and mortification were perceived as excessive. When de La
Salle returned to Paris from his sojourn in the south, as ordered by the “Principal Brothers,” he lived from October 1717 until March 1718 at the seminary
of Saint Nicholas du Chardonnet. The superior wrote this about the Founder.
We noted in him chiefly an ardent zeal, an extraordinary fervor in working out his own sanctification, a very profound humility, and a great love
of mortification and poverty. . . . His mortification astounded us,
although we were greatly edified. He would never accept a heated room
when he came to live with us, and rather than warm himself at the
common stove, even during recreation, he preferred to walk in one of the
rooms or in the gardens with several of the seminarians. . . .13

This impression of de La Salle’s mortifications, here described by a seasoned cleric as “astounding,” is supported by a story Blain tells, in which
Paul Godet des Marais, bishop of Chartres and fellow student of de La
Salle’s at the seminary of Saint Sulpice, together with his vicar general,
tricked de La Salle into staying for dinner by having all of the exit doors
locked shut. This extraordinary plot was made necessary by de La Salle’s
refusal to accept invitations to dine with the bishop because it violated the
community’s Rule. The purpose of the ruse was to advise de La Salle that
he “carried the practice of austerity too far,” and that doing so was undermining the health of the Brothers.14

12. Dom François-Elie Maillefer, O.S.B., and Brother Bernard, F.S.C., John Baptist de
La Salle: Two Early Biographies, ed. Paul Grass, F.S.C. , trans. William J. Quinn, F.S.C., rev.
trans, Donald C. Mouton, F.S.C. (Landover, MD, 1996), Maillefer, p. 95; Bernard, p. 317.
13. Maillefer, Two Early Biographies, pp. 183–84.
14. Blain, The Life of de La Salle, pp. 377.

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Blain also relates how de La Salle gave his valet orders to wake him at
set intervals because he thought sleep an obstacle to perfection. He specifically sought to subdue his sensitivity to pain by placing sharp pebbles on
his prie-dieu. His spiritual director forbade him to continue very rigorous
fasts.15 With whips and sharp belts he scourged himself until blood ran
down the walls. The Brothers intervened and searched out these instruments “to remove them from his reach, thus sparing him, at least for a few
days, the torments he suffered and giving his body a little respite.”16 Abundant evidence exists of de La Salle’s excessive mortification, which appears
to be rooted in a sort of holy self-loathing. As Blain explains it:
This holy abhorrence of himself was one of the most precious gifts that
God had bestowed on him. Because everything about himself served only
to fill him with loathing . . . de La Salle regarded this fallen nature as his
greatest enemy.17

Blain here describes a radical Augustinianism, which de La Salle
shared with the Jansenists. Given his propensity to praise de La Salle,
Blain’s negative judgment is surprising,
If it is possible to go to excess in the matter of penance, we must admit
that this is a very rare failing, especially in the age in which we live. . . .
I say it again: if we can go too far in the practices of austerities (and no
one denies that this is possible), we must admit that it was a fault committed by the greatest saints and one that can be charged also against
John Baptist de La Salle. Indeed, there was no lack of humiliating
reproaches made against him on this score.18

De La Salle’s mental world was much broader than has been traditionally thought. Motivated by their zeal to prove his orthodoxy, de La Salle’s
early biographers depicted a narrow, parochial thinker. In fact, he was
deeply engaged in the intellectual life of seventeenth-century France and
influenced by a goodly number of intellectual traditions. He shared the
extreme rigor associated with the dévots. Even de La Salle’s closest followers and supporters—his bishop, his spiritual director, and the Brothers—
noted his excesses of mortification and intervened to moderate his behavior. In composing his catechism, The Duties of a Christian, he selected from
15. Ibid., pp. 44–45.
16. Jean-Baptiste Blain, The Mind and Heart of John Baptist de La Salle, ed. Augustine
Loes, F.S.C., trans. Edwin Bannon, F.S.C. (Landover, MD, 2002), p. 168, hereafter cited as
Blain, Mind and Heart.
17. Blain, Mind and Heart, pp. 460–62, here p. 462.
18. Ibid., p. 464.

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both pro-Jansenist and anti-Jansenist texts.19 Although undoubtedly a
practical thinker, de La Salle was more fundamentally an inductive one.20
This allowed him to internalize paradox, to behave with Jansenist-like
asceticism while maintaining a Jesuitical loyalty to the papacy. In his devotional practices he was among the most avant-garde figures of his time, yet
he remained scrupulously obedient to authority. On occasion, the more
radical aspects of his mental world could interject themselves into the
social context, subverting some of French society’s most fundamental precepts with dire personal consequences.
Subverting Corporate Structures
One author has posited de La Salle’s support for existing social hierarchies and conventions: “He [de La Salle] did not seriously question the
social order, much less try to work against it. Even the briefest perusal of
his life indicates his acceptance, if not his actual endorsement, of the forces
set in motion by the king and his ministers.” 21 This author adds that de La
Salle recognized how the social order made life very precarious for artisans
and the poor. This evaluation of de La Salle’s social attitudes is typical: he
recognized the suffering of the poor, but he accepted the social order and
was a loyal subject of the king. His immediate goal was to give to poor
French boys the tools of reading and writing so that they might improve
themselves materially, while the ultimate goal of his schools was the salvation of their souls.
This analysis is an oversimplification of de La Salle’s relationship to
the social order, which resembled his rather complicated mental world:
inductive, unsystematic, seemingly conservative and orthodox but subversively challenging the status quo. These challenges came not in the form of
manifestos with which Jesuits debated Jansenists but in three life-changing
acts of personal heroism. The first and second are familiar episodes in the
story of de La Salle’s sainthood: his resignation in 1682 as canon of the
cathedral of Reims and his extraordinary charity to the poor during the
famine of 1683–1684. The third was the most radical and personal: the
quest to transcend his bourgeois origins and transform himself into one of

19. Jean Pungier, John Baptist de La Salle: The Message of His Catechism, trans. Oswald
Murdoch, F.S.C., ed. Gerard Rummery, F.S.C. (Landover, MD, 1999), pp. 53–118.
20. Léon Lauraire, F.S.C., The Conduct of Schools, A Contextual Approach [Cahier Lasalliens, 61], trans. Leonard Marsh, F.S.C. (Rome, 2008), p. 12.
21. Bonaventure Miner, F.S.C., “La Salle and the Social Order of Louis XIV,” in A
Seminar on Power and Authority, ed. Martin C. Helldorfer (Lockport, IL, 1976), 41–46, esp.
pp. 44–45.

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the poor. Accomplishing this transformation was a harrowing process and
an act of sheer will.
In 1700, France still recognized the three estates of clergy, nobility,
and everyone else, a structure traceable to the twelfth century.22 De La
Salle’s father, Louis de La Salle, was a magistrate in the local court who
had married Nicole Moët, a member of the local nobility. From this position of wealth and status de La Salle entered into the advantaged first
estate when he was ordained a priest. John Baptist’s privileged life as a
cleric had been laid out for him at the age of fifteen when his great-cousin
Dozet passed on to him the office of canon of Reims Cathedral.23 Gradually de La Salle was led by God from this exclusive path to a very different
one culminating in the founding of the Christian Schools.
The three estates were far from the only corporations in French society. The university was another, and both the working and professional
classes were organized into guilds. Licensed by the king and municipal
governments, guilds were legal entities with privileges that they guarded
jealously.24 Within Lasallian history, two of these corporate bodies were
the teachers of the Little Schools (petites écoles) and those of the Writing
Masters (Maîtres Ecrivains),25 The ongoing hostility between these groups
and the Brothers reflected the fact that the innovative Christian Schools
did not fit into France’s existing educational structure: their main purpose
was to serve the poor, but they admitted all students regardless of their economic status. This undermined the Little Schools, which charged fees,
while the Christian Schools were gratuitous. In addition, the Brothers
taught writing, which until then had been the privilege of the Writing
Masters. De La Salle’s educational system provoked a series of legal challenges from 1704 to 1706, most of which de La Salle lost because the local
authorities favored tradition and were suspicious of his innovations.26
The elites also opposed the Christian Schools. From the secular side
came the fear that teaching the poor to read and write would cause them
to abandon the menial labor that was their function in society and thus had

22. Roland Mousnier, The Institutions of France under the Absolute Monarchy 1598–
1789, trans. Brian Pearce (Chicago, 1979), pp. 3–48 and pp. 112–46.
23. Calcutt, La Salle, a City Saint, 2nd ed. (cited in n. 9 above), p. 38.
24. Mousnier, Institutions, pp. 463–72.
25. Léon Lauraire, The Conduct of Schools: A Contextual Approach, pp. 208–18.
26. Henri Bédel, An Introduction to the History of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools: The Origins, 1651–1726, trans. Allen Geppert, F.S.C. (Rome, 1996), pp. 128–
32. Calcutt, La Salle, a City Saint, 2nd ed., pp. 518–26.

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the potential to disrupt the entire social order. Opposition from the clergy
was, if anything, even more intense. Bishop Godet Desmarets of reims
was concerned that the Brothers taught the students to read French first
rather than the traditional Latin.27 Joachim Trotti de La Chétardye, pastor
of Saint-Sulpice parish and once a steadfast supporter of de La Salle,
turned against him, because he wanted to exert greater control over the
parish school staffed by lay Brothers. Not surprisingly, the immediate pretext for de La Salle’s removal as superior was the harshness of his discipline. La Chétardye managed to convince the Cardinal-Archbishop of
Paris to replace de La Salle, who was restored to his position only when the
Brothers refused to accept the authority of the cardinal’s appointee.28 An
earlier, more serious attempt to remove de La Salle had occurred when he
himself tried to install a Brother as the school’s superior. The astonished
authorities had intervened. Blain describes their uneasy response: “A
simple Brother placed over a priest, a doctor, a former canon? The
Founder, father, director, and confessor of the little community at the feet
of one of his children, one of his penitents, seemed to them a disorder that
called for a remedy, a monstrosity in the area of government.”29 Despite his
sincere obedience to authority, de La Salle challenged both secular and
sacred traditions that functioned as mechanisms of social control as he pursued a radically new educational paradigm built on a lay society of consecrated teachers and catechists. Ultimately he came up against the corporate
entity that was most fundamental to French society—the family; and when
he did, his actions were perceived as another sort of monstrous disorder.
The Clément Affair
At the center of French society was lignage [lineage], the succession of
kinfolk from a common ancestry. Essential to the identity and social status
of the nobility for centuries, the link between social rank and family line
was filtering down to the bourgeoisie.30 Of course, the fortunes of the royal
family depended on producing a male heir. Primogeniture and other such
hereditary rights were legal tools designed to prevent the division, reduction, or loss of a family’s fortune and property, along with the diminution
of status it would entail. The early modern period in France saw a signifi-

27. Blain, The Life of de La Salle, pp. 379–81.
28. Blain, The Life of de La Salle, pp. 413–21; Calcutt, La Salle, a City Saint, 2nd ed.,
pp. 477–88.
29. Blain, The Life of de La Salle, p. 223.
30. Jean-Louis Flandrin, Families in Former Times: Kinship, Household, and Sexuality in
Early Modern France, trans. Richard Southern (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 1–10.

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cant increase in paternal power and the authority of the paterfamilias
within the household.31 The paterfamilias possessed legal rights over his
wife and children. He controlled their property; through a lettre de cachet
he could have his sons under the age of twenty-five detained by the police
or his wife imprisoned for adultery. Children could neither marry nor take
religious vows without paternal permission.32
These legal privileges were buttressed by religion and the authority of
the Church. The Council of Trent, in response to Protestant theological
attacks, reinforced all of the sacraments and sought to bolster the stability
of the family through the indissoluble sacrament of marriage. It condemned
clandestine marriages as “detested and prohibited,” though formerly valid;
condemned officials who pressured couples to marry; and imposed new regulations that required a priest as witness and the announcement of banns to
the community.33 In France, St. Joseph was increasingly depicted as the
ideal father and head of the family, the model whose intercession was frequently sought. In turn, the Holy Family, as the epitome of the Christian
family, became a standard topic for sermons.34 When de La Salle was
maneuvered into a conflict with paternal power, he suffered his most humiliating defeat. This episode is known as the Clément affair.
The cleric Jean-Charles Clément, aged 23, approached de La Salle in
December 1707 with a proposal to collaborate on a project to raise homeless boys and teach them a trade.35 When the Founder explained that such
an undertaking was not within the scope of the Institute, the young abbé
accepted de La Salle’s alternative suggestion to establish a school to train
rural schoolmasters. With his friend, Louis Rogier, acting as intermediary,
de La Salle agreed in October 1708 to provide a down payment of 5,200
livres on a property to house the school. In February 1711, while visiting
newly established schools in the south, de La Salle received letters from
Paris informing him of a lawsuit initiated by the abbé’s father, Julien Clé31. Jeffrey Merrick, “Fathers and Kings: Patriarchalism and Absolutism in EighteenthCentury French Politics,” in Family, Gender, and Law in Early Modern France, eds. Suzanne
Desan and Jeffrey Merrick (University Park, PA, 2009), p. 103.
32. Merrick, “Fathers and Kings,” p. 104.
33. On the former validity of clandestine marriages and banns of matrimony, see The
Council of Trent, The Twenty-Fourth Session, chap. 1; on condemnation of officials, see chap.
9 at https:// history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct24.html (accessed May 28, 2017).See also John
W. O’Malley, Trent: What Happened at the Council (Cambridge, MA, 2013), pp. 224–28 and
256–57.
34. Jean Delumeau and Daniel Roche, eds., Histoire des pères et de la paternité (Paris,
1990), pp. 130–54.
35. Blain, The Life of de La Salle, pp. 588–601.

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ment. De La Salle was quickly found guilty of suborning a minor; he was
obliged to forfeit his down payment and was liable to be arrested. De La
Salle fled Paris and returned to his tour of the southern schools. These are
the bare-bones facts of the case.
The usual narrative (based on Blain’s text) focuses on Clément fils,
even though Clément père was the driving force behind the suit. François
de Vaux de Foletier has written an analysis of forty-six medical professionals who were ennobled under Louis XIV and XV, twenty of whom were
physicians and twenty of whom were surgeons. Most were connected to
the court.36 Among those twenty surgeons was Julien Clément (1649–
1728). With the help of the archbishop of his native Arles, Julien went as
a young man to Paris, where he became a pupil of the renowned obstetrician Jacques Lefèvre, whose daughter he later married.
Julien Clément apparently became an obstetrician of considerable skill
and reputation. He practiced great discretion on several clandestine deliveries, including that of a ballerina at the Opéra, who gave birth to a nobleman’s child; and he delivered one of Madame de Montespan’s children,
sired by the king.37 Clément was brought blindfolded to her room, and it
was there that he first met Louis XIV, who ultimately entrusted him with
the responsibility of preserving the Bourbon dynasty by delivering the royal
progeny. The king rewarded this service by naming Clément first head
valet of the duchess of Burgundy on January 22, 1707. Four-and-a-half
years later, in August 1711, he was issued a letter of ennoblement.38
Evidently, Julien Clément was also a man of ambition. On January 23,
1712, just a few months after his ennoblement, a summons requiring de La
Salle to appear in court was filed, accusing the cleric of taking advantage of
a minor, Julien’s son Jean-Charles.39 There can be little doubt that the
prosecution of de La Salle was connected to Julien Clément’s new social
status. But there was also something personal in Julien Clément’s legal

36. François de Vaux de Foletier, “Anoblissements de médecins et chirurgiens de Louis
XIV à Louis XVI,”
http://www.biusante.parisdescartes.fr/sfhm/hsm/HSMx1982x016x003/HSMx1982x016x00
3x0163.pdf (accessed Aug. 7, 2015).
37. Frantz Funck-Brentano, Les lettres de cachet a Paris étude suivie d’une liste des prisonniers de la Bastille (1659–1789) (Paris, 1903), p. 155.
38. See “Julien Clément (médecin),”
https://www.wikiwand.com/fr/Julien_Clément_(médecin) (accessed Apr. 25, 2016).
39. Armand Ravelet, Histoire du Vénérable Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, 2nd ed. (Paris,
1874), p. 400.

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action against de La Salle, something that tapped into the core of the
Ancien Régime, something that infuriated the surgeon and triggered bitter
contempt for the priest. De La Salle was a class traitor. The social ambitions of the bourgeoisie, as epitomized by Julien Clément, are insightfully
explained by Fernand Braudel:
The bourgeoisie turned class traitor the more readily since the money
which distinguished rich from poor was in the sixteenth century already
appearing to be an attribute of nobility. . . . If the social order seems to have
been modified, the change was sometimes more apparent than real. The
bourgeoisie was not always pushed out, brutally liquidated. It turned class
traitor. . . . The chief ambition of these pseudo-bourgeois was to reach the
ranks of the aristocracy, to be absorbed into it, or at the very least to marry
their richly-dowered daughters to a nobleman. . . . But in 1615 the same
spectacle could be seen in France. . . . It was the same everywhere in the
seventeenth century, for the class barrier was always being crossed and
social censure was ever on the watch.40

De La Salle’s conversion experience was primarily religious, but his
confrontation with guilds, pastors and clericalism, and the corporate basis
of French society had profound social and cultural ramifications. Julien
Clément, whose claims to social privilege were brand new and most vulnerable, wanted to humiliate de La Salle and remove all taint to his lignage,
all connections between his family and this class traitor. He needed the
affirmation of his new status by a traditional public institution, such as the
court, which had its own interest in upholding the social order that de La
Salle was subverting. The priest needed to be taught a lesson. The most
revealing phrase in the court’s judgment was how it identified him: “M. de
La Salle, Priest and so-called [or pretended] superior general of the Brothers of the Christian Schools from the city of Reims.”41 This constituted
both a legal claim—that the Institute of the Brothers had no legal basis in
French law—and a sociocultural one—that de La Salle was a mere priest
from the city of Reims, with neither legal standing nor social respectability.
This priest had once belonged to a solidly bourgeois family and been the

40. Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of
Philip II, trans. Siân Reynolds (New York, 1972), vol. 2, pp. 726, 729, and 733. Yves Poutet
puts it somewhat more benignly in one of his titles: “The Great Breaches of 1681–1688” [Les
Grandes Ruptures de 1681–1688]; see Le XVII e [i.e. Dix-septième] siècle et les origines lasalliennes, recherches sur la genèse de l’oeuvre scolaire et religieuse de Jean-Baptiste de La Salle (1651–
1719), 2 vols. (Rennes, 1970), vol. 1, p. 715.
41. “[C]ontre le sieur de la Salle prêtre se disant supérieur général des frères de l’école
chrestienne de la ville de Rheims. . .” (cited in Ravelet, Histoire du Vénérable Jean-Baptiste de
La Salle, pp. 403–05).

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canon of one of France’s most famous cathedrals, but he had renounced
both. In doing so, he had flouted the most fundamental conventions of
French society. As Ravelet has pointed out, the judgment against de La
Salle conferred a stigma of dishonor [une flétrissure], expressed as “requiring minor children to such acts and money to use in these same sorts of
ways.”42 De La Salle was a threat to society, to the family, and needed to
be punished, blackened, and most of all publicly humiliated, with something like the duke of Saint-Simon’s “pot of paint.”
Conjunction: De La Salle’s Ascetic “Social Revolution”
and His Mental World
The traditional narrative describes de La Salle’s conversion as a gradual and rather passive spiritual journey, during which he tried to discern
God’s plan for him. But within this story lies another more social and cultural in character, more radical, and in which de La Salle plays a much
more active role. As he was abandoning his birthright, his prebend as a
canon, his wealth, and social status, and moving toward the foundation of
schools for the poor, de La Salle was compelled to learn about the poor he
wished to serve, and to establish contact with them. Doing so was difficult
because, as the child of a prominent family, he had been sheltered from the
lower classes. For Poutet the key event was the introduction of the teachers
into the ancestral home.43 As de La Salle recalled in his Memoir on the
Beginning, “‘I considered the men whom I was obliged to employ in the
schools at the beginning as being inferior to my valet, the mere thought
that I would have to live with them would have been insupportable to
me.’”44 But mere knowledge was insufficient, “He needed to become one of
the poor so that he might enrich them.”45 This was a conscious act of
downward social mobility and personal transformation, and it induced a
psychological dissonance as well as a determination to overcome his bourgeois sensibility. De La Salle realized that his effort to become one of the
poor was both a psychological and physical challenge that was causally
linked to mortification of the body. During Holy Week he attempted to
eat nothing but a broth made from herbs but was unable to digest anything
he ate. This was de La Salle’s first bout with vomiting, a physical expression of the psychological repulsion triggered by his social and cultural
42. “[D’]exiger des enfants mineurs de pareils actes et de l’argent et d’user de pareilles
voies” (cited in Ravelet, Histoire, p. 402).
43. Poutet, Les origines lasalliennes, pp. 740–41.
44. De la Salle, Memoir on the Beginning, cited in Blain, The Life of de La Salle, p. 80.
45. Ibid., pp. 43–45, emphasis added.

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devolution into the class of the urban poor. Given his “holy abhorrence of
himself,” overcoming his deep repugnance required a tremendous act of
will as a nonconforming ascetic.46 Because this asceticism rejected the
world (the world inhabited by, for instance, Julien Clément), it also contained the germ of a “social revolution.”
The origins of de La Salle’s ascetic “social revolution”—his ideas on
poverty, solitude, withdrawal from the world, prayer, and mortification—are
fundamental to his mental world and typically eclectic. His Augustinianism
was appropriated from the Reformation. In 1506 the Amerbach brothers
completed publication of their edition of Augustine’s collected works, just in
time for the Reformation to access the ideas of their favorite Church Father
on justification, grace, predestination, and many other topics. We know that
Luther was influenced by the schola Augustiniana moderna, associated with
Gregory of Rimini (ca. 1300–1358), who, like Luther, was an Augustinian
friar.47 Augustine was even more central to Calvin’s theology. Of course the
locus classicus of French Augustinianism was Jansenism, and at its center were
Cornelius Jansen and his Augustinus. The influence of Augustine was ubiquitous, and it was linked to a strict moral probity that stood in opposition to
the Jesuits and their perceived moral laxity.
The basis of de La Salle’s mental world in this regard can be probed
through seven of his Meditations: 1) St. Anthony Abbot; 2) St. Paulinus of
Nola; 3) St. Bruno; 4) St. Peter Celestine (Pope Celestine V); 5) St. Francis of Assisi; 6) St. Carlo Borromeo; and 7) St. Augustine. From these can
be traced four sources of inspiration: 1) the Desert Fathers; 2) medieval
monasticism; 3) modern asceticism; and 4) St. Augustine. In turn, the
ideas contained therein can be classified under six topics: 1) to sell all and
give to the poor; 2) to be or to become poor; 3) to withdraw from the
world; 4) solitude or seclusion; 5) prayer; and 6) mortification.48 St.

46. I gratefully acknowledge adopting this latter term from one of the journal’s referees,
whose comments I found very helpful.
47. On the Amerbach edition of Augustine’s work, see Alister E. McGrath, Reformation Thought, 4th ed. (Malden, MA, 2012), p. 13; on the schola Augustiniana moderna, see
p. 69.
48. John Baptist de La Salle, Meditations, ed. Augustine Loes, F.S.C., and Francis
Huether, F.S.C, trans. Richard Arnandez, F.S.C., and Augustine Loes, F.S.C. (Landover,
MD, 1994). The Meditations in question are here cited not by the pages on which they appear
in the Loes edition but by their ordinal numbering in de La Salle’s text: St. Anthony Abbot,
97; Paulinus, 137; Bruno, 174; Peter Celestine, 127; Francis of Assisi, 173; Charles Borromeo, 187; St. Augustine’s conversion, 123; and St. Augustine, 161. The number of times
that each of these six topic appears in the Meditations is 4, 3, 4, 4, 5, and 9, respectively.

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Anthony Abbot was a prime exemplar of the principle that the Christian
life depends on detaching oneself from possessions. He became the fountainhead of a radical Christian asceticism—looms large. One of his counterparts in the Western church, St. Paulinus of Nola, is described as not
wanting “to possess anything except God”; and St. Francis inspired his disciples to “Learn to love poverty and to live in detachment from all things.”
But to “become” poor requires transformation at an existential level.
Any conclusions drawn from this kind of analysis must be limited and
modest, for many other factors constitute de La Salle’s mental world, and
many other meditations and sources could be adduced. Still, the results of
this analysis are revealing. Two observations are most germane. The first is
that the topic of mortification, with nine mentions, exceeds all others; the
second is how de La Salle combines topics in interesting ways. In the first,
he writes about Peter Celestine: “His macerations were carried to such an
excess that when he slept he used a stone for a pillow.”49 This is reminiscent
of de La Salle’s war against sleep and his practice of placing stones on his
prie-dieu to keep himself awake. In the second, he frequently (four times)
links prayer to mortification. For example, in the meditation on St. Francis
he writes: “He often spent his nights in prayer and took very severe disciplines” (p. 323 [173.3]). He emphasizes that mortification helps to resist
temptation. In his meditation for the feast of St. Bruno, he asserts: “Mortification subdues the body and makes it less susceptible to temptation” (p.
325 [174.5]), while noting that Peter Celestine practiced “[m]acerating his
body to resist the temptation that bothered him” (p. 234 [127.1]).
Even more incisive is de La Salle’s contention that the efficacy of
prayer depends on mortification. For example, in the meditation on St.
Charles Borromeo, he writes: “Prayer without mortification is often an
illusion” (p. 349 [187.2]). According to de La Salle, St. Bruno linked
prayer and mortification to seclusion: “[He] Chose three very sure means to
go to God: seclusion. . . , continual prayer, and mortification in everything”
(p. 325 (174.3]). Finally, de La Salle created two mediations on St. Augustine, one for his feast day and another for his conversion. On the former he
noted that “He led an extremely solitary and penitential life” (p. 297
[161.1]), while for his conversion he wrote that “he endeavored to give up
the pleasures of the senses” (p. 227 [123.3]), an observation reminiscent of
the charges levied against de La Salle by the Marseilles Jansenists.
49. De La Salle, Meditations, p. 234 (127.1). Quotations from this work are cited parenthetically in the text; citations include page numbers in Loes’s English translation, followed
in brackets by references to the three-part numbering system of the Meditations.

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263

One need not go far to see direct correlations between de La Salle’s
thoughts on these saints and his own behavior. Like St. Anthony, he sold
all of his possessions and gave the proceeds to the poor; like the monastics,
he withdrew from the world and craved solitude; like Paulinus and Celestine, he embraced the virtue of charity and extreme mortification; like
Francis, he not only loved the poor but wanted to become poor; like Bruno,
he saw mortification as the best means to curb temptations of the body;
like Charles Borromeo, he regarded mortification as essential to prayer,
wore a hair shirt, and slept little; and like Augustine, he strove to abjure
sensual pleasures, a renunciation for which the Marseille Jansenists
attacked him. There can be no doubt that de La Salle’s pursuit of poverty,
solitude, prayer, and mortification was a conscious act of self-invention
guided by the models of radical monasticism that he recommended to the
Brothers in his Meditations.
It is unsurprising that this sort of acute asceticism had social ramifications and that it formed the context for de La Salle’s public actions. When
de La Salle finally introduced the teachers into his ancestral home, most of
his family members were horrified; their responses—full of references to
honor, blood, and heraldry—echoed the language of the Ancien Régime
that Clément would have recognized. As Blain writes, “They accused him
of staining the honor of the family and of blotting the escutcheon by associating with people of such low standing. They said that he was not living
up to his blood . . . that it was ridiculous not to make any distinction
between them and his own brothers.”50 His decision to leave his home, the
very symbol of his patrimony, was quite literally a liminal moment. It led to
the beginning of his conscious pauperization. The teachers challenged him
by pointing out the social gap that still divided them. If the enterprise they
had embarked upon failed, they might well starve while de La Salle could
fall back on income from his canonry and family inheritance. His response,
to resign his benefice, set up yet another social conflict. De La Salle turned
over his canonry not to his brother Jean-Louis, but to a priest of low birth
named Faubert. Everyone, including Archbishop Le Tellier, was appalled
by de La Salle’s violation of the obligation of family ties (which evoked once
again the Clément affair). Later, the bishop righted this wrong by making
de La Salle’s brother a canon, explaining that he was “offering . . . this gift
to make reparation for the foolishness of Monsieur de La Salle, who gave
his benefice to someone other than his own brother.” 51

50. Blain, The Life of de La Salle, p. 89.
51. Ibid., p. 131.

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De La Salle’s next and most radical act was to give away his patrimony
during the famine of 1683–1684, “the most unusual, heroic, and unworldly
action he ever performed.”52 It is at this point that de La Salle becomes poor,
poorer than those to whom he gave away his wealth, and actually begs door
to door. This singular act was the most decisive step yet in creating a new
persona, and it coincided with the decision to design a distinctive habit that
symbolized an extravagant rejection of the world. De La Salle’s actions not
only evoked hostility from Julien Clément and Archbishop Le Tellier, but
they even aroused derision among the artisans and the poor.
People pointed the finger of scorn at them. They were escorted with raucous cries amidst scenes of near riot . . . they were spattered with mud
and pursued by those who threw stones at them until they reached the
door of their house. . . . What kind of people are these? they asked in
mockery. Where do they come from?53

The people were stunned and offended by de La Salle’s disregard for the
most revered codes of social behavior. Who in their right mind would
freely embrace the misery of poverty? This was a revolutionary idea.
De La Salle’s Trauma Crossing Cultures
While de La Salle was crossing social classes he was also traversing
cultures. In a society as stratified as that of seventeenth-century France,
there were many ways to showcase one’s social position. Dress was the
most obvious, but food was the more substantial. The poor continued to
eat black breads, soups, and—when they could get it—salted meat. Town
dwellers, on the other hand, ate lighter bread and fresh meat; aristocrats
were inveterate meat-eaters. The sense of taste, according to Massimo
Montanari, is located not in the tongue but in the brain; it is cultural and
historical and can vary according to place and time. Taste is therefore a
product of society, reflecting conscious calculation. For the lower classes of
de La Salle’s France it was about abundance—filling one’s belly, the ease
of obtaining enough to survive—and “taste” was often a matter of life and
death. For the upper classes it was quite the opposite: they sought not what
was abundant but what was rare—seeking to whet rather than sate the
appetite—and this taste reflected their wealth and social status.54

52. Ibid., p. 147.
53. Ibid., p. 188.
54. Massimo Montanari, Food Is Culture (New York, 2006), p. 61; Marvin Harris, Good
to Eat, Riddles of Food and Culture (New York, 1985), p. 72.

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265

One of the notable things about Blain’s narrative is his use of the word
repugnance [répugnance], which appears fourteen times in Volume I and
thirty-seven times in Volume II of the French original. The use of this
word is not limited to Blain; both Bernard and Maillefer use it as well,
though typically more economically than Blain.55 Rachel Herz describes
repugnance (she uses the term disgust) as the last emotion that children
acquire, as early as age five or as late as age nine.56 Because it is culturally
defined, it must be learned, which makes it the most enigmatic and sophisticated emotion. It is also socially conditioned yet individualized: what disgusts one person may delight another, depending on the meaning of the
object of repugnance. Food is especially disgustable. What constitutes
wholesome food varies widely from culture to culture, with insects
regarded as inedible by one group and as a delicacy by another. Most cultures have food taboos, which are usually connected to moralization (the
process whereby an object or activity becomes morally charged). For example, a vegan may associate eating meat with the inhumane conditions
under which animals are raised for slaughter. Disgust has a social function:
it maintains boundaries and can frame social order. Our parents and caregivers teach us the social meanings of disgust. Through gestures and facial
expressions, we learn that certain behaviors will separate us from the group.
Eating things that are distasteful challenges an individual’s identification
with a social group as well as that group’s acceptance of the individual. Disgust represents an effective means of curbing undesirable behaviors. If
eating insects can trigger ideas of the primitive or savage, condemning
their consumption can be seen as a way of protecting the social order. As
a child, de La Salle was inculcated with a highly refined sense of repugnance, first toward his social inferiors and then toward their food. He
learned how to subject sensory experience to a will forged out of his dim
view of human nature and his conviction that severe mortification was necessary to resist temptation, all of which was intimately committed to his
pauperization. Nowhere is the matrix of de La Salle’s mental world so dramatically revealed than through food.57
Blain ends Book I by describing de La Salle’s voluntary impoverishment and begins Volume II by noting how he had “indeed come down in

55. See Bernard, Two Early Biographies, pp. 282–83 and 325–26; Maillefer, Two Early
Biographies, p. 62.
56. Much of this paragraph is based on Rachel Herz, That’s Disgusting: Unraveling the
Mysteries of Repulsion (New York, 2012). Herz uses the term disgustable (pp. 27, 31, and 35)
to mean “liable to disgust”; see also pp. 232, 46, and 21.
57. Blain, The Life of de La Salle, p. 82; p. 87.

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the world.” With this structure Blain establishes his subject’s willful
impoverishment as the turning point in de La Salle’s life and then
addresses its consequence with the founding of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. Just a few pages later Blain introduces de La Salle’s difficulty
in adjusting to the Brothers’ food. When moving with the Brothers from
his ancestral home, the type of food he was served had not changed. But
now that he was poor, it was no longer affordable. Blain makes clear that
this circumstance was not merely, or even principally, an economic condition but a moral one. The founder was determined to live like the Brothers
because he wanted to establish fraternal bonds with them. It was a moral
act. This course of action—which would have been unheard of and roundly
condemned in stratified French society—presented de La Salle with deep
psychological hurdles to overcome. Eating things that are distasteful challenges an individual’s identification with a social group as well as that
group’s acceptance of the individual.58 Food is a vehicle for anticipatory
socialization, which entails “consciously or unconsciously adopting the
ways, tastes, and manners of a social group to membership of which one
aspires.”59 This was exactly de La Salle’s goal. As Mary Douglas has
pointed out, food can be understood as a code that can express social relations. In a modern context drinks are for strangers, while meals are for
family and close friends.60 In learning how to eat the Brothers’ food, de La
Salle was attempting to establish the most intimate of relationships with
them. This was a conscious decision, an act of will that, despite the Brothers’ best efforts to dissuade him from pursuing, he was resolute to complete. Blain describes de La Salle’s state in vivid terms:
He was never in greater distress than when it was time to eat. Nature,
alarmed at the mere thought of what it would have to endure, caused him
to shudder when they brought on the soup. There ensued for him a grievous struggle, an agonizing conflict, for on such occasions nature and grace
lock in strenuous battle, and the latter does not emerge victorious over the
former save at the cost of a galling ordeal. The former canon was indeed
a pitiable sight at these times. His stomach turned, and his hand trembled;
when he put the spoon into the bowl, he could not withdraw it. What will
he do? Will he obstinately insist on overcoming a repugnance which
seems to bring on an agony and threatens to burst a blood vessel in his
chest, because of the superhuman efforts he makes to force himself to eat?

58. Krystal D’Costa, “What’s Stopping Us from Eating Insects?” Scientific American,
July 24, 2013, http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/anthropology-in-practice/whats-stoppingus-from-eating-insects/ (accessed May 3, 2016).
59. Stephen Mennell, All Manners of Food, 2nd ed. (Urbana, 1996), p. 75.
60. Mary Douglas, “Deciphering a Meal,” Daedalus, 101 (Winter 1972): pp. 62 and 66.

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267

But can he yield to nature? And was it not time for him to make his body
do penance for having been brought up in so fastidious a manner? 61

While Blain couches the conflict in the theological terms of nature, grace,
and penance, it was just as much a psychological and physical battle. It was
a moral one as well, for de La Salle had turned his fastidious bourgeois
upbringing into some sort of moral wrong for which he needed to atone.
Nowhere can one find a greater contrast with the Cléments’ ethic celebrating
ascendancy in the world than here. De La Salle’s descent was an inversion of
the royal physician’s rise to noble status. The following passage is disturbing.
He did violence to his feelings and ate, but he could not keep the food
down. His vomiting began when he saw and smelled the soup; when he
tried to eat it, the heaving became so violent that he brought up blood.
Prudence would have suggested that he stop trying, for on such occasions
exaggerated efforts often lead to serious consequences. But if he yields, he
is vanquished. . . . To win a total victory over himself, he forces himself to
swallow again what he had thrown up, and this repeatedly. Before him I
do not know of anyone who had ever given such an example of mortification. This torture, which lasted all through this first meal, continued for
several more days. Everything they brought him—salted meat, coarse vegetables, and other dishes of the plainest kind of food—made him vomit.62

Norbert Elias has identified the connection between repugnance and
shame that helps to explain the effects of de La Salle’s deep conflict.
Shame takes on its particular coloration from the fact that the person
feeling it has done or is about to do something through which he comes
into contradiction with people to whom he is bound in one form or
another, and with himself, with the sector of his consciousness by which
he controls himself. The conflict expressed in shame-fear is not merely a
conflict of the individual with prevalent social opinion; the individual’s
behavior has brought him into conflict with the part of himself that represents this social opinion. It is a conflict within his own personality; he
himself recognizes himself as inferior. He fears the loss of the love or
respect of others, to which he attaches or has attached value.63

De La Salle was in the midst of an extreme social and cultural transmutation. He had successfully freed himself from the social opinion of the
dominant classes. The anger and humiliations suffered at their hands did
61. Blain, The Life of de La Salle, pp. 165–66.
62. Ibid., p. 166.
63. Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process, rev. ed., trans. Edmund Jephcott, ed. Eric
Dunning et al. (Malden, MA, 2000), p. 415.

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little to disturb him. But his failure to conquer his own repugnance induced
fear of the loss of the Brothers’ love and respect, despite their assurances to
the contrary. This created intense inner conflict through which he was
determined to persevere, to assert ever-greater self-control, and to shame
himself in their eyes by consuming his own regurgitation, another mortification. These were the signs of the most profound trauma caused by the
change in his social status and cultural moorings, an inversion of the normal
societal goal of upward mobility, as personified by the Cléments.
This cycle of physical and psychological repugnance went on for some
time until de La Salle discovered a strategy to overcome it. He strictly
fasted for days on end, creating such hunger that the food he found so
repulsive came to be palatable. Hunger is biological, one of the most powerful human survival drives; appetite is psychological, a state of mind, a
desire to eat. When one feels hungry, an internal process begins that regulates what, when, and how much to eat or whether to eat at all.64 De La
Salle was attempting to adjust his appetite by amplifying his hunger to the
point that almost anything would have tasted good.
This leads immediately into the “Absinthe story,” recounted by all
three of de La Salle’s early biographers.65 So complete was the priest’s victory over his repugnance that he could no longer tell the difference
between what was appetizing and what was foul-tasting. One day the
Brother-cook made a stew of only absinthe leaves, thinking it was a palatable herb. All the Brothers immediately laid down their spoons upon their
first taste. Not so de La Salle who ate his entire portion and was surprised
when the Brothers expressed their alarm that he would be poisoned by the
foul concoction. Another time, having trained the Brothers to eat their
soup flies and all, “he saw one of the Brothers removing the insects from
his bowl, [and] he made him a sign not to be so fastidious.”66 De La Salle’s
transformation of self and his relationship with the Brothers was complete.
Conclusion
In the complexity of the human mind and culture the ability to transform oneself is never total and there always remains memories of the past.
In the context of his social and cultural transformation, as he rejected his

64. Mennell, All Manners of Food, pp. 20–21.
65. See Maillefer, Two Early Biographies, p. 62; Bernard, Two Early Biographies, p. 326;
and Blain, The Life of de La Salle, p. 167.
66. Blain, The Life of de La Salle, p. 310.

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269

old identity, he had “indeed come down in the world.”67 It is astonishing,
therefore, that he also wrote The Rules of Christian Decorum and Civility.
While he abandoned his bourgeois culture for that of the poor, he aspired
to cultivate in the poor French boys he taught the art of bourgeois good
manners, specifically asserting that it serves God as well as humans.
Indeed, the text represents the converse of his personal journey. In it he so
perfectly preserved bourgeois manners that Norbert Elias in his classic
study, The Civilizing Process, makes great use of the Rules as one of the
great landmarks of the civilizing process.68 In the text there are quite complicated rules for walking together according to precise social order, an
order he consciously abandoned. An entire section is devoted to food and
there one can find a bland phrase that had the deepest personal meaning
to de La Salle: “The self-control which you are obliged to maintain at table
when eating soup.”69
How do we explain this contradiction? De La Salle had the capacity
to distinguish between rules and actions he imposed on himself and those
he imposed on others, between the individual and the social. Individually
he exhibited all of the moral rectitude and ascetic lifestyle to suggest to the
Marseille Jansenists that he was one of them and which they later used
against him. Yet he refused to join their party. Similarly, while he imposed
on himself the social devolution from rich to poor, he attempted to raise
up the poor students who read The Rules of Christian Decorum and Civility,
encouraging them to adopt the rules of civility associated with the upper
classes. This is why de La Salle was less a true social revolutionary and
more a nonconforming ascetic. He did not strive to change society, only
himself. But these individual acts had suborned the privilege of birth, a
concept so fundamental to the Ancien Régime, that they had social consequences. De La Salle acted as a kind of purlieu, on the edge between individual religious conviction and social subversion. De La Salle’s behavior
offended the social sensibilities of both rich and poor, both of which
accepted the naturalness of social inequality. De La Salle was most concerned with creating community, not effecting social revolution, but it was
a radical new vision of community of consecrated teachers who rejected old
methods, institutions, and traditions, who taught French first, not Latin,
and who replaced the individual method of the petites écoles with the simul67. Ibid., p. 161.
68. Elias, The Civilizing Process, chaps. 5–8.
69. John Baptist de La Salle, The Rules of Christian Decorum and Civility, ed. Gregory
Wright, F.S.C. and trans. Richard Arnandez, F.S.C. (Romeoville, IL, 1990), p. 87 (on walking,), pp. 57–83 (on food), and p. 73 (on self-control).

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taneous method, teaching groups of students, organized by ability, at the
same time. De La Salle strove to create order, but it was a new order.
At the first assembly of his twelve principal disciples, de La Salle chose
three topics for discussion. The first was a rule, the second a distinctive
habit, and the third was food. These were guidelines for direction, instruments to assert public distinctiveness, and the creation of a common culture,
all to create community.70 What is most salient about them is how typical
they are of the Ancien Régime. De La Salle is doing nothing less than creating an order, a corporation, a religious community. Through his often
bizarre individual behavior de La Salle was establishing something essentially communitarian. He was creating an institution that was simultaneously
endorsing the notion of a corporate social order while subverting it; reflective
of the dominant culture while creating an alternative and rejectionist one.
This seeming paradox is altogether Lasallian. These subversions explain
the extraordinarily venomous reaction he elicited from entrenched elites. De
La Salle was not eliminating collectives; he was remaking them. He was
determined to unlearn the one in which he was raised; he was violating the
essential concept of lignage. He was not severing head from body, but
remaking their relationship through sheer force of will in such a radical way
that the conflict between the two, as body tried to catch up to head, caused
the extreme physical reaction of chronic vomiting. Amidst such trauma it is
little wonder that his social worldview was as eclectic and paradoxical as his
mental world. Here was the steadfast subject of the king who undermined
the royal principle of birth, who challenged the royally sanctioned corporation of Writing Masters; the obedient son of the Church who created a new
type of school, who deflected the traditional authority of bishop and pastor
in order to preserve the community’s autonomy. De La Salle’s biographers
describe their subject as stolid in the wake of persecution and injustice
inflicted by the court and Julien Clément. In truth, the court ruled correctly,
according to the laws and the customs of the kingdom, in conformity with
those inherited assumptions of nobility, family, minority, and the rights of
fathers. As paterfamilias Julien Clément had the law on his side; as a
member of the nobility he had the influence to sway the court against the
“so-called or pretended superior general of the Brothers of the Christian
Schools from the city of Reims.” But his victory was temporary because de
La Salle had created the future.

70. Blain, The Life of de La Salle, pp. 172–76.

Pietro Tamburini’s Jansenist Legacy at the
Irish College in Rome and His Influence on the
Irish Church
CHRISTOPHER KORTEN*
Pietro Tamburini (1737–1827) is known as the foremost “Italian Jansenist” of
his time, penning numerous theological works between 1770 and 1798, and
helping to spearhead the infamous synod at Pistoia in 1786. Yet, as this article
will reveal, these were not his only interests; he was also very active in proselytizing for the so-called (Italian) Jansenist cause, an activity that until now has been
little understood. While serving as prefect of studies at the Irish College in Rome
(1772–1778), a period in Tamburini’s life that has been relatively neglected by
biographers, he attracted at least six young Irish followers. His influence had
transnational implications, as Tamburini’s disciples carried his teachings to the
Irish College in Salamanca and later to the Irish Church when they returned to
their native land. Based on archival materials in Rome and Dublin that have
been largely overlooked, this article reveals the exploitation of students at national
colleges by school administrators and its negative impact on national churches.
Keywords: Pietro Tamburini, Irish College, Italian Jansenism,
John Lanigan, Charles O’Connor, Rome, Salamanca

T

he life of Italian theologian Pietro Tamburini (Figure 1) has attracted
the interest of historians and theologians alike.1 Much of his personal
correspondence has been collected and published, and his life, especially after

*Christopher Korten is assistant professor at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan,
Poland, email: ckorten@amu.edu.pl.
1. Major contributions include Paolo Corsini and Daniele Montanari, eds., Pietro
Tamburini e il Giansenismo Lombardo (Brescia, 1993); Arturo Jemolo, Il Giansenismo in
Italia prima della rivoluzione (Bari, 1928); Ernesto Codignola, Illuministi, giansenisti, e giacobini nell’Italia del settecento (Florence, 1947); Paolo Guerrini, Memorie storiche della diocesi
di Brescia: Pietro Tamburini e il Giansenismo bresciano (Moretto, 1982); Giovanni Mantese,
Pietro Tamburini e il giansenismo bresciano [Memorie storiche della diocesi di Brescia, 11]
(Milan, 1942); Roberto Mazzetti, Pietro Tamburini, la mente del Giansenismo italiano
(Messina and Ferrara, 1948); Mariano Comini, Pietro Tamburini (1737–1827). Un
giansenista lombardo tra riforma e rivoluzione (Grafo, 1992); Franco Ardusso, Natura e
Grazia Studio Storico-Teologico sul Teologo Giansenista Italiano Pietro Tamburini (Brescia,
1969); Innocente Garlaschi, Vita cristiana e rigorismo morale. Studio storico-teologico su Pietro

271

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PIETRO TAMBURINI’S JANSENIST LEGACY

1778 with his return to Lombardy, has been closely scrutinized.2 But despite
the rather extensive historiography on this figure, his six-year appointment
in Rome (1772–78) at the Irish College as prefect of studies remains unexamined. Among Irish historians the main question about this period has
concerned the degree of theological influence Tamburini exerted while at the
College. The consensus seems to be that his influence was minimal. Former
Irish College rector and historian Michael O’Riordan conjectures that Tamburini probably “kept . . . [his Jansenist doctrines] to himself, and taught the
students only the doctrines which he knew he was commissioned to teach.”3
As for Tamburini’s legacy at the College, O’Riordan writes: “when Tamburini had gone, hardly a trace of his mind remained.”4 Likewise, James
O’Boyle believed that Tamburini’s theological “virus” had been successfully
contained, while allowing for the possibility that perhaps the Irish priest
Charles O’Connor had harbored so-called Jansenist leanings.5
Another author who defended Irishmen against a suspected theological affinity with Tamburini was W. J. Fitzpatrick, who in 1873 penned a
very colorful and stylistically engaging portrait of Irish historian John Lanigan (1758–1825). Fitzpatrick tries to free Tamburini’s former pupils of any
Tamburini (1737–1827) (Brescia, 1984); Enrico Dammig, Il movimento giansenista a Roma
(Vatican City, 1945); Emanuela Verzella, Nella rivoluzione delle cose politiche e degli umani
cervelli: il dibattito sulle Lettere teologico-politiche di Pietro Tamburini (Florence, 1998);
Pietro Stella, Il giansenismo in Italia: Crisi finale e transizioni (Rome, 2006); Ettore Rota,
“Pietro Tamburini di Brescia ‘teologo piacentino’ e la controversia giansenista a Piacenza,”
Bollettino della Società pavese di storia patria, 12, fascicolo 3–4 (1912), pp. 343–64.
2. Ernesto Codignola, Il Giansenismo toscano nel carteggio di Fabio de Vecchi (Florence,
1944); Ernesto Codignola, Carteggi di giansenisti liguri, 2 vols. (Florence, 1941); Paolo Guerrini, “Carteggi bresciani inediti sulla vita e i tempi di Pietro Tamburini (1737–1827),” in Bollettino Società Pavese di storia patria, 27 (1927), pp. 161–250; Antonella Fantini, “L’Epistolario di Pietro Tamburini in Biblioteche e Archivi Italiani,” in Pietro Tamburini e il
Giansenismo Lombardo : atti del Convegno internazionale in occasione del 250. della nascita, Brescia, 25-26 maggio 1989, ed. P. Corsini and D. Montanari (Brescia, 1993), pp. 403–54;
Roberto Mazzetti, “Relazioni fra il giansenismo pavese e il giansenismo toscano,” in Miscellanea Pavese [Biblioteca della Società Storica Subalpina, 130] (Torino, 1932), pp. 119–239;
Giovanni Scarabelli, “Le lettere di Tamburini da Roma al can. Bocca,” in Studi in onore di
Luigi Fossati [Società per la storia della Chiesa a Brescia, 5] (Brescia, 1974), pp. 237–307.
3. Michael O’Riordan, “Rev. Charles O’Conor D.D.,” in The Seven Hills (Dublin,
1908), pp. 229–74, here p. 250; Michael O’Riordan, “The Abate Luigi Cuccagni,” in The
Seven Hills (Dublin, 1908), pp. 15–41, here pp. 26–27. See also Michael O’Riordan, “Irish
College, in Rome,” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, ed. C. G. Herbermann, vol. 8 (New York,
1910), p. 158.
4. O’Riordan, “Charles O’Conor D.D.,” p. 250.
5. James O’Boyle, The Irish colleges on the continent (Dublin, 1935), p. 121. Unless replicating the spelling in a title (as in citations of O’Riordan’s article), I spell O’Connor with a
double n.

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273

FIGURE 1. An anonymous nineteenth-century engraving of Pietro Tamburini
(1737–1827).

Jansenist associations in an attempt to restore Lanigan’s reputation, tainted
during his failed attempt to gain employment at Maynooth College in the
late 1790s, on which more below.6 For Timothy Corcoran, Lanigan’s
achievements as a writer of Irish history and university professor overshadowed any possible theological controversy.7 For the centennial of Lanigan’s
death, which was commemorated with the erection of a statue at the University of Pavia in acknowledgment of his scholarly contributions there,
Corcoran composed an encomium in Lanigan’s honor. He defends the
professor against any hint of controversy, going so far as to assert an adversarial relationship between Lanigan and the Italian “Jansenist” leaders,
including Tamburini: Lanigan, he says, “went to Pavia, having declined a
perilous invitation to attend the notorious synod presided over at Pistoia by
[Bishop] Scipio Ricci, an invitation pressed on him by the notable
Jansenist theologian, Pietro Tamburini.”8
6. W. J. Fitzpatrick, Irish Wits and Worthies, including Dr Lanigan, his life and times,
with glimpses of stirring scenes since 1770 (Dublin, 1873), pp. 39, 49, 87.
7. Timothy Corcoran, “Ireland and Pavia: 825–1925,” in Studies: An Irish Quarterly
Review, 14, no. 56 (1925), 595–610, here 596.
8. Ibid.

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PIETRO TAMBURINI’S JANSENIST LEGACY

Finding suitable terminology to describe the movement associated
with Tamburini is problematic.9 “Jansenism” has too much historical baggage; in its purest sense, this term refers to a seventeenth-century theological movement confined mainly to France and the Netherlands. Reincarnations of the original Jansenist movement arose in Italy (and elsewhere in
Europe) in the eighteenth century but varied greatly from region to region.
What is more, the agenda of these so-called Jansenist movements had
expanded to include theological, political, social, and even cultural elements. The movement’s new diversity is partly explained by eighteenthcentury Italy’s fractured politics; differing conditions among the dozen or
so independent states resulted in widely varying social, political, and theological preoccupations.10 Thus, to employ the term “Jansenist” is historically anachronistic, despite its widespread use at the time and later to
describe men like Tamburini.11 “Jansenism” is here used only when referring to the seventeenth–century movement or when quoting someone else,
otherwise opting to use terms such as “so-called Jansenist,” “philoJansenist,” or “Jansenist-like” in discussions of Italian Jansenism.
Tamburini’s influence while in Rome is understood mainly in the context of his association with the Archetto,12 a group founded in the mid-eighteenth century and which operated under the direction and patronage of
Cardinal Neri Corsini (1685–1770). The Archetto included both regular and
secular clergy who opposed the Jesuits and their theology.13 Its members
would later form the nucleus of the political faction in Rome that brought
about the suppression of the Society of Jesus. Along with Corsini, Mario
Marefoschi (1714–80) figured prominently in the heady days of the early
1770s. Appointed cardinal protector of the Irish College in 1771, Marefoschi was also given responsibility for organizing the initial papal visitations of
Jesuit institutions, which occurred that same year; and just two years later he
was named president of the committee overseeing the Jesuit suppression. An
9. Mario Rosa, “The Catholic Aufklärung in Italy,” in A Companion to the Catholic
Enlightenment in Europe, ed. Ulrich L. Lehner and Michael O’Neill Printy (Leiden, 2010),
pp. 215–248, here pp. 215–17.
10. Ettore Passerin d’Entrèves, “Giansenisti i illuministiche,” in La Cultura Illuministica in Italia, ed. Mario Fubini (Turin, 1957), pp. 189–207, here p. 190.
11. On this point, see the very informative book review by Eric Cochrane, “Riflessi
politici del giansenismo italiano by Carmelo Caristia,” The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 54,
No. 1 (Apr., 1968), pp. 172–174, who elicits two main problems with the term “Jansenism.”
12. See, for example, Fantini, “L’Epistolario di Pietro Tamburini,” pp. 406–07.
13. Giuseppe Pignatelli “Bottari, Giovanni Gaetano,” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 13 (1971),
http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/giovanni-gaetano-bottari_(Dizionario_Biografico),
retrieved on Oct. 1, 2015.

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275

outspoken opponent of the Jesuits, Marefoschi was an understudy of Rome’s
most noted Augustinian, Cardinal Domenico Passionei (1682–1761), himself deeply at odds with the Jesuits.14 By the 1760s there was little to distinguish Roman clerics like Passionei, who held rigid Augustinian views, from
philo-Jansenists such as Marefoschi or the so-called Jansenists with whom
Tamburini is frequently identified.15 At Passionei’s death, Marefoschi
assumed a leading role in the Archetto, providing Tamburini entrance into
the group.16 Marefoschi also opened up his vast personal library to members
of the Archetto to assist them in the production of anti-Jesuit works.17
Both Marefoschi and Tamburini had earlier experienced attempts by
the Jesuits to derail their careers. In Marefoschi’s case, he had been denied
the cardinalate in 1759 as a result of concerted efforts by the Society to
sway Clement XIII (1759–1767) from his original intention.18 Tamburini,
on the other hand, had encountered problems after completing his doctoral
thesis, in which he criticized the Jesuit doctrine known as Molinism, which
emphasized grace and human cooperation within the salvation process.19
14. Marina Caffiero, “Compagnoni Marefoschi, Mario,” Dizionario Biografico degli
Italiani, vol. 27 (1982),
http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/mario-compagnoni-marefoschi_(Dizionario_Biografico),
retrieved on July 2, 2013. See also Dammig, Il movimento giansenista a Roma, p. 234; and J.
M. Roberts, “Italian States,” in The New Cambridge Modern History, vol. 8 (rpt. Cambridge,
1976), pp. 378–96, here p. 392. Roberts’s article contains an interesting passage devoted to
Marefoschi and his theological associations. On Passionei, see Alberto Caracciolo, Domenico
Passionei tra Roma e la Repubblica delle lettere (Rome, 1968). For a discussion of Marefoschi’s
heightened presence in Rome after 1771, see Mario Rosa, “Riformismo religioso e
Giansenismo in Italia alla fine del Settecento,” in Pietro Tamburini e il Giansenismo Lombardo,
ed. Corsini and Montanari, pp. 1–30, here p. 11.
15. See the article by Dale van Kley, “Jansenism and the Suppression of the Jesuits,” in
The Cambridge History of Christianity: Enlightenment, Reawakening and Revolution, 1660–
1815, ed. Stuart J. Brown and Timothy Tackett (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 302–28, here p. 318.
See also Samuel J. Miller, Portugal and Rome c. 1748–1830: An Aspect of the Catholic Enlightenment (Rome, 1978), p. 16n; and Hugh Fenning, The Irish Dominican Province, 1698–1797
(Dublin, 1990), p. 630.
16. Ettore Passerin d’Entrèves, “La riforma ‘Giansenista’ della Chiesa e la lotta anticuriale in Italia nella seconda metà del Settecento,” Rivista storica italiana, LXXI (1959), 209–
34, here 211, observes that “in Rome, in the College of Cardinals one finds the most powerful
and illustrious friends of filojansenists and of rigorists (whether Jansenists or quesnellists).”
17. Guerrini, Carteggi bresciani inediti, p. 211; Giovanni Scarabelli, “L’autobiografia di
Pietro Tamburini,” in Pietro Tamburini e il Giansenismo Lombardo, ed. Corsini and Montanari, pp. 247–89, here p. 276.
18. Caffiero, “Compagnoni Marefoschi, Mario.” See also Dammig, Il movimento
giansenista, p. 234. He was eventually named cardinal in 1770.
19. Consult Ardusso, Natura e Grazia. His doctoral thesis is entitled: De summa catholicae de gratia Christi doctrinae praestantia dissertatio (Pavia, 1770).

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Jesuits in Brescia forced Tamburini out of the diocesan seminary where he
had been teaching, prevailing upon the bishop (and cardinal) who had
originally hired him, Giovanni Molino, to terminate Tamburini’s appointment.20 Fortunately for the young theologian, this event occurred early in
1772, which happened to be a propitious moment in Rome for men of his
theological leanings. Later that same year, Tamburini accepted an appointment at the Irish College.
His arrival in Rome in the spring of 1772 coincided with the international conspiracy against the Jesuits led by Spain, which was then reaching
its height.21 The young Brescian joined a new wave of non-Roman theologians who descended upon the capital during the pontificate of Pope
Clement XIV (r. 1769–74). Historians who discuss Tamburini’s association
with the Archetto invariably mention his exceptional ability to reconcile the
members’ varied theological viewpoints into a coherent message.22 It was this
group that Innocente Garlaschi had in mind when he observed that Tamburini developed many “parecchi [future collaborators].”23 But his rather short
stay in Rome has led some to conclude that Tamburini’s ideas never really
took hold there but were instead “rendered ephemeral by the subsequent
pontificate of Pius VI [beginning in 1775], which took a dim view of
Jansenists.”24 Tamburini’s relatively brief tenure—combined with the stark
ideological contrast between Clement XIV’s and Pius VI’s pontificates—has
likely contributed to historians’ neglect of this period in Tamburini’s life.
In terms of proselytizing in the eighteenth century by the so-called
Italian Jansenists, Ernesto Codignola discusses the Archetto’s “oral and
epistolary” outreach,25 emphasizing the group’s literary activities, such as
publishing and translation.26 But in his 1942 biography, Giovanni Man-

20. Guerrini, Carteggi bresciani inediti, p. 211; Scarabelli, “L’autobiografia di Pietro
Tamburini,” p. 273.
21. Pietro Stella, “Pietro Tamburini nel quadro del giansenismo italiano,” in Pietro
Tamburini e il Giansenismo Lombardo, ed. Corsini and Montanari, pp. 151–204, here p. 160
and n. See also Niccolò Guasti, “The Expulsion and Suppression in Portugal and Spain. An
Overview,” in The Jesuit Suppression in Global Context. Causes, Events, and Consequences, ed. J.
Wright and J. D. Burson (Cambridge, 2015), pp. 117–38.
22. Rosa, “Riformismo religioso,” p. 17.
23. Garlaschi, Vita cristianae rigorismo morale, p. 14 and n.
24. Rosa, “The Catholic Aufklärung,” pp. 242–46.
25. Codignola, Illuministi, giansenisti e giacobini, pp. 208–09. Fantini, “L’Epistolario di
Pietro Tamburini,” pp. 406–07.
26. Codignola, Illuministi, giansenisti e giacobini, pp. 208–09.

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277

tese makes no mention of Tamburini winning adherents to his cause while
in Rome.27
The significant theological influence Tamburini had on the Irish
Church represents an international component to the recruiting efforts of
so-called Jansenists within Italy and further afield, one that has hitherto
been unacknowledged in church historiography. By focusing primarily on
the connections, both direct and indirect, that Tamburini developed at the
Irish College in the 1770s and in the 1780s after his departure from Rome,
we will see not only that he transmitted his theology to those with whom
he came in contact, but that he did so with the approval and support of cardinal protector Mario Marefoschi.28 Archival sources from Dublin and
Rome are analyzed here, many for the first time, in order to trace Tamburini’s outreach to the Irish Church.
Tamburini’s associations with Jansenism fall into two categories. First,
his purely theological or spiritual ideas reflect the principles of early
Jansenist thinking in France, especially those of Cornelius Jansen’s
Augustinus. In his doctoral thesis on grace, completed in 1770, Tamburini,
like Jansen, criticized Jesuit views of salvation that juxtaposed free will with
God’s omniscience, an idea often referred to as Molinism. Instead, Tamburini argued for limiting the role of human free will in relation to salvation.29 Van Kley reminds us that this new generation of “Augustinian rigorists” took their theological lead from France, “allying a radical or
Jansenised Gallicanism with indigenous traditions of regalism.”30 This
regalism—the idea that the state controls its own ecclesiastical matters—
would be more fully realized in the Habsburg Empire of the 1780s, to
which Tamburini belonged.
The second set of associations between Tamburini and Italian
Jansenism was via the ecclesiastical reforms that took place in Lombardy
and Tuscany during the 1780s. Joseph I produced a series of measures,
known collectively as Josephism, which aimed at circumscribing papal
influence and enabling government to take more direct control of ecclesi27. Mantese, Pietro Tamburini, pp. 65–72. James O’Boyle, The Irish colleges on the continent (Dublin, 1935), p. 121.
28. Fantini, “L’Epistolario di Pietro Tamburini,” pp. 406–07.
29. See footnote 18.
30. Dale K. Van Kley, “Piety and politics in the century of lights,” in The Cambridge
History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought, ed. Mark Goldie and Robert Wokler (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 110–145, here p. 124, and what follows.

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PIETRO TAMBURINI’S JANSENIST LEGACY

astical affairs within its territory.31 Tamburini’s Vera idea della Santa Sede
(1784) argued for a similar reduction of papal influence, advocated for
parity among bishops within the Catholic Church, and underscored the
importance of church councils.32 Tamburini also supported a heightened
role for priests, especially in the election of bishops. This position clashed
with that of the Ultramontanes (and many ex-Jesuits), who argued for
papal primacy and a more rigid hierarchical structure within the Church.33
*****
The first evidence of Tamburini’s theological influence at the College
appeared in 1776, when a troubled Archbishop James Butler II of Cashel
asked Marefoschi to inquire into the “dubious” theologies of two returning
students, John Harlin and Charles Waters of Armagh.34 Butler was
regarded as a man of “eminently sound doctrine.”35 His letter to Marefoschi expressed concern that the two students held so-called Jansenist views.
Assuring Butler that approved doctrine was being taught at the College,
the cardinal protector then offered another explanation:
. . . the accusation that some of the clergy have Jansenist tendencies is too
vague and unproven and therefore not worthy of notice; the two Armagh
priests, who departed from the college, must have been influenced by
error elsewhere, though even this is unlikely in view of their characters.36

Marefoschi concluded his letter with an attempt to pacify Butler, commending the archbishop “for his straight-forwardness in raising the question with the authorities of the college.”37 Ironically, the cardinal protector
31. See Derek Beales, Enlightenment and Reform in Eighteenth-Century Europe
(London, 2005), pp. 287–308; and Joseph II: Against the World 1780–1790 (Cambridge,
2008), vol. 2, pp. 307–32.
32. Pietro Tamburini, Vera idea della Santa Sede (Pavia, 1784), chaps. 1–2.
33. See, for example, responses by Giovanni Vincenzo Bolgeni, Esame della Vera idea
della Santa Sede: operetta divisa in due parti e stampata in Pavia nel 1784 (Macerata, 1795), and
Mauro Cappellari, Il Trionfo della Santa Sede e della Chiesa contro gli assolti de’ novatori respinti
e combattuti colle stesse loro armi (Rome, 1799).
34. Dammig, Il movimento giansenista a Roma, p. 218.
35. Luigi Cuccagni, Rector of Irish College, to Archbishop James Butler II, July 20,
1776, as summarized in Mark Tierney, “A Short-Title Calendar of the Papers of Archbishop
James Butler II in Archbishop’s House. Thurles: Part 1, 1764–86,” Collectanea Hibernica, nos.
18–19 (1976–77), 105–31, here 112–13; available online at
http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 30004603.
36. Marefoschi to Butler, Apr. 13, 1778, Cashel Archives folder, Pontifical Irish College, Rome (hereafter cited as PICR), as summarized in Tierney, “A Short-Title Calendar,”
p. 116.
37. Ibid.

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279

had asked Tamburini to draft the response to Butler, revealing where his
true loyalty lay.38
The young Charles O’Connor provides further evidence of Marefoschi’s duplicity in a 1782 letter to his grandfather. O’Connor, who had
matriculated in 1779, confirms Marefoschi’s support of so-called Jansenists
within the Irish College:
I briefly and confusedly touch upon the ruling factions of Rome and the
part this College bore in them. I say bore, because those times are now all
over. The Emperor has called our partymen [i.e., prefects of studies Tamburini and Giambattista Marini (1778–1782)] to Pavia where he erects an
altar contra altars i.e. Rome. Cardinal [Marefoschi] is dead, and Cardinal
[Gregorio] Salviati, who may one day fill the Pontifical throne, has succeeded in his place. Jansenism (I do not deny it) has had its partisans here,
but, like other human institutions, it has suffered the turn of fortune.39

Indeed, the theological climate in Rome changed with the death of
Clement XIV in 1774 and the subsequent election of Pius VI the following
year. Jansenist-like ideas that had been allowed to thrive under Clement
would be slowly extinguished under Pius;40 as powerful as Marefoschi was
during Clement’s pontificate, his waning influence under Pius was equally
noticeable.41 By 1778, as his health declined, the cardinal protector of Ireland saw his appeals to Rome being circumvented by Irish clergy,42 and the
so-called Jansenists no longer felt welcome in the Eternal City. In fact,
nearly all of the Jansenist sympathizers who had made their way to Rome
during Clement XIV’s reign had departed by 1780; Tamburini was no different. He increasingly felt isolated and even discriminated against. At one
point in 1775 he complained that he was no longer eligible to receive dispensations to read prohibited books.43
38. Dammig, Il movimento giansenista a Roma, pp. 217–18; and Comini, Pietro Tamburini (1737–1827), p. 23.
39. O’Connor to his grandfather, Sept. 24, 1782, cited here from O’Riordan, “Rev.
Charles O’Conor D.D.,” pp. 247–48.
40. On the growing anti-Jansenist climate, see Van Kley, “Jansenism and the Suppression of the Jesuits,” pp. 324–27, and Scarabelli, “L’Autobiografia di Pietro Tamburini,” pp.
278–79.
41. Dammig, Il movimento, pp. 216–17, instances an ideological clash between Marefoschi and Pius VI.
42. Dublin, National Library of Ireland, Microfilm p5999, Abbe Belluzze, letter, June
2, 1778. Propaganda Fide encouraged clerics to write to them directly. Marefoschi died in
1780.
43. Fantini, “L’Epistolario di Pietro Tamburini,” p. 407.

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PIETRO TAMBURINI’S JANSENIST LEGACY

Despite these adverse circumstances, Tamburini was adept at connecting Irish students in Rome with members of his growing theological network in Italy. In 1777, while still prefect at the College, he wrote to Florentine Francesco Fontani about two (unnamed) Irishmen who were
“sojourning briefly in Florence” and asked him to introduce them to the
vicar general and to mutual friends in Pisa and Livorno.44 Among the
others Tamburini notified were two men referred to as “Jansenists”: Vincenzo Fassini and Antonino Boldovinetti.
Before Tamburini departed Rome in late 1778, he formed a few
important relationships at the Irish College. Archbishop Butler, who was
first alerted to Tamburini’s questionable theological teachings, would
unwittingly facilitate one of these relationships when he provided a letter
of support for the precocious John Lanigan to study in Rome.45
Lanigan arrived in September 1776 at the age of 16, following a long
and arduous journey from Ireland. Later, however, he would reflect upon
his time in Rome as “the most agreeable period of his career,” “the bright
hours” of his life.46 His tenure at the Irish College coincided with the
great theological reversal that took place, not only between the pontificates of Clement XIV and Pius VI but also between the College’s cardinal
protectors—Marefoschi (r. 1771–80) and his successor, Gregorio Salviati
(r. 1781–94)—as O’Connor mentions in the letter quoted above.
Described as Tamburini’s “disciple,” Lanigan excelled under his tutelage
and, according to one report, “distinguished” himself while a student.47
The relationship between Tamburini and Lanigan was given impetus by
Marefoschi himself, who encouraged the young Irishman to join Tamburini in Pavia: “this step was taken […] ‘under the advice and patronage
of Cardinal Marefoschi.’”48
When Salviati replaced Marefoschi as cardinal protector in 1781, Lanigan suddenly became a lightning rod for criticism. Intolerant of Jansenist
ideas, Salviati singled Lanigan out in 1783 not for his superior accomplishments in the classroom but for his questionable theology. In a letter to
Butler, the cardinal protector remarked on Lanigan’s “unsatisfactory”
44. Ibid., p. 434.
45. Fitzpatrick, Irish Wits and Worthies, p. 20.
46. Ibid., p. 38.
47. Maurice Vaussard, “Un episodio della storia del Giansenismo: le lettere di
Giuseppe Zola all’abate Mouton,” Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa, 3 (1966), 485–98,
here 488; and Fitzpatrick, Irish Wits and Worthies, p. 212.
48. Fitzpatrick, Irish Wits and Worthies, p. 39.

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281

progress and asserted that action must be taken.49 Furthermore, Lanigan
had not honored his earlier pledge to return to Ireland; instead, “he took a
detour and went with Tamburini, against my [i.e., Salviati’s] will.”50
Tamburini had been so impressed with Lanigan during their two years
together at the Irish College that he wanted his former pupil to come to Pavia
in order to instruct students in Divinity, Hebrew, and Ecclesiastical History.51
Lanigan’s initial teaching post in Pavia, beginning at some point after 1783,
was at the German-Hungarian College, where Tamburini had been prefect
of studies and theologian Guiseppe Zola, Tamburini’s close friend, was director.52 Five years later Lanigan was offered a position at the University of
Pavia, an appointment that Tamburini once again had arranged.53
As part of the Habsburg Empire and thus out of Rome’s reach, Pavia
was a hub of the so-called Jansenist movement in northern Italy and a popular place to publish such theological treatises.54 O’Connor’s earlier reference to “altar contra altars” resonates in this sense. Tamburini referred to
Pavia as the “queen city of the Catholic world” in acknowledgment of its
theological richness.55 Many contemporary scholars in Pavia contributed
meaningfully to the anti-Jesuit and philo-Jansenist movements, including
Zola, Francesco Alpruni, Martino Natali, and Gregory Fontana.
By the 1780s the so-called Jansenist movement had found common
cause with secular or political ideologies, such as the Catholic Aufklärung
and regalism, which dealt with laws of sovereignty, defending the “absolute
state,” combatting “clerical privileges and immunity,” and challenging the
papacy’s universal power.56 In this narrow sense Tamburini’s Vera idea della
Santa Sede and Josephist policies spoke the same language.57 Both political
and theological reformers valued the rights of the sovereign and shared the
same enemies: Molinists and (ex-)Jesuits.
49. Salviati to Butler, June 26, 1783, Cashel Archives folder (transcript), PICR.
50. Ibid.
51. Fitzpatrick, Irish Wits and Worthies, p. 39.
52. Scarabelli, “L’autobiografia di Pietro Tamburini,” p. 283.
53. Tamburini, letter dated Feb. 25, 1789, quoted in Mazzetti, “Relazioni,” p. 193.
54. See Rosa, “Riformismo religioso,” p. 16.
55. Ibid.
56. Rosa, “Roman Catholicism,” in Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, ed. Alan Kors
(Oxford, 2003), p. 469; also quoted in Rosa, “The Catholic Aufklärung,” pp. 217, 242, and
245; Rosa, “Riformismo religioso,” p. 17; Passerin, “Giansenisti i illuministiche,” pp. 192–94,
here p. 192. For more comparisons, see also the bibliography listed in footnote 34.
57. Passerin, “Giansenisti i illuministiche,” p. 196; Passerin, “La riforma ‘Giansenista’,”
p. 234.

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PIETRO TAMBURINI’S JANSENIST LEGACY

Lanigan’s response to Tamburini’s final (Pavian) overture poignantly
reveals the Irishman’s conflicting loyalties. He desired to take up the post
at the University of Pavia, yet realized that such an association would be
unacceptable to Rome and to many clerics in Ireland. Seminarians were
expected to return to their home dioceses upon completion of their training; in fact, students swore an oath to this effect at the commencement of
their studies, which made this issue a sensitive one when that pledge was
contravened. Ironically, in his 1772 visitation report on the Irish College,
Marefoschi had specifically criticized the Jesuits in Rome for persuading
students to serve in their own religious order, in effect stealing seminarians
from their sponsoring dioceses.58 Accepting an appointment anywhere
other than the place determined by one’s bishop required special permission; in Lanigan’s case, the decision belonged to Archbishop Butler. Aware
of his predicament, Lanigan embarked on a delicate path of prevarication.
When Lanigan first wrote to Butler about the offer, he did so in a way
that suggested his reluctance and uncertainty about the job:
I received this notice [of my election as professor] on Good Friday, and
immediately fell into a state of anxiety and agitation, which has not
ceased ever since to trouble me now and then, and to keep me in suspense
concerning the advisableness of my accepting of, or renouncing this
employment. […] I am still agitated with doubts.59

In hindsight, however, it is clear that Lanigan was less than forthright.
Had he not been interested, he could simply have declined the offer and
returned home, as promised. Instead, he affected a humble spirit of obedience in the spring of 1788, expressing his willingness to submit to the will
of the archbishop: “should your Grace think my assistance necessary in the
present circumstances of the diocese of Cashel, a word from your Grace
will be sufficient.”60 At the same time, he contrasted obedience with
opportunity, emphasizing the unique chance that the offer represented
and, in the process, revealing his true feelings:
. . . many foreigners resort to this University, which is at present in
extraordinary reputation, and particularly with respect to the Faculty of
Divinity, and as it is undoubtedly the most flourishing in Italy [. . . ,]
[there are] many great men who adorn this University.61

58. Mario Marefoschi, Relazione della Visita Apostolica del Collegio Ibernese (Rome, 1772).
59. Lanigan to Butler, Apr. 21, 1788, Cashel Archives folder (transcript), PICR.
60. Ibid.
61. Ibid.

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In order make the idea as palatable as possible, Lanigan fastidiously
avoided objectionable terms that would immediately have incited resistance on Butler’s part: Jansenism, Tamburini, Ricci, and Pistoia are never
mentioned in any of his correspondence. Instead, he spoke in generalities
about the extraordinary opportunity and attributed the position announcement not to Tamburini but to “the Vice President of the Tribunal of the
Government of Milan.”62 Yet this same letter indirectly reveals that it was,
in fact, Tamburini who instigated the offer, though Lanigan refers to him
only by his title: “thinking it now full time to return to Ireland, I discovered
my resolution on this to the Director of Studies, and was disposing myself
for my departure, when unexpectedly I received the notice that forms the
subject of this letter.”
Lanigan’s bluff was called when Bishop Moylan presented him with a
counter-offer to teach at the seminary in Cork.63 It became clear that Lanigan had coveted the position in Pavia all along while attempting—and
hoping, understandably—to keep his reputation free from any association
with Jansenism. Lanigan thanked Butler for the opportunity to teach in
Cork, but the seminarian’s consent, given in April, to submit freely to the
decision of church leadership was, by August, audaciously accompanied by
six demands, including exemption from financial and administrative duties
and from teaching all but two subjects. If Bishop Moylan agreed to these
conditions, Lanigan would then request a letter of invitation from Butler,
so as not to offend the Viennese court (never mind how Moylan and Butler
must have felt after reading his letter). Lanigan wrote, however, that he
was still “half inclined to accept [the offer at Pavia],”64 and a close reading
of his correspondence plainly shows his desire to avoid the appointment in
Cork and to remain in Pavia with Tamburini. In his list of demands to
Butler, Lanigan proposed that he teach only divinity and philosophy; but
in a letter to Butler written just a few months earlier, Lanigan noted that
in Pavia he had been teaching other subjects.65
Butler, persuaded by Lanigan’s doubletalk, finally gave his approval for
Lanigan to accept the position in Pavia; but James Connell’s letter to Butler,
62. Ibid.
63. John Lanigan to Archbishop Butler, Aug. 3, 1788, as summarized in Mark Tierney,
“A Short-Title Calendar of the Papers of Archbishop James Butler II in Archbishop`s House,
Thurles: Part 2, 1787–91,” Collectanea Hibernica, no. 20 (1978), pp. 92–93.
64. Ibid.
65. Lanigan to Butler, Apr. 21, 1788, and Aug. 3, 1788, Cashel Archives folder (transcript), PICR.

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written a few months later, left little room for ambiguity about “the refractory
disobedience of that unhappy, young man, ensnared and perverted by the artifices of that rank Jansenist [Tamburini].”66 Connell stated explicitly that
Lanigan had adopted so-called Jansenism while in Rome: “Mr. Lanigan has
been for several years in this school of error: he contracted an intimacy of such
a nature with Tamburini whilst they were both in the Irish College.”67
The next Irish student to fall under Tamburini’s sway was William
Howley, who, like Lanigan, evacuated Pavia in 1797 following the French
invasion. Friends since their youth, Howley and Lanigan shared a common
love for the northern Italian city: “He [Lanigan] renewed his friendship
with Howley, who one day exclaimed ‘God be with Pavia!’ Dr Lanigan’s
eyes filled up with tears at the allusion, as stirring reminiscences of the past
crowded on his mind.”68 Lanigan’s association with Howley apparently did
not enhance the latter’s reputation in Ireland. What Howley was doing in
Pavia is unknown, but his presence there was probably for theologicallyrelated reasons, as Fitzpatrick reports that he was rumored “to be tinged by
the tainted theology which overspread Austrian Italy.”69
The deep, positive associations that these two felt toward Tamburini
and Pavia may point to something more than just theological sympathies,
as has already been suggested in Lanigan’s case. On a personal level, Tamburini was said to be very likable, engaging, and warm. In 1777 close friend
and well-known Italian philo-Jansenist Fabio De Vecchi described Tamburini while the latter was still at the Irish College: “[Tamburini is] the
sincerest defender of the truth. He is neither imprudent nor fanatic. His
manners mesh with these maxims and his sweet [dolcezza] spirit is a
wonder and finds its way into the youth.”70

66. James Connell to Archbishop Butler, Nov. 1, 1788, Cashel Archives folder (transcript), PICR. An Irish agent in Rome, Luke Concanen, was also convinced that Lanigan was
a Jansenist (Concanen to John Troy, Archbishop of Dublin, June 10, 1797, Dublin Diocesan
Archives [hereafter cited as DDA], letters April–June 1797, Troy IV: 1797–99, Dublin).
67. James Connell to Archbishop Butler, 1 Nov. 1788, Cashel Archives folder (transcript), PICR.
68. Fitzpatrick, Irish Wits and Worthies, p. 175.
69. Ibid., pp. 89. Here, too, Fitzpatrick feels that Howley is misunderstood.
70. Fabio De Vecchi, quoted in Garlaschi, Vita Cristianae Rigorismo Morale, p. 14n. See
also Samuel J. Miller, “The Limits of Political Jansenism in Tuscany: Scipione de’ Ricci to
Peter Leopold, 1780–1791: Review Article” [of Lettere di Scipione de’ Ricci a Pietro Leopoldo,
1780–1791, by Bruna Bocchini Camaiani and Marcello Verga], The Catholic Historical
Review, 80, no. 4 (1994), 762–767, here 766. Miller notes the presence at the Synod of Pistoia of “some of the most vigorous purveyors of Jansenist views in Italy.”

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If anyone was qualified to speak on Tamburini’s character, it was De
Vecchi, who hosted Tamburini in his home for a few months upon his initial arrival in Rome until a room (and a position) became available at the
Irish College.71 But Lanigan and Howley would not be the only Irish
youths to form close personal bonds with the former prefect of studies.
Florence McCarthy of Cork matriculated at the Irish College a month
or so after Lanigan, on October 12, 1776, and remained there until his ordination in 1784.72 Thus he had two years of tutelage under Tamburini and four
years under Giambattista Marini, Tamburini’s protégé and his successor as
prefect of studies at the College.73 Marini had been a favored pupil under
Tamburini in Brescia while at seminary, ably defending his mentor’s theses
on grace in 1771.74 Marini also played a rather significant role in the Synod
of Pistoia (1786), according to one report sent to Rome.75 When appraising
Marini’s performance at the Irish College, Tamburini described him as an
“excellent student [scolaro]” for the seminarians as well as for Marefoschi.76
This characterization suggests that theological inroads had been made among
the Irish seminarians. Like Lanigan, Marini followed in Tamburini’s footsteps. In 1782, when his appointment as prefect of studies in Rome ended,
Marini, too, went to Pavia and resumed his theological teaching in a less-hostile environment, accepting a post at the German-Hungarian College as professor and vice-rector. The ideological links with Tamburini in McCarthy’s
case are slim but nonetheless worthy of mention. Tamburini corresponded
with him on at least one occasion. In his letter he discussed “various students”
who were at the College, which indicates a certain level of trust and discretion
between the two men.77 He also uses the same word to refer to McCarthy that
he used in a similar context to describe Marini: scolaro.78
Among all the Irish youths in Rome during this period, Edward
(henceforth “Odoardo”) Butler perhaps enjoyed the closest friendship with
71. Fantini, “L’Epistolario di Pietro Tamburini,” p. 407.
72. This information was provided to me by Vera Orschel, a very helpful former
archivist at the PICR.
73. Guerrini, Carteggi bresciani inediti, pp. 165, 173, and 175–76.
74. Ibid., p. 165n.
75. Martin Coen, “The Choosing of Oliver Kelly for the See of Tuam, 1809–15,” Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, 36 (1977–78), 14–29, here 25n.
76. Fantini, “L’Epistolario di Pietro Tamburini,” pp. 435–36.
77. Tamburini to McCarthy, n.d. (but post–1784), quoted in Rosa Zilioli Faden,
“Carte tamburiniane nell’archivio della Biblioteca Fornasini,” in Pietro Tamburini e il
Giansenismo Lombardo, ed. Corsini and Montanari, pp. 455–89, here p. 479.
78. Fantini, “L’Epistolario di Pietro Tamburini,” pp. 435–36.

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Tamburini, remaining in close contact with the Italian theologian for more
than a decade. For a while the two were inseparable, and Garlaschi reports
that they lived together in Pavia.79 They first met in Rome, where Butler
was one of Tamburini’s students; but there is no record of Butler’s presence
at the Irish College, though he could well have been a regular at the Archetto meetings.80 He is described as “talented, possessing probity of manners
and chaste honor.”81 Tamburini, just months after his departure from
Rome at the end of 1778, was already making inquiries on behalf of Butler
about attending a medical school in the north.82 By June 1779, he had confirmed that Butler would join him in Padua, presumably for a holiday.83
Two years later (in December 1781), Tamburini recommended him to the
“illustrious Professor” of clinical medicine Samuel August Tissot at the
University of Pavia, where Butler eventually completed his studies.84
The two often travelled together, taking many trips during the 1780s.
For example, in July 1782 Tamburini stayed with the “Irish youth” in Florence.85 In the middle of 1786, he expressed the hope that Butler would
again travel with him to Florence: “I would very much appreciate his company.”86 The respect and affection ran both ways: “many regards from the
optimum Irish youth Odoardo” ran a salutation in one of his letters.87
Tamburini’s closest confidants were also Odoardo’s, an indication of the
extent to which their worlds converged. The younger man sent greetings
from Tamburini to Zola and Bishop Ricci on numerous occasions.88 Likewise, Ricci frequently sent Odoardo greetings in his correspondence with
Tamburini.89

79. Garlaschi, Vita Cristianae Rigorismo Morale, p. 14.
80. Fantini, “L’Epistolario di Pietro Tamburini,” p. 420 and 420n.
81. Michele Uricchio, “Il Collegio Germanico-Ungarico di Pavia,” Bollettino della Società pavese di storia patria, 55 (1955), 33–64, here 54.
82. Fantini, “L’Epistolario di Pietro Tamburini,” p. 420. The inquiry took place in
April 1779.
83. Ibid.
84. Ibid., p. 450. On Irish studying medicine in Europe, Thomas O’Connor, “Ireland
in Europe, 1580–1815; some historiographical remarks,” in The Irish in Europe, 1580–1815
(Dublin, 2001), p. 14.
85. Ibid., pp. 420 and 436.
86. Tamburini, letter dated July 3, 1786, quoted in Mazzetti, “Relazione,” p. 175.
87. Tamburini, letter dated June 21, 1783, quoted in Mazzetti, “Relazione,” p. 159.
88. See, for example, Tamburini, letter dated Sept. 10, 1782, quoted in Mazzetti,
“Relazione,” p. 150.
89. See, for example, Ricci to Tamburini, Dec. 2, 1790, quoted in Guerrini, Carteggi
bresciani inediti, p. 208.

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287

The Irishman sometimes filled the role of an assistant to Tamburini,
presumably in advancing his theological cause: “Odoardo has distributed
100 copies of it [an unknown work] and [they] have inflamed all parts of
the city; I will send some copies to Tuscany.”90 The context suggests a controversial theological work. Butler also attended the Synod of Pistoia, evidently as Tamburini’s personal aide.
Tamburini was given the title “promotor” of the Synod, an indication
of his deep involvement in the assembly.91 One Ricci letter to Tamburini
reveals an active desire to grow their movement: “Give my respects to
friends[,] among those always Odoardo. See if he is able to return to Tuscany where it is much more serene than before, and where many are
repenting [si ravvedono], and the good cause acquires new proselytes.”92
In the end, around 230 clerics traveled to Pistoia and agreed upon the
eighty-six propositions of faith. This event was an attempt to make religion
more utilitarian.93 As it turned out, the synod represented the peak of church
reform in Tuscany. Conducted under the patronage of Grand Duke Peter
Leopold, a Habsburg and the more politically talented younger brother of
Joseph II, the synod advocated reforms similar to those implemented in
Habsburg territories in northern Italy. Its aim was to reduce direct papal
authority within Tuscany and to create a more autonomous church under
Leopold, with “rights to set the diriment impediments to marriage, to reform
or abolish religious orders, and to redraw parish boundaries.”94
By 1787 Odoardo was assuming a more prominent role in Tamburini’s
movement. The future medical doctor even composed a work on the jurisdiction of the parish—a key idea at Pistoia. He hoped to publish it and
“take various measures.”95 In 1790 Tamburini transmitted Butler’s draft to
Ricci, but the bishop felt that the moment was not right for publication.96

90. Tamburini, letter dated Dec. 27, 1783, quoted in Mazzetti, “Relazione,” p. 162.
91. Miller, “The Limits of Political Jansenism” [Book Review], p. 766. On the function
of a promoter, as a public manager, see Caeremoniale Romanum of Agostino Patrizi, Piccolomini (Venice, 1516; rpt. Ridgewood, NJ, 1965), fol. 60v. For a fuller account of this role at
Lateran V, see Nelson H. Minnich, “Paride de Grassi’s Diary of the Fifth Lateran Council,”
Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 14 (1982), 370–460, here 441–443.
92. Ricci to Tamburini, July 6, 1789, quoted in Guerrini, Carteggi bresciani inediti, p. 198.
93. Rosa, “The Catholic Aufklärung,” p. 242.
94. Van Kley, “Piety and politics,” p. 125.
95. Tamburini, letter dated July 25, 1787, quoted in Mazzetti, “Relazione,” p. 184.
96. Tamburini to Ricci, Mar. 1, 1790, quoted in Mazzetti, “Relazione,” p. 207; Ricci
to Tamburini, Mar. 13, 1790, quoted in Guerrini, Carteggi bresciani inediti, p. 202.

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Even after relations cooled between Tamburini and his former student, Odoardo’s keen interest in books never waned. On May 18, 1803, he
purchased manuscripts and monographs from the library at Bobbio at an
auction resulting from damage done by the invading French; he later
bequeathed his collection to the town.97 Bobbio bears an indelible Irish
stamp, which was perhaps Butler’s motivation for this charitable act. In the
seventh century, St. Columbanus (543–615) founded one of the great Italian abbeys there, bestowing upon the area a great center of learning and
exemplifying the impact of Irish missionary activity in Europe. The saint’s
name would be adopted much later as the nom de plume of another Irishman who penned a half dozen or so polemical pamphlets and would be
viewed as a philo-Jansenist.
Charles O’Connor was the grandson and namesake of the famed eighteenth-century Irish intellectual who was one of the founding members of
the Royal Irish Academy.98 A student at the Irish College in Rome from
1779 to 1786, the younger O’Connor later became linked to the so-called
Jansenist movement. O’Connor matriculated at the College when he was
just fifteen, in accordance with the wishes of his father.99 Known for “studious instincts” as a young man, he collected early medieval Irish manuscripts, acquired from many of Europe’s richest libraries.100 His true notoriety came after 1810, however, in connection with his controversial series
of polemics written under the pen name Columbanus.
O’Connor’s convergence with Tamburini’s world seemed unlikely
after the young man began employment under Luigi Cuccagni, rector at
the Irish College and Tamburini’s theological nemesis. While Cuccagni
and Tamburini had both been brought to Rome under the protection of
Marefoschi in the early 1770s, they drifted apart following Pius VI’s elevation in 1775, splitting irrevocably after Marefoschi’s death in 1780.
Cuccagni sided with curial authorities to oppose philo-Jansenist ideas he
had embraced a decade earlier. For a few years O’Connor translated articles
for Cuccagni’s polemical Giornale Ecclesiastico, the leading curial antiJansenist publication from 1785 to 1798.101 In September 1786, O’Connor
97. La Rassegna della letteratura italiana, 43–44 (1935–36), p. 135.
98. Charles O’Conor, “Origins of the Royal Irish Academy,” Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 38 (1949), 325–37.
99. Liber XIX, fol. 104v, PICR.
100. Thomas Seccombe, “Charles O’Conor,” in Dictionary of National Biography, vol.
41 (1895), p. 412.
101. Hugh Fenning, “Irishmen ordained at Rome, 1572–1697,” Archivium Hibernicum
[hereafter AH], 59 (2005), 1–36, here 32.

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289

was asked to remain in Rome, a request that the young Irishman described
to Tamburini in a letter: “the superiors are extremely kind to me and the
Cardinal [Salviati] will not only give me leave to remain another year but
even insists on my staying until May ’88.”102 By his own account, O’Connor wished to stay in Rome and greatly enjoyed these years. In the same
letter to Tamburini he noted: “‘nothing else [except this present illness]
could make me tired of my Ludovisian [Irish College] existence.’”104 A
1788 report from James Connell to Archbishop Butler and Archbishop
Troy of Dublin, the gatekeepers of orthodoxy in Ireland, gave no hint of
the theological transformation that was taking place inside O’Connor: “If
no opportunity should sooner offer itself, I will send them [i.e., relics] by
Mr O’Connor, a very worthy young man, who having already ended his
studies in the Irish College will next year return to Ireland.”105
Between late 1788 and early 1789, however, he and Cuccagni became
embroiled in a very unpleasant dispute. O’Connor accused Cuccagni of
exploiting him for his (unpaid) translating services to the Giornale Ecclesiastico. In 1790 O’Connor published details of the feud in a blistering salvo
against Cuccagni and his administration of the Irish College.106 Cuccagni
fired off a dismissive one-page response in March 1791, published in the
Giornale Ecclesiastico under the name of Giuseppe Bianchi, the College
cook.107 Cuccagni’s references to Pavia and Jansenism in connection with
O’Connor reveal another aspect of this conflict.108 It was clear to Cuccagni

102. O’Connor to [Tamburini?], Sept. 30[?], 1786, quoted in O’Riordan, “Rev.
Charles O’Conor D.D.,” p. 257.
103. Fenning, “Irishmen ordained at Rome,” p. 32.
104. O’Riordan, “Rev. Charles O’Conor D.D.,” p. 257, Sept. 30, 1786. Cardinal
Ludovico Ludovisi (1595–1632) established the Irish College in 1625 with an annual endowment, and the first seminarians took up residence there in 1628. On its beginnings, see Pontifical Irish College Rome, Collegium Hibernorum de Urbe 1628–1678 [The Irish College, Rome
1628–1678: An early manuscript account of the foundation and development of the Ludovisian College of the Irish in Rome] (Rome, 2003).
105. James Connell to Archbishop Butler, Nov. 1, 1788, Cashel Archives folder (transcript), PICR.
106. Pre-Cullen, NC-3, folder 2, PICR; this folder contains a transcribed copy of the
original tract, which was published on Nov. 19, 1790, in the philo-Jansenist journal Annali
Ecclesiastici di Firenze. The work is entitled, Lettera scritta dal sig. ab. D. Carlo O’Connor
all’em.o sig.r card.e Gregorio Salviati, protettore del Collegio Irlandese di Roma, intorno a D. Luigi
Cuccagni, ec.
107. “Risposta di Giuseppe Bianchi da Gubbio Cuoco del Collegio Ibernese di Roma,”
published in short form in the Giornale Ecclesiastico di Roma (1791), p. 47.
108. Collegi Vari, b. 34, Irlandese (1655–1848), fols. 29r and 32v, Archivio della Propaganda Fide.

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that Tamburini and company were behind this latest personal attack, and
that O’Connor was merely a pawn in the larger personal and theological
dispute between the two older rivals.
That he published his attack in Annali Ecclesiastici di Firenze constitutes compelling proof of O’Connor’s philo-Jansenist sympathies.109 Annali
was known as a “Tamburini production,” and its circulation in Rome had
been prohibited since 1786.110 In addition, it was both the chief target of
Cuccagni’s Giornale Ecclesiastico and the mouthpiece for the Synod of Pistoia, attempting to legitimize its proceedings. The following year offered
further evidence of O’Connor’s active participation in the so-called
Jansenist cause: Giuseppe Zola wrote of a certain “Sig [Signore] Colombo
[Columbanus]” who was involved in the distribution of 50 copies of one of
Zola’s works. O’Connor, who would later adopt this moniker, acted as a
conduit to get these tomes into the hands of “macenate” [patrons].111
There are clues as well in O’Connor’s past that could explain his theological affinities or transformations. While O’Connor never knew Tamburini personally, he entered the Irish College while Marefoschi was cardinal protector and Marini was the prefect of studies.112 He spent three
years under Marini’s tutelage. A report concluded that Marini’s “influence
on Charles O’Connor and others […] was regarded as not good.” A revealing letter from 1784 confirms the good rapport that O’Connor had with
Marini and the ideas he espoused. O’Connor identified three theological
strands in Rome: Molinists, semi-Molinists, and Jansenists. Critical of all
three, O’Connor nevertheless considered Jansenism acceptable to his theological senses, calling the cause “ever so good.”113
Thus far this study has highlighted Tamburini’s recruitment of young
Irishmen mainly via the Irish College to his theological cause in Italy. It
has also discussed the type of theology he advocated, one that was in sync
with Josephist tendencies throughout the Habsburg-held areas of northern
Italy. In transnational terms, Tamburini’s theology affected another Irish

109. See also Van Kley, “Piety and politics,” p. 124.
110. Bruna Bocchini Camaiani, “Gli ‘Annali Ecclesiastici’ e Pietro Tamburini,” in
Pietro Tamburini e il Giansenismo Lombardo, ed. Corsini and Montanari, pp. 307–30, here
p. 307.
111. Zola letter, Feb. 28, 1791, quoted in Guerrini, Carteggi bresciani inediti, pp.
228–29.
112. Guerrini, Carteggi bresciani inediti, pp. 165, 173, and 175–76.
113. O’Connor to [Marini?], Nov. 15, 1784, quoted in O’Riordan, “Rev. Charles
O’Conor D.D.,” pp. 250–51.

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seminary on the Continent. His ideas were blamed for the problems that
occurred at the college in Salamanca beginning in the late 1790s.114 The
college’s conservative rector, Patrick Curtis, spoke of “great evils” that
would befall the institution “if it attaches itself to Peter Tamburini rather
than to Rome.”115 According to Curtis, the ideas emanating from the
Synod of Pistoia and propagated enthusiastically by the archbishop of Salamanca, Antonio Tavira, created a morally lax atmosphere in which some
students fell into the habit of carousing in the city at night and took to
drunkenness.116 A seminarian named Timothy Carey “possessed uncommon abilities” but was habitually drunk and involved in other acts of
“public immorality.”117 Such was the influence of Tavira, “the herald of
Spanish Jansenists,” that Curtis averred, “All of the Salamancan youth is
Port-Royalist, of the Pistoian variety.”118
The ecclesiastical leadership in Ireland was likewise convinced that
Tamburini’s ideas were the source of the problem. Curtis, known by his
detractors as “Cortez,” warned the archbishops of Ireland about Tamburini’s influence in 1800, as he unsuccessfully attempted to submit his
resignation.119 Based on Curtis’s reports, Archbishop Troy also linked the
college’s anarchical state to Tavira’s Jansenist-like doctrines, which Troy
deemed “most dangerous.”120 In this context Troy observed, “instead of
regretting the injunction of not sending students thither, I rejoice at it, as
it is better to have ignorant or no priest, than any disciple of Ricci or
Tamburini.”121

114. See Patricia O’Connell, “The early-modern Irish college network in Iberia, 1590–
1800,” in The Irish in Europe: 1580–1815, ed. Thomas O’Connor (Dublin, 2001), pp. 49–64,
here pp. 54–57.
115. Dr Curtis to Archbps of Ireland, Apr. 3, 1800, quoted in Claude Meagher, “Calendar of the Papers of Dr. Bray, archbishop of Cashel and Emly (1792–1820),” Journal of the
Cork Historical and Archaeological Society (hereafter cited as JCHAS), LXXIV (Jan–Dec 1969),
40–70, here 54.
116. Hugh Fenning, “Troy to Bray: Letters from Dublin to Thurles, 1792–1817,”
Archivium Hibernicum (hereinafter cited as AH), 55 (2001), pp. 48–125, here pp. 92–3. Letter
of August 14, 1800.
117. Ibid.
118. Andrea J. Smidt, “Bourbon Regalism and the Importation of Gallicanism: The
Political Path for a State Religion in Eighteenth-Century Spain,” Anuario de Historia de la
Iglesia, 19 (2010), 47–48.
119. Dr Curtis to Archbps of Ireland, Apr. 3, 1800, quoted in Meagher, “Calendar of
Bray Papers,” p. 54.
120. Troy to Bray, July 8, 1800, quoted in Fenning, “Troy to Bray,” p. 90.
121. Troy to Bray, July 17, 1800, quoted in Ibid., p. 91.

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In a way, the Irish College in Salamanca was a microcosm of the larger
drama being played out in Spain, as the Spanish Church was divided
between liberal anti-clerics, who shared some theo-political ideas with followers of Tamburini, and Catholic conservatives, who upheld strong links
with Rome. This clerical division developed after the Jesuit suppression in
1767 and the gradual accumulation of power by Jansenist-type political
and ecclesiastical forces. The height of so-called Spanish Jansenism
occurred in the late 1780s with the infiltration of ideas articulated at the
Synod of Pistoia.122 Such was the status of the movement within Spain that
it triggered a backlash, and Spanish clergy soon found themselves divided
into the two above-mentioned camps.
While Tamburini’s theology spread to other Continental Irish colleges, the College in Rome remained rather isolated. In this sense, it was
unique among the vast Irish network of Continental seminaries. No Irishman was employed there during the period between the Jesuit and French
suppressions (1773–1790s), in contrast to the college in Lisbon, for example, where the Irish were fully in control after its reopening in 1778.123 And
all Irish colleges in France had Irishmen present in some operational
capacity. In Rome, however, the Italian rector Luigi Cuccagni insulated
the College from outside influences, allowing his own theological enterprises to go unchecked. The O’Connor scandal, mentioned earlier,
revealed this; as a result, correspondence and links with the other Irish colleges were restricted to several letters by Cuccagni to Irish bishops over a
thirty-year period. What is more, students at the College were too young
to have had any effect on their Continental peers. Most were between 14
and 17 when they left Ireland, and the two and a half months or so needed
to reach Rome at this time meant that visits home were rare and generally
occurred only at the conclusion of one’s studies. Thus the meaningful
interplay between Rome and the other Irish Continental colleges was limited to Tamburini’s Jansenist theology.
But what relevance did Tamburini’s influence on Irish seminarians
have within the Irish Church? Nearly all of those seminarians discussed
above eventually returned to Ireland and found obstacles in the way of their
aspirations. The exception may have been Florence McCarthy, with whom
122. Andrea J. Smidt, “Luces por la Fe: The Cause of Catholic Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Spain,” in A Companion to the Catholic Enlightenment in Europe, ed. Lehner
and Printy, pp. 403–452, here pp. 439–46.
123. Patricia O Connell, The Irish College at Lisbon 1590–1834 (Dublin, 2001), pp.
41, 44.

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293

Tamburini had some limited and apparently secret contact. But Dr.
Howley’s career, for example, seems to have been adversely affected by his
Jansenist associations; he remained a priest in the village of Clerihan (at
that time in the diocese of Cashel) until his death in 1825, stuck in a position that Fitzpatrick described as “second-rate.”124
The person most damaged by his relationship with Tamburini was
John Lanigan, who was arguably Ireland’s best historian in the early part of
the nineteenth century. In 1822 he published a four-volume work entitled
Ecclesiastical History of Ireland from the first introduction of Christianity
among the Irish to the beginning of the thirteenth century. A second edition
followed in 1829. Even today, critics still speak positively of Lanigan’s
scholarship on the medieval period of Irish history. Felim Ó Briain praised
Lanigan’s “critical discernment” and called his work “one of the finest
pieces of research on ecclesiastical history during this period.”125 Proof of
his superior scholarship was the extensive referencing in his footnotes.126
According to historian Timothy Corcoran:
From 1799 to 1822 Dr. Lanigan worked steadily at his Ecclesiastical History of Celtic Ireland, and the result has been of enduring value. Orderly
in method, severely rigorous in statement, precise and logical in his comment, this very fine example of judicial impartiality and reserve may be
supplemented, but it cannot be displaced.127

Despite his talent, Lanigan’s well had been poisoned by Tamburini:
the young Irishman’s decision to take the job in Pavia had serious consequences for his career in Ireland, as it was the reason he was denied the
professorship in ecclesiastical history at the recently-opened Maynooth
College. Forced out of Pavia by the Revolution, he had begun searching for
opportunities in Ireland and appeared to have luck on his side when
Thomas Clancy suddenly resigned from his position in church history in
the summer of 1795.128 Founded that same year, Maynooth had been created by the Irish parliament in response to the political problems developing on the Continent, which ultimately resulted in the closure of nearly all
of the Irish colleges on the Continent. The Irish Parliament agreed to sup124. Fitzpatrick, Irish Wits and Worthies, pp. 175–77.
125. Felim Ó Briain, “The Expansion of Irish Christianity to 1200: An Historiographical Survey. Part I,” Irish Historical Studies, 3, no. 11 (1943), 241–266, here 241.
126. Donald MacCartney, “The Writing of History in Ireland, 1800–30,” Irish Historical Studies, 10, no. 40 (1957), 347–62, here 350.
127. Corcoran, “Ireland and Pavia,” p. 598.
128. Patrick J. Corish, Maynooth College, 1795–1995 (Dublin, 1995), p. 31.

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PIETRO TAMBURINI’S JANSENIST LEGACY

port Maynooth in part so that it could monitor more closely the theological
formation of Irish priests.
In July 1795, as political uncertainty swirled in northern Italy, Lanigan
wrote to Dr. Thomas Bray, Butler’s successor as archbishop of Cashel
(1792–1820) and one of Maynooth’s trustees, offering to replace Clancy.129
But Lanigan was not the only person lobbying the archbishop. In April
1797, as the matter began heating up, Archbishop Troy asked Bray to
delay a decision on Lanigan until the following January, when more
prelates, including Bishop Moylan, would be in attendance.130 Concerns
about Lanigan were finally brought out into the open in early 1798; Troy
believed it prudent to ask him to sign a formal declaration affirming his
unqualified acceptance of Clement XI’s Unigenitus (1713), which condemned the major tenets of Jansenism, and Pius VI’s Auctorem Fidem
(1794), which condemned the propositions formulated at the Synod of
Pistoia.131 Incensed by this request, Lanigan refused to sign the declaration
and was therefore denied the position.132
Few in Ireland could have known at the time that Lanigan had signed
another document eight years earlier endorsing the same theology he
would have had to reject in order to teach at Maynooth. On June 25, 1790,
Lanigan had added his name to a letter of protest against changes proposed
by the Austrian government which would have more strictly regulated the
curriculum within the University at Pavia.133 Lanigan was joined by Tamburini and Zola, among others, in professing allegiance to the university’s
core principles, which were essentially a synopsis of certain Jansenist
beliefs. The document outlines an adherence to Augustinian principles and
to the four Gallican articles from 1682, which called for limits to be placed
on papal power.134
Perhaps the only person to provide published material linking his own
ideas with those of Tamburini was Charles O’Connor. Historian James
Sack describes the seven-part series of pamphlets that O’Connor published
129. Claude Meagher, “Calendar of the Papers of Dr Bray, Archbishop of Cashel and
Emly (1792–1820),” Pt. II, JCHAS, 62, no. 218 (1968), 81–113, here 112. John Lanigan to
Bray, July 20, 1795.
130. Troy to Bray, Apr. 15, 1797, quoted in Fenning, “Troy to Bray,” p. 78.
131. Troy to Bray, Jan. 1798, quoted in Ibid., p. 81.
132. Fitzpatrick, Irish Wits and Worthies, pp. 86–88.
133. Marco Bernuzzi, “Lo spazio universitario del giansenismo pavese,” in Pietro Tamburini e il Giansenismo Lombardo, ed. Corsini and Montanari, pp. 291–305, here p. 300.
134. Bernuzzi, “Lo spazio universitario del giansenismo pavese,” pp. 300–301n.

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295

under the pseudonym “Columbanus” between 1810 and 1813 as “attempts
to reinvigorate the Gallican tradition in the Roman Catholic Church of
the United Kingdom—a tradition fallen upon hard days since the commencement of the nineteenth century.”135 The Gallican tradition is, of
course, originally associated with medieval France and the monarch’s
desire for more ecclesiastical autonomy from Rome.136 Nonetheless, Archbishop Troy discerned what he believed was the true ideological root: he
called O’Connor “a true son of Tamburini.”137
*****
Contrary to the assertions outlined at the beginning of this article,
Tamburini’s theological influence was pervasive and long-lasting among
the Irish clergy. From Rome to Pistoia, from Salamanca to Dublin, Tamburini both attracted and (mainly) repelled Irish seminarians. His influence
stemmed from the combination of his alluring personality and a clarity and
coherence of ideas that few of his opponents could match. His impact on
the Irish church spanned six decades, from his entrance to the Irish College as its director of studies in 1773 to the death of John Lanigan in 1825.
That no one has investigated Tamburini’s proselytizing efforts reveals
a gap in our understanding of the so-called Italian Jansenist movement.
Until now church historians’ focus has understandably been on the content
of the doctrines and their distinctive characteristics from region to region.
With this study of Tamburini’s influence on the Irish seminarians, we can
begin to understand how Philo-Jansenism grew within the Church.
National colleges were opportune places to spread controversial theological
concepts. Abroad, perhaps for the first time, seminarians were young,
impressionable, open-minded, and far from their familiar (diocesan)
supervisors. Assessed from a longer perspective, the national colleges as a
whole were exploited for their most valuable assets—their students. Jesuits
were charged with unethical recruiting practices prior to 1773; after this
date, Tamburini used similar tactics, albeit in the opposite theological
direction; and later still, rector Cuccagni comandeered the services of at
least one young man—and probably more—for his own personal theological initiatives. In every case, the national church and the students’ sponsoring dioceses suffered as a result of these opportunistic practices.
135. James J. Sack, “The Grenvilles’ ‘Eminence Grise’: The Reverend Charles O’Conor
and the Latter Days of Anglo-Gallicanism,” Harvard Theological Review, 72 (1979), 123–42,
here 137.
136. Smidt, “Bourbon Regalism,” p. 28n.
137. Coen, “The Choosing of Oliver Kelly,” p. 26.

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The unorthodox theological training that these Irish seminarians
received not only rendered them ineffective in their own national church,
but, worse still, they were even perceived as liabilities or threats. The College’s brightest pupil during this period, John Lanigan, was effectively
silenced and prevented from teaching after his return to Ireland, despite
achieving near celebrity status in Europe. Likewise, O’Connor, in many
respects, came to be viewed as a nemesis of the Irish Church. Instead of
being trained for service as they were intended to be, these followers of
Tamburini came to represent internal threats to the Church’s health and
vibrancy. As the modern historian Thomas O’Connor has observed,
“People who leave a country do not necessarily cease to act as historical
players there: rather they assume new roles, enter novel networks of
patronage and exercise influence indirectly.”138 Those men associated with
Tamburini did indeed enter new networks of patronage while on the Continent, but, as a result, they would be deprived of any meaningful new roles
or influence upon their return to Ireland.

138. Thomas O’Connor, “Ireland in Europe,” p. 10.

Ignatian Radicalism:
The Influence of Jesuit Spirituality
on Dorothy Day
BENJAMIN T. PETERS*
While celebrated in U.S. Catholicism, Dorothy Day (1897–1980) is
often marginalized in American Catholic scholarship. One of the ways
this marginalization has occurred is by depicting the sources of her theological vision—particularly “the retreat” she embraced in the 1940s—
as “Jansenist” or “perfectionist.” But “the retreat” has also been portrayed
in other ways, and this article will examine the argument that its theology is rooted in the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises and a strain of Jesuit
spirituality that includes early modern Jesuits such as Louis Lallement,
Jean-Joseph Surin, and Jean Pierre de Caussade. Such an alternative
understanding not only retrieves “the retreat” from the margins; it also
links Day with other kindred spirits in Ignatian spirituality.
Keywords: Dorothy Day, Ignatian spirituality, Louis Lallemant,
John Hugo

I

n the December 1951 issue of the Catholic Worker newspaper, Dorothy
Day (1897–1980) included an obituary for a French-Canadian Jesuit
named Onesimus Lacouture (1881–1951), the originator of “the retreat”
that she had enthusiastically embraced a decade earlier and which she
would later memorialize in her autobiography, The Long Loneliness. Noting
that Lacouture had been one of twenty-one children in his family—his
father had married twice—Day wrote,
Doesn’t that sound like the beginning of the life of a saint? Peter Maurin
was one of twenty-three children. These two men who had the most
influence on my life (and so in a way on the life of the Catholic Worker)
were both French peasants, of France and French Canada. They both
knew the life of the land and of the city. Both were men of the poor.1

*Dr. Peters is an associate professor of theology at the University of Saint Joseph in
Connecticut and the author of Called to be Saints: John Hugo, the Catholic Worker, and a Theology of Radical Christianity (Marquette University Press 2016), email: bpeters@usj.edu.
1. Dorothy Day, “Death of Father Onesimus Lacouture, S.J.,” The Catholic Worker
(Dec. 1951), p. 1.

297

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IGNATIAN RADICALISM

For Day, Lacouture and his theology had a deeply profound effect and—
along with Maurin—she saw the French-Canadian Jesuit as having had
“the most influence” on her life and the Catholic Worker. “I am completely
sold on this retreat business,” she wrote in 1941, “I think it will cure all ills,
settle all problems, bind up all wounds, strengthen us, enlighten us, and in
other words make us happy.”2 And indeed, others would later credit the
retreat—which Day called “bread for the strong”—as having brought about
a “second conversion” in her life.3
Despite such high praise from Day, the theology operative in Lacouture’s retreat has often been portrayed by contemporary scholars in much
more negative terms. For instance, J. Leon Hooper, S.J., has suggested that
the retreat was “filled with Jansenistic suspicion of the body” and that its
“wholesale rejection of the natural” could be understood only as “a flirting
with the Jansenism of which Lacouture was (accurately) accused.”4 Not to
be outdone, James T. Fisher described the retreat theology as being
“imbued with the bitterly mystical, ‘gloomy Catholicism’ which wedded
the Jansenism of Port Royal to the harsh struggle for Catholic survival in
Canada.”5 And he described Lacouture’s “ethnic Jansenism” as having
blended potently with Day’s more “aesthetic Jansenism” to help form what
Fisher declared to be “one of the most abject brands of self-abnegation in
American religious history.”6
2. Dorothy Day to Gerry Griffin, June 18, 1941, All the Way to Heaven: The Selected
Letters of Dorothy Day, ed. Robert Ellsberg (Milwaukee, 2010), p. 125.
3. Rosalie Riegle, Dorothy Day: Portraits by Those Who Knew Her (Maryknoll, NY,
2003), p. 83.
4. J. Leon Hooper, S.J., “Dorothy Day’s Transposition of Thérèse’s ‘Little Way,” Theological Studies 63, no. 1 (2002), 68–82, here 76, n. 23. J. Leon Hooper, “Murray and Day: A Common Enemy, A Common Cause?” U.S. Catholic Historian 24 (Winter 2006), 45–61, here 57.
5. James T. Fisher, The Catholic Counterculture in America, 1933–1962 (Chapel Hill,
NC, 1989), p. 59. Hooper suggested that Fisher’s study “revels in Day’s alleged Jansenism”
(“Dorothy Day’s Transposition,” p. 76, n. 23).
6. Fisher, The Catholic Counterculture, p. 60, p. 1. While this term can often be thrown
around rhetorically, it should be remembered that Jansenism is a technical term that refers to
the five propositions condemned in 1653 by Pope Innocent X in Cum occasione:
1. Some of God’s precepts are impossible for the just, who wish and strive to keep them,
according to the present powers which they have; the grace, by which they are made
possible, is also wanting.
2. In the state of fallen nature one never resists interior grace.
3. In order to merit or demerit in the state of fallen nature, freedom from necessity is not
required in man, but freedom from external compulsion is sufficient.
4. The Semipelagians admitted the necessity of a prevenient interior grace for each act, even
for the beginning of faith; and in this they were heretics, because they wished this grace
to be such that the human will could either resist or obey.

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Such characterizations of the theology that deeply shaped Dorothy
Day are not insignificant. This study argues that depictions like those
made by Hooper and Fisher have greatly contributed to the way in which
Day and others associated with the Catholic Worker have been characterized as “sectarian” and out of step with traditional Catholic theology.7 In
fact, Fisher’s depiction of Lacouture’s theology goes a long way in shaping
Eugene McCarraher’s argument that, because of their rejection of the
middle-class materialist aspirations of their fellow Catholics, Day and
others associated with the Catholic Worker movement are ultimately
“irrelevant” to American Catholicism.8
But while descriptions of the retreat as Jansenist seem to prevail in
American Catholic scholarship—influencing the way Day and others have
been perceived—it is certainly not the only way that Lacouture’s theological
vision can be or has been interpreted. In fact, a quite different depiction of
Lacouture’s retreat was offered by Fr. John J. Hugo (1911–85) two generations ago. Hugo, a Pittsburgh priest, was Dorothy Day’s spiritual director
for much of the 1940s and ’50s, and was perhaps the greatest promulgator
of the retreat in English-speaking countries (Figure 1).9 Throughout the
5. It is Semipelagian to say that Christ died or shed His blood for all men without exception.
(This papal bull is here cited from Henry Denzinger, ed., The Sources of Catholic Dogma, trans.
Roy J. Deferrai [St. Louis, 1957], pp. 1092–96.)
7. While Hooper and Fisher portray Hugo and the retreat in similar terms, their
accounts of Dorothy Day greatly differ.
8. See Eugene McCarraher, “The Church Irrelevant: Paul Hanly Furfey and the
Fortunes of American Catholic Radicalism,” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of
Interpretation 7, no. 2 (1997), 163–94, here 186.
9. Day met Lacouture only once—in 1947, around eight years after he had been
prohibited from leading retreats by his Jesuit superiors—and so he turned down her request
to lead a retreat for her. By this time, though, Day was already quite familiar with “the retreat”
and had been writing about it for some time. Day made her first retreat under Hugo’s
direction in the summer of 1941 at St. Anthony’s Village, an orphanage in Oakmont,
Pennsylvania where Hugo was leading retreats with Fr. Louis Farina. Immediately following
that retreat, Day asked Hugo to lead the annual Catholic Worker retreat the following month
at Maryfarm in Easton, Pennsylvania. Day made another retreat with Hugo in 1942. Hugo
lost permission from his bishop to lead retreats in the Fall of 1942, but he and Day stayed in
close contact and Hugo wrote several articles for the Catholic Worker over the next decade or
so. Hugo also directed Day’s “sabbatical year” in 1943, though he did not lead another retreat
until 1957. Day’s understanding of Lacouture’s spirituality, then, was clearly mediated
through Hugo, as well as Pacifique Roy, S.S.J. (d. 1954). It should be noted, though, that
there were differences between Lacouture and Hugo. For instance, Jack Downey has suggested that Lacouture was much less inclined toward the outward-looking social Catholicism
of the Catholic Worker. See Jack Downey, “The Strong Meat of the Gospel: ‘Lacouturisme’
and the Revival of Asceticism in North America,” American Catholic Studies, 122, no. 4
(2011), 1–22. In addition, Lacouture led retreats almost exclusively for clergy, while Hugo

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IGNATIAN RADICALISM

FIGURE 1. Rev. John J. Hugo, courtesy of the Department of Special Collections
and University Archives, Marquette University Libraries.

1940s—during a period in which he himself was prevented from preaching
the retreat by his bishop—Hugo wrote several works defending the retreat
theology in response to criticisms of it made by some of the most prominent
U.S. Catholic theologians of the day. These critics had accused the retreat
of promoting an “exaggerated supernaturalism” with Jansenist tendencies—
charges not all that unlike those made more recently by Fisher and Hooper.
Central to Hugo’s defense was his claim that Onesimus Lacouture, S.J., was
not a world-denying Jansenist; rather that he was “a true disciple” of St.
Ignatius of Loyola and that the retreat was rooted in Ignatius’s Spiritual
Exercises and Jesuit spirituality.
Hugo’s argument here is significant for many reasons, not the least of
which is that it directly challenges the contemporary portrayals of the retreat
opened his retreats up to laity. While these and other differences are certainly important to
acknowledge, Day’s description of the influence Lacouture had on her—which she wrote
about in his Catholic Worker obituary—coupled with the fact that her encounter with the
retreat was largely through Hugo, at least suggests that Day saw little difference between the
two priests.

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301

as well as the marginalization of Day that these portrayals often foster. In
pointing out the Ignatian roots of Lacouture’s theological perspective—and
thus situating the retreat squarely within the Christian tradition—Hugo
offered a justification for the claims Day and the Catholic Worker made
about the Christian life. And indeed, Hugo’s presentation of the retreat
makes it much more difficult to dismiss Dorothy Day as irrelevant.
In order to explore these issues, This study is divided into three
parts. First, it offers examples of the ways in which scholars have characterized Day and others associated with her, both in the years surrounding the Second World War and today. Next, it will examine
Hugo’s counterargument that the retreat was not Jansenist but rather
was shaped by Ignatian spirituality. Finally, it will look at some of the
possible implications offered by this connection between Dorothy Day
and Jesuit spirituality.
Placing Day and “the Retreat” on the Margins
Despite their celebrated importance and significance, Day and the
Catholic Worker are often relegated to the fringes of American Catholicism,
even by those who do the celebrating. For instance, in Public Catholicism,
David O’Brien praises Day and her fellow Catholic Workers for their work
with the poor and their opposition to the arms race; at the same time, however, he asserts that they embodied a certain “perfectionism” that devalued
citizenship and reduced the moral significance of politics and the broader
society.10 As a result, they lacked a sense of “responsible citizenship” and
became “marginalized” from larger public policy debates, leading O’Brien to
conclude that Day and the Catholic Worker movement ultimately tended
toward an “apocalyptic sectarianism.”11 In a similar fashion, in Tranquillitas
Ordinis, George Weigel argues that Day’s theological perspective stemmed
from “a radically eschatological view of history” heavy with “apocalyptic overtones,” which led her to denigrate human history and ignore the “world’s
demands.”12 Likewise, in American Catholic Social Ethics, Charles Curran
portrays Day and the Catholic Worker movement as espousing a “radical
type of social ethics” based on a theological perspective of “radical incompatibility” between nature and grace, and thus between American culture and
society on the one hand and Christian eschatological fullness on the
10. David O’Brien, Public Catholicism (New York, 1989), p. 246.
11. Ibid.
12. George Weigel, Tranquillitas Ordinis: The present failure and future promise of American Catholic thought on war and peace (New York, 1987), pp. 150–51.

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IGNATIAN RADICALISM

other.13 More recently, in Prophetic & Public: The Social Witness of U.S.
Catholicism, theologian Kristen Heyer has argued that, like Day, contemporary theologians associated with the Catholic Worker, such as Michael
Baxter, represent a “prophetic sect type” and embrace “a rigorist, evangelical
social ethic.”14 Such an ethic informs practices of nonparticipation in American political and social institutions, whether refusing to participate in war or
to vote or to pay taxes or to engage in public-policy debates. All of which
leads Heyer to label these theologians as “perfectionists.”15
It is important to note that this criticism is largely based on a perception of the theological perspective that informed Day’s spiritual outlook—
a theology that is portrayed as one of “radical incompatibility” between
nature and grace and thus between the Church and the world. For critics
such as O’Brien, Weigel, Curran, and Heyer, the reason Day and others
influenced by her did not participate in certain American political, social,
and economic institutions is that they had largely rejected American society and culture as corrupt—a rejection that in turn led to their allegedly
irresponsible citizenship, sectarianism, and irrelevance. And this rejection
is depicted—at least in part—as stemming from a theology that devalues,
denigrates, and rejects human nature as sinful out of excessive concern for
the supernatural or eschatological. While the retreat is not mentioned by
these critics, this study argues that characterizations of it as Jansenist and
world-denying—like those made by Hooper and Fisher—at the very least
share many of these same theological assumptions about Day held by
O’Brien, Weigel, and others.
What is interesting about these more recent sketches of so-called
Catholic radicals is that they were largely prefigured by similar portrayals
made during the mid-twentieth century. Indeed, many of these contempo13. Charles Curran, American Catholic Social Ethics (Notre Dame, IN, 1982), p. 130
and p. 163. Curran also points to the “Green Revolution” of Peter Maurin (1877–1949) —a
“revolution that called for a return to the land, a withdrawal from the evil industrial society,
and opposition to technology”—as a further example (p. 143 and p. 165). Curran maintains
that this radical incompatibility was grounded in a theological understanding of the naturesupernatural relationship that was also one of radical incompatibility (p. 168).
14. Kristen Heyer, Prophetic & Public: The Social Witness of U.S. Catholicism (Washington, DC, 2006), p. 76. Heyer claims to have borrowed much from the work of both O’Brien
and Curran.
15. Heyer, Prophetic & Public, p. 59. In his treatment of the topic, Richard Gaillardetz
adds William Cavanaugh, Michael Budde, David Schindler, and John Milbank to this group;
see Richard Gaillardetz, “Ecclesiological Foundations of Modern Catholic Social Teaching,”
in Modern Catholic Social Teaching, ed. Kenneth R. Himes, O.F.M. (Washington, DC, 2004),
p. 77.

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303

rary criticisms appear to be largely based on the notion of “eschatological
humanism” offered by John Courtney Murray, S.J. (1904–67), in We Hold
These Truths.16 As Joseph Komonchak has pointed out, Murray employed
this idea in the aftermath of his debates with Paul Hanly Furfey (1896–
1992), a Catholic University of America sociologist closely connected with
Day and the Catholic Worker, over inter-creedal cooperation in the
1940s.17 Murray saw the temptation among some mid-century Catholics
to “spiritually withdraw” from U.S. institutions as emerging from a theological view that human nature and history—and thus American society
and culture—is largely corrupted.18 And he suggested that such a view
tended toward an “eschatological humanism” which emphasized a final
supernatural end “radically discontinuous” with human nature. And it was
this emphasis that led to a “contempt of the world” and the view that
American institutions and ideals were necessary evils—at best, as irrelevant
as the basket-weaving of the Desert Fathers.19
Of course Murray was not the first to offer such a depiction of this
kind of Catholic withdrawal. In 1943, Joseph J. Connor, a Jesuit teaching
at Weston, wrote an article in American Ecclesiastical Review in which he
labeled Catholics associated with the Catholic Worker paper as “Perfectionists” for their support of U.S. Catholic conscientious objectors in World
War II.20 For such a position—which Connor argued ignored duty and
obligation to both family and nation—suggested “an air of exhilarating
aloofness and detachment” and implied a desire to “dissociate” the Church
from American society and culture. Connor likened this detachment to
“Albigensian purism and Calvinist theocracy” and stated that it was as foreign to Catholic dogma as Communist secularism.21
16. John Courtney Murray, S.J., We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the
American Proposition (New York, 1960), pp. 175–196.
17. Joseph Komonchak, “John Courtney Murray and the Redemption of History:
Natural Law and Theology,” in John Courtney Murray & The Growth of Tradition, ed. J. Leon
Hooper, S.J., and Todd David Whitmore (Kansas City, 1996), pp. 60–81, here p. 74.
18. Murray, We Hold These Truths, p. 185.
19. Murray titled his section on eschatological humanism “Contempt of the World.”
Murray, We Hold These Truths, p. 189.
20. Joseph J. Connor, S.J., “The Catholic Conscientious Objector,” The Ecclesiastical
Review, 108 (Feb. 1943), 125–38, here 127. He summarized the “Perfectionist” stance as: “I
have an inalienable right to practice the counsels. Practice of the counsels includes non-resistance to an unjust aggressor. Therefore, even in a just war, I can, out of supernatural love of
the enemy, refuse to resort to violence against him. Therefore I am exempt from military service, on the same grounds as the religious who practice Christian perfection” (Connor, “The
Catholic Conscientious Objector,” p. 129).
21. Connor, “The Catholic Conscientious Objector,” p. 136.

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IGNATIAN RADICALISM

Like scholars today, Murray and Connor depicted these Catholics as
embracing an excessively eschatological and overly perfectionist theology,
and thereby isolated them within Catholic discourse. While Murray and
Connor did not mention Lacouture’s retreat as the source of this theology,
other prominent American Catholic theologians at the time did. In fact,
almost immediately following the end of the Second World War, a series of
articles critical of the retreat theology appeared in widely-read theological
journals like American Ecclesiastical Review written by theologians such as
Francis Connell, C.Ss.R. (1888–1967) and Joseph Clifford Fenton (1906–
69)—both members of the theology faculty at The Catholic University of
America and extremely influential in American Catholic circles.22 These theologians depicted the retreat—or at least its articulation in John Hugo’s book
Applied Christianity—as promoting an “exaggerated supernaturalism” which
focused too heavily on humanity’s supernatural final end.23 They argued that
such overemphasis on the supernatural led to a denigration or undervaluing
of human nature and its abilities. For Fenton and Connell, such supernaturalism was manifest in the retreat’s call to give up or renounce attachments
to created goods, such as cigarettes and alcohol, and the “natural motives”
that such habitual attachments inspired—a kind of renunciation they likened
to the “old heresies” of Luther, Baius, and Quesnel.24
Like Hooper and Fisher decades later, Connor and Fenton portrayed
the retreat as promoting a theology that too heavily emphasized the super22. Francis J. Connell, “Review of Applied Christianity, by John J. Hugo,” American
Ecclesiastical Review, 113 (July 1945), 69–72; Joseph Clifford Fenton, “Nature and the
Supernatural Life,” American Ecclesiastical Review, 114 (Jan. 1946), 54–68. Connell held a
chair in moral theology at CUA and at the time was “one of the most authoritative voices in
moral theology in the United States.” See Terrence Moran, “Connell, Francis (1888–1967)”
in The Encyclopedia of American Catholic History, ed. Michael Glazier and Thomas Shelley
(Collegeville, MN, 1997), pp. 371–72. Fenton was the editor of the American Ecclesiastical
Review (1944–1963) and a former student of Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., at the
Angelicum. Fergus Kerr has described Fenton as “the most eminent American Theologian at
the [Second Vatican] Council”; see Fergus Kerr, Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians
(Malden, MA, 2007), p. 7.
23. Fenton, “Nature,” p. 63. The term “exaggerated supernaturalism” first appeared in
Pascal Parente, “Nature and Grace in Ascetical Theology,” American Ecclesiastical Review, 108
(June 1943), 430–437, here 435. John Hugo, Applied Christianity (New York, 1944). Hugo’s
book was published by the Catholic Worker Press, and included illustrations by Ade Bethune
and an imprimatur from then Archbishop Spellman.
24. Connell, “Review,” p. 69. At one point, Hugo suggested that the “refusal of my
colleagues and me to take a ‘friendly smoke’ or a ‘friendly drink’ with our brethren is one of
the chief reasons why we have antagonized many of them. In fact, I think this is the chief sore
spot in the whole controversy . . . our attitude, they say—oh so often—is completely unCatholic: it is Manichean, Jansenistic, Puritanical” (Hugo, Sign, p. 32).

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natural while downplaying the goodness and ability not only of human
nature and history but of American society and culture as well. It is this kind
of theology that critics, both then and now, seem to assume was at the heart
of Day’s belief that certain aspects of U.S. society—such as fighting in war
or paying taxes—needed to be rejected in order to more fully live a Christian
life.25 For all these critics, the assumption seems to be that only that which
is sinful—or “radically incompatible” with grace—must be renounced; and so
they see Day’s social and political nonparticipation as stemming from her
desire to avoid sin—why else would she refuse to engage with these institutions?26 The idea that the Christian life calls a person to give up something
more than that which is sinful—an idea at the heart of the retreat—seems to
be almost entirely missed by critics today, just as it was two generations ago.
A Ressourcement in Ignatian Spirituality
It was in response to this kind of criticism that Hugo wrote two books
on the retreat—A Sign of Contradiction and Nature and the Supernatural: A
Defense of the Evangelic Ideal—in which he situated the retreat theology
within the broader Christian tradition as well as the more particular history
of Jesuit spirituality.27 According to these accounts, Lacouture directed his
first retreat at the Jesuit novitiate in Sault-aux-Recollets outside of Montreal in 1931 after several years on a Jesuit mission band.28 Brigid O’Shea

25. For the similarities that exist between the theological anthropologies employed by
contemporary Catholic theologians and early twentieth-century neo-Thomists, see Frederick
Christian Bauerschmidt, “Confessions of an Evangelical Catholic: Five Theses Related to
Theological Anthropology,” Communio, 31, no. 1 (2004), 67–84, here 77.
26. For these twentieth-century critics, the term “Jansenism” seems to imply a theological perspective that downplays the goodness and capability of human nature as corrupt and,
by extension, human society and culture as also corrupt. For a historical account of the term
“Jansenism,” see William Doyle, Jansenism: Catholic Resistance to Authority from the Reformation to the French Revolution (London, 2000).
27. John Hugo, A Sign of Contradiction: As the Master, So the Disciple (n.p., 1947); John
Hugo, Nature and the Supernatural: A Defense of the Evangelic Ideal (n.p., after 1949). Besides
the Jesuit writers who will be mentioned below, Hugo also turned to St. John of the Cross,
St. Francis de Sales, St. Thomas Aquinas, and well as “lesser lights” such as Frederick Faber.
Toward the end of his life, Hugo wrote a two-volume account of the retreat titled, Your Ways
Are Not My Ways (Pittsburgh, 1984, 1986). For other historical accounts of the Lacoutureretreat movement, see Anselme Longpré, Un Mouvement spiritual au Québec (1931–1962): Au
retour à l’Evangile (Montreal, 1976); Jean-Claude Drolet, “Un Mouvement de spiritualité
sacerdotale au Québec au XXe siècle (1931–1965): Le Lacouturisme,” Canadian Catholic
Historical Association: Study Sessions, 1973 (Ottawa, 1974), pp. 55–87.
28. This biographical sketch of Lacouture comes from Hugo’s A Sign of Contradiction.
Unfortunately, Lacouture left relatively little written material behind, and most of what

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Merriman—who called the retreat “one of the most noteworthy early
twentieth-century developments of the Ignatian retreat in North America”—has explained that Lacouture condensed Ignatius’s thirty-day Exercises into a series of three week-long retreats.29 The “first series” of the
retreat centered on the First Week of the Exercises, while the “second
series” comprised the Second and Third Weeks, and the “third series”
incorporated the Fourth Week of the Exercises.30 Over the years, the “first
series” retreat—with the its emphasis on the purification and reorientation
of heart and spirit—was the one preached most often by a large margin;31
and it was this series that Day referred to as simply “the retreat,” and on
which Hugo and his critics—both then and now—have focused (Figure 2).
This “first series” addresses a notion known as the “Folly of the Cross,”
which asserts that the Christian life involves much more than simply avoiding what is sinful or in violation of the natural law. In contrast to such
“Christian minimalism,” the “Folly of the Cross” declares that Christians are
called to live a “supernatural life” of holiness—a life oriented toward the ultimate destiny to which all people are called. “Man was not merely created and
left in the order of nature,” Hugo explained; “he was re-created and raised to
the order of grace . . . he does not retain his purely human or purely natural end:
this has been replaced by a supernatural end. . . . So, the fact that man has a
supernatural end, dictates that the means for attaining this end must also be
supernatural.”32 A Christian life of holiness entails a living out of the “practical implications” of man’s final end, which are spelled out in the Gospel

remains is housed either in the Jesuit archives in Montreal or the Dorothy Day–Catholic
Worker archives at Marquette University. For more on Lacouture, see Jack Downey, The
Bread of the Strong: Lacouturisme and the Folly of the Cross, 1910–1985, (New York, 2015).
While further study of this material is certainly needed, it must be remembered that Hugo
was the primary source for any influence Lacouture had on Day—and it is on Hugo’s writings
that critics of the retreat in the United States have focused.
29. Brigid O’Shea Merriman, O.S.F., Searching for Christ: The Spirituality of Dorothy
Day (Notre Dame, IN, 1994), pp. 132–33.
30. Ibid., p. 133. Merriman notes that Day attended a second-series retreat in the summer of 1944
led by Fr. Denis Mooney (Searching for Christ, p. 148).
31. John O’Malley explained that the theme of the First Week was “a turning from a
sinful life or, probably more often, a turning to a more devout life”—what for Hugo and
Lacouture was a supernatural life—and that this theme captured the essence of Ignatius’s
entire Exercises. O’Malley suggested that if a retreatant could not continue with the rest of the
Exercises, “the better ordering” of his or her life would still have been essentially set in motion
during the First Week. For if its purpose is achieved, the retreatant will find “a new and
happier orientation at the very core of their being” and be “thus set more firmly than before on
the path to salvation” (O’Malley, S.J., The First Jesuits [Cambridge, MA, 1993], pp. 39–40).
32. Hugo, Sign, p. 104.

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FIGURE 2. Dorothy Day reading at the farm, ca. 1937, courtesy of the Department
of Special Collections and University Archives, Marquette University Libraries.

admonition: “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains
just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit” (John 12:24). Jesus
calls his followers to “die to” their attachments to worldly things—and even
to themselves—if they wish to find true fulfillment.33
While such habitual attachments are not understood as necessarily
sinful, they do eventually become the “natural motives” for actions that
constitute a “natural life.”34 And while such a life is not regarded as sinful
per se, it is also not seen as a path to holiness—the “supernatural life” of a
saint.35 Correspondence with grace is needed for holiness, and habitual
33. Hugo, Nature, p. 88. The other Gospel passage commonly cited to support the
Folly of the Cross was Luke 9:23: “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
34. Hugo, Applied Christianity, p. 14.
35. Hugo also employed this argument as a rationale for U.S. conscientious objectors’
(COs) refusal to participate in World War II—a rationale he presented in a Catholic Worker
article responding to Joseph Connor’s critique, one of the few examples of an American
Catholic cleric publically defending COs during the war. Hugo stated that even though

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attachments to the created goods are distractions to such a correspondence.36 And so attachments—even to one’s own self—need to be either
perfected or abandoned, and the retreat was presented by Hugo as a tool,
like the Spiritual Exercises, for such ongoing discernment.
All of this theology is beautifully depicted in The Long Loneliness,
where Day tells the story of her conversion not as one of a choice
between a sinful life or a good life but rather as one of leaving behind
her “natural happiness”—embodied in her “two great loves”: her friends
on the Old Left and her common-law husband Forster Batterham—in
order to pursue a life she discerned to be far better, the life of a saint.
While Day regarded such natural happiness as good (albeit in a limited
sense) and even described her relationship with Forster as having led
her to God, she also recognized that ultimately it had to be given up in
order to pursue a much greater happiness. And for the rest of her life—
as evidenced in her newly published letters and diaries—Day would use
the retreat language to describe this process, referring to this renunciation as “sowing” her attachments and having them “pruned” away by
God.37
In his defense of the retreat, Hugo turned to sources within the Christian tradition—first and foremost Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises. Hugo
focused in particular on the “Principle and Foundation” of the Exercises
because, as he argued, Lacouture considered this section to be the theological core of the Exercises and therefore of his retreat.38 In these opening
lines, Ignatius concisely described the essence of the Christian life. For
instance, from Ignatius’s statement that “Human beings are created to
praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by means of this to save
their soul” (SE 23), a specific theological anthropology emerged: human
nature’s ultimate destiny—“to save their soul”—is supernatural, as is the
means by which this destiny can be attained—“to praise, reverence, and

participation in the war may not have been sinful—and could even be considered “just”
according to natural law—it was not a path to holiness or the “higher way of Jesus” (Hugo,
“Catholics Can Be Conscientious Objectors” in The Catholic Worker [May1943], pp. 6–8).
36. Hugo, Nature, p. 71.
37. According to Sr. Peter Claver, MSBT, during her final visit with her longtime
friend in 1980, Day pointed to some flowers on a table and said that she was “still sowing”
(William Miller, Dorothy Day: A Biography [San Francisco, 1982], p. 517). See also Robert
Ellsberg, ed., The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day (Milwaukee, 2008); and Robert
Ellsberg, ed., All the Way to Heaven: The Selected Letters of Dorothy Day (Milwaukee, 2010).
38. While other sections of the Exercises were mentioned, Hugo’s argument centered
on these opening lines (Hugo, Sign, p. 97, p. 203).

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serve God.”39 Ignatius thus regarded the supernatural as central and primary—the “prime determinant”—in the life of a Christian.40 In other
words, the supernatural has practical implications for the Christian life—
transforming and perfecting it.
Ignatius was read as describing these implications in the “Principle
and Foundation” when he wrote:
The other things on the face of the earth are created for the human
beings, to help them in working toward the end for which they are created.
From this it follows that I should use these things to the extent that
they help me toward my end, and rid myself of them to the extent that
they hinder me.
To do this, I must make myself indifferent to all created things, in
regard to everything which is left to my freedom of will and is not forbidden. Consequently, on my own part I ought not seek health rather
than sickness, wealth rather than poverty, honor rather than dishonor, a
long life rather than a short one, and so on in all these matters.
I ought to desire and elect only the thing which is most conducive for
us to the end for which I am created.41

Hugo argued that for Lacouture the Christian life entailed a great deal
more than simply avoiding what is sinful—indeed, it could and often
should entail giving up even good things such as health, riches, honor, or
a long life, since over time desire for these things becomes an impediment
to the holiness to which we are called.42 So for Ignatius the primary reason
for Christian detachment and renunciation is not sin but rather a desire for
union with God. And the Basque saint’s admonition to be indifferent to
created goods was not because such things as health or a long life are sinful,
but rather because they cannot bring about true fulfillment.43 Lacouture
saw the Exercises, then, as a tool to help retreatants discern what could be
perfected in their lives and what must be abandoned in light of the beatific
vision. And Ignatius was interpreted as offering a path for Christians to
live out the practical implications of their supernatural end.
39. Spiritual Exercises, 23, in Ignatius of Loyola: Spiritual Exercises and Selected Writings,
trans. George Ganss, S.J. (New York, 1991), p. 130 (hereafter cited as SE); Hugo, Sign, p. 104.
40. Hugo, Sign, p. 105.
41. SE, 23, p. 130.
42. Hugo highlights five other places in the Exercises where Ignatius used similar
descriptions of created goods: the “Prelude for Making Election” in the Second Week
(SE,169), the Sixteenth Annotation (SE,16), a Note attached to the Fourth Day of the
Second Week (SE, 157), the First Rule (SE, 338), and the Fifth Rule “In the Ministry of
Distributing Alms” (SE, 342); see Hugo, Sign, p. 117.
43. Hugo, Sign, p. 116.

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In the context of Catholic theology, Hugo seemed to understand
Ignatius as also offering an alternative to the “two-tiered” account of nature
and grace which prevailed in the 1940s, with its notion of the supernatural
building a kind of superstructure on top of a largely self-contained nature.
This theological perspective, which Hugo contended had heavily shaped his
critics’ reading of the retreat, resulted in the “separated theology” of the
early twentieth-century.44 In contrast, Ignatius presented nature—even
“fallen nature”—as essentially good and thus distinct from that which is
sinful, while he recognized it as inherently lacking and thus distinct from
the supernatural.45 But while the supernatural was understood as being distinct from nature, Ignatius did not see it as separated; rather it was regarded
as the inner dynamism and final end of an insufficient human nature.
But this emphasis on the supernatural and its implications—and the
account of nature and grace it implies—meant that Lacouture and his
reading of Ignatius were at odds with the theology of many of his Jesuit
contemporaries. In fact, Lacouture was eventually prohibited from leading
retreats in 1939. After reviewing Lacouture’s retreat notes, a Jesuit censor
in Rome even concluded that his theology contained many “grave faults”
regarding nature and grace, and that it ridiculed “the deservedly proved
writings of the commentators of the Spiritual Exercises.”46 But Hugo contended that these “deservedly proved writings” generally interpreted the
Exercises as promoting a version of the Christian life that was merely “natural” or “pagan”—essentially a life that entailed avoiding sin and following
the natural law.47

44. Hugo refers to this as the “modern theology” of his critics (Nature, p. 190). For an
excellent account of this theology and its effect on early twentieth-century American Catholicism, see Phillip Gleason, Contending With Modernity: Catholic Higher Education in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1995), pp. 105–23. Also see, William M. Halsey, The Survival of American Innocence: Catholicism in an Era of Disillusionment, 1920–1940 (Notre Dame, IN, 1980).
45. It is important to note that Hugo was reading Ignatius’s notion of indifference to
created goods through Aquinas’s understanding of “fallen nature” as simply nature “left to
itself.” While the divine gift of original justice was lost as a result of the Fall, human nature
still remains essentially good and distinct from that which is sinful—or as T.C. O’Brien put
it, for Thomas human nature “stays itself, but forlorn”; see Thomas Aquinas, Original Sin,
Vol. 26 of Summa Theologiae, trans. T.C. O’Brien, O.P. (New York,1965), ST I–II, 85.1;
T.C. O’Brien, “Appendix 9,” in Summa Theologiae, pp. 157–58. See also Hugo, Nature, p. 41.
46. Hugo reproduced the censor’s report, dated Aug. 12, 1943, in Sign, p. 67.
47. As examples of such “deservedly proved writings,” Hugo highlighted H. Pinard de
la Boullaye, S.J., Exercices Spirituels selon Lla méthode de Saint Ignace, vol. 1 (Paris, 1944);
Joseph Rickaby, S.J., The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola: Spanish and English, with a
Continuous Commentary (London, 1915); Pierre Bouvier, S.J., L’interpretation authentique de
la méditation fondamentale dans les Exercices Spirituels de Saint Ignace (Bourges, 1922); Aloysius

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The problem, as Hugo saw it, was not that the existence of the supernatural was denied in these writings, but rather that the perfection it brings
about was ignored—grace was mentioned, but its “specifically supernatural
character” was not.48 So from such commentaries, “we might easily infer
that the only function of grace is to help nature to keep the commandments of the natural law; gratia elevans, that grace which super-elevates
man above nature, is not mentioned and is in fact formally excluded.”49 But
in Hugo’s view, grace is central to Ignatius’s notion of the Christian life:
Man’s supernatural elevation must not merely be dutifully mentioned and
praised; it must be taken as the decisive fact in determining the meaning
of the Christian life and the manner of living it. It is man’s elevation to
grace that fixes his end—a supernatural end; and this end in turn prescribes that the praise, reverence, and service due to God must be performed in the supernatural order. . . . To do less is to misrepresent the
Christian life.50

By minimizing the supernatural character of the “Principle and Foundation” and the Exercises as a whole, these early twentieth-century Jesuit commentaries lost sight of the mystery and beauty of the Christian life.51 Hugo
argued that the most wonderful thing about such a life is not that it is “created in the order of nature” but that it has been “re-created in the order of
grace.”52 And it was the implications of this re-creation by grace—of grace
perfecting nature—that Lacouture and Hugo read the Exercises as helping
to discern.53 In this way they recognized what the late Cardinal Avery
Dulles, S.J., called the “practical mysticism” of St. Ignatius, a synthesis of
nature and the supernatural (and of the active and contemplative life)—a
spirituality sensitive to the “interior leading of the Holy Spirit” at the same
time dedicated “unswervingly to the service of the Church militant.”54

Bellecio, S.J., Spiritual Exercises, According to the Method of St. Ignatius Loyola, trans. William
Hutch (London, 1883); and Hugo Hunter, S.J., Sketches for the Exercises of an Eight Days’
Retreat, trans. John B. Kokenge, S.J. (St. Louis, 1919). See also Hugo, Sign, p. 106.
48. Hugo, Sign, p. 103.
49. Ibid. For more on the various distinctions of grace within Catholic theology, see
Bernard Lonergan, S.J., Grace and Freedom: Operative Grace in the Thought of St. Thomas
Aquinas (New York, 1971).
50. Hugo, Sign, p. 105.
51. According to Hugo, “the essential purpose of Christianity is to elevate man, by the
grace of Jesus Christ, to participate supernaturally in the life of the Trinity” (Sign, p. 105).
52. Ibid., p. 104.
53. Ibid., p. 105.
54. Avery Dulles, “Jesuits and Theology: Yesterday and Today,” Theological Studies, 52,
no. 3 (Sept. 1991), 524–38, here 525.

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That many of Lacouture’s contemporaries had lost sight of this practical mysticism is unsurprising. Indeed, it has a long history within Jesuit
spirituality, tracing back at least as far as Alonso Rodríguez, S.J (1526–
1616), and his book Ejercicio de perfección y virtudes cristianas (1609)—a
work that had a great deal of influence in Jesuit houses of formation even
up to the early twentieth-century.55 John O’Malley, S.J., has pointed out
that by the seventeenth-century two distinct “strains” within Jesuit spirituality could already be distinguished.56 The first—a strain shaped in large
part by Rodríguez’s spirituality—was “cautious and soberly ascetical, favorable almost exclusively to a methodical and even moralistic style of prayer,
suspicious of contemplation and other higher forms of prayer as inimical to
the active ministry to which the order was committed.”57 A second strain
was also present then, one which was “more expansive, more syncretistic
within the broad tradition of Christian spirituality, and intent on developing the implications of the affective and even mystical elements” in the life
and writing of Ignatius.58 Though the former soon emerged as dominant
within Jesuit spirituality, both strains were operative well into the late
nineteenth-century. And, in fact, both correspond with the two “tendencies” in Jesuit spirituality that Dulles has stated were present by “the age of
Vatican I.”59 One favored a preference for the “Rules of Thinking with the
Church” found in the Exercises (SE 352–370) and certain passages from the
Constitutions of the Society of Jesus which stressed obedience to the hierarchical Church—a tendency generally held by nineteenth-century neoThomist Jesuits who, continuing the long tradition of Counter-Reformation dogmatics, based their theology on “natural reason and on the
authority of the papal and conciliar documents.”60 And while this tendency
prevailed within Jesuit circles into the early twentieth-century—and can be
seen in the “deservedly proved writings” of Lacouture’s critics—a second
tendency existed simultaneously which emphasized “The Rules for the
Discernment of Spirits” (SE 313–336) and the “mysticism of Ignatius.”61

55. John O’Malley, “Early Jesuit Spirituality: Spain and Italy,” in Christian Spirituality
III, ed. Louis Dupre and Don E. Saliers (New York, 1989), pp. 3–27, here p. 14.
56. Ibid., p. 17.
57. Ibid.
58. Ibid.
59. Dulles points out that while there has never existed a “Jesuit theology” per se, there
is definitely a “Jesuit spirituality,” which is firmly rooted in the Exercises. Dulles, “Jesuits and
Theology,” p. 531.
60. Dulles included neo-Thomist Jesuits like Luigi Taparelli d’Azeglio, Matteo Liberatore, Joseph Kleutgen, and Louis Billot. Ibid.
61. Ibid.

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Jesuits working out of this tendency “sought to connect theology more intimately with prayer and the experience of the Holy Spirit.”62
This history is important for our purposes here in that it helps to situate Lacouture and his critics within the broader historical context of
Jesuit spirituality. It is also helpful because, in his attempt to justify or certify the theological vision of the retreat, Hugo sought to locate Lacouture
within the more mystical—albeit somewhat overlooked—tendency or
strain in Jesuit spirituality. In his ressourcement theology Hugo highlighted
sources not only in Ignatius’s writings but also in those of sixteenth and
seventeenth Jesuits like Balthasar Alvarez (1533–1580) and Louis Lallemant (1587–1635).63 It was with Lallemant and his “school” of Ignatian
spirituality in particular—which included Jean Rigoleuc, S.J. (1595–
1658), and Jean-Joseph Surin, S.J. (1600–65), as well as Jean Pierre de
Caussade, S.J. (1675–1751), and Jean-Nicolas Grou, S.J. (1731–1803)—
that Hugo placed Lacouture, contending that he was “their heir, related
at least by affinity . . . their son, begotten through a mysterious spiritual
atavism.”64
That Hugo looked to Lallemant for support—especially in the
1940s—is particularly noteworthy.65 For, as the former Jesuit Henri Bremond noted, Lallemant was at the forefront of a school of Ignatian spirituality that flourished in the sixteenth and seventeenth-centuries but then
quickly faded from memory.66 After serving years as a rector, spiritual

62. Dulles identified George Tyrrell, Henri Bremond, and Pierre Rousselot as Jesuits
whose work highlighted this tendency. Ibid.
63. Hugo, Sign, pp. 149–63.
64. Ibid., p. 163. Louis Cognet’s list of seventeenth-century Jesuit disciples of
Lallemant included: Rigoleuc, Surin, Champion, as well as Jean-Baptiste Saint-Jure (1588–
1657), Jacques Nouet (1605–80), Vincent Huby (1603–1693), Julien Maunoir (1606–83),
Francois Guilloré (1615–84), Jean Crasset (1618–92), and Claude de la Colombière (1641–
82), who was the spiritual director of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647–90). See Louis
Cognet, Post-Reformation Spirituality trans. P. Hepburne Scott (New York, 1959), p. 107.
65. Dorothy Day already had a familiarity with Lallemant and credited her first
spiritual director, Joseph McSorley, with introducing her to Lallemant’s writings. See,
William Portier, “Dorothy Day and her first spiritual director, Fr. Joseph McSorley, C.S.P.”
Houston Catholic Worker, (Sept–Oct 2002).
66. As Bremond noted, “More integral, more original, twenty times more sublime and
twenty times more austere, more demanding than Port-Royal, the school which we are going
to study made little noise. Its contemporaries scarcely suspected that it existed; Saint-Beuve did
not speak of it; and for the most part, the Catholic of today knows nothing about it except its
name. Its founder, the Jesuit Louis Lallemant died in 1635 without having written anything.
Among the disciples of that great man, only one, Father Surin, has achieved recognition

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director, and tertian-master at the Jesuit College in Rouen, Lallemant left
no published materials. What is known of his theology comes from his students’ lecture notes, which were eventually published in 1694 as La vie et
la doctrine spirituelle du Père Louis Lallemant de la compagnie de Jésus—a
work that became central to Lallemant’s “school” of Jesuit spirituality.67
Early on in this book, there is a discussion of human nature which states:
There is a void in our heart which all creatures united would be unable
to fill. God alone can fill it; for he is our beginning and our end. The possession of God fills up this void, and makes us happy. The privation of
God leaves in us this void, and is the cause of our wretchedness.68

Commenting on this passage, Michael Buckley, S.J. has described Lallemant’s spiritual doctrine as centering on a particular theological anthropology—one of human emptiness seeking the fullness of God.69 And so, like
Ignatius, Lallemant understood nature and grace not in terms of dialectical
contrast or incompatibility but rather as a dynamic progression from
emptiness to fulfillment—the void within human nature longing for the
plentitude offered by God.
Starting from this anthropology, Lallemant taught detachment from
the things of this world.70 For, as with Ignatius, these created goods were
[glorie], but a recognition that was contested, for a long time suspect, and one of infinite
sorrow” (Henri Bremond, Histoire littéraire du sentiment religieux en France depuis la fin des
guerres de religion jusqu’a nos jours, Vol. 5: La conquete mystique [1923], trans. Michael Buckley,
S.J., “Seventeenth-Century French Spirituality: Three Figures,” in Christian Spirituality III, ed.
Louis Dupre and Don E. Saliers [New York, 1989], pp. 28–68, here p. 60).
67. For an English translation, see, Alan McDougall, ed., The Spiritual Doctrine of
Father Louis Lallemant of the Society of Jesus, Preceded by an Account of his Life by Father
Champion, S.J. (Westminster, MD, 1946); this work will hereafter be cited as SD. Surin’s
legacy largely surrounded his involvement, beginning in 1635, with a community of Ursuline
nuns in Loudun and the demonic possession reportedly occurring in the convent. Over the
next twenty-five years, Surin suffered severe mental imbalances that he attributed to demonic
possession. It was during this period that Surin wrote the Spiritual Catechism (1657), now one
of the great classics in spiritual writing. The Catechism, which gained the approval of Bishop
Bossuet in 1661, carried the influence of both Surin and Lallemant into the eighteenth
century, where it helped to shape the spirituality of Caussade and Jean Grou, S.J., in the
nineteenth-century; and it even had a “decisive effect” on Raissa and Jacques Maritain in the
twentieth century (Buckley, “Seventeenth-Century,” p. 63). Surin’s involvement at Loudun
was memorialized in Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun (New York, 1953).
68. SD, p. 27.
69. “The spirituality of Lallemant opens with an antithetical dynamic contrast. It is
not that of contradiction but of privation and its fulfillment” (Buckley, “Seventeenth-Century,” p. 56).
70. SD, p. 28.

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not regarded as sinful, but neither were they deemed supernatural; so
renunciation was necessary in order for human beings to become dependent only on “the good pleasure of God” and be resigned “entirely into his
hands.”71 This gradual process of renunciation or purification of one’s
attachments and motives—what was termed “the spiritual life” (la vie spirituelle)—sought to restore the emptiness that marked human nature and
return it to “the perfect nudity of the soul” (la parfait nudite d’esprit) so
that it could be filled with the superabundance of grace.72 Grace was
understood as always available and waiting to correspond with a “purified
soul.”73
But for all his teaching on the spiritual life and “perfect nudity of the
soul,” it must be remembered that Lallemant spent his life working in the
formation of young Jesuits, such as St. Isaac Jogues and the other North
American martyrs—men engaged in the active Jesuit apostolate. Indeed,
Buckley noted that Lallemant’s vie spirituelle composed a life given over
to apostolic service—a “service whose underlying determination [was]
toward God as motive and in union with the Spirit as configuring
guide.”74 Far from inhibiting such ministry, Lallemant’s spiritual doctrine—and the mystical union that it sought—was understood as necessary for such work.75 In this way, Lallemant can be seen as trying to unify
the two aspects of Ignatius’s “practical mysticism” in the spirituality he
taught at Rouen.
Despite its popularity, however, by the late eighteenth-century Lallemant and his “school” were largely forgotten or ignored within the Society
of Jesus.76 Hugo suggested that this neglect of Lallemant was a primary
reason for so many of “the modern Commentators” neglect of the supernat-

71. SD, p. 37.
72. SD, p. 37; Buckley, “Seventeenth-Century,” p. 57.
73. SD, p. 37. In The Devils of Loudun, Huxley quipped that in Lallemant’s spiritual
life, “The corollary of ‘Thy kingdom come’ is ‘our kingdom go’” (p. 77).
74. Buckley, “Seventeenth-Century,” p. 60. As Buckley noted, the rapid expansion of
Jesuit colleges in France at the time threatened the interior life that Ignatius saw as necessary
to sustain such work. Buckley suggested that one must therefore presuppose “the dominant
experience behind the Doctrine spirituelle to be that of apostolic call, and the rest of Lallemant
falls easily into place” (Buckley, “Seventeenth-Century,” p. 62).
75. SD, p. 264.
76. According to Hugo, it was Rodríguez’s interpretation of the Exercises, and not
that of Lallemant, which was placed in the hands of Jesuit novices and on the shelves of
Jesuit libraries (Sign, p. 155).

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IGNATIAN RADICALISM

ural in their treatments of the Exercises.77 As he saw it, the criticism and
opposition to Lacouture’s retreat should be read within the context of this
broader Jesuit history. But while Hugo’s assertion of deliberate neglect by
the Society of Jesus may have some validity, it must also be remembered
that Lallemant belonged to an extraordinary group of spiritual writers—one
that included St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, Cardinal Pierre
Bérulle, and St. Francis de Sales—who wrote from the time just after the
Protestant Reformation up to the controversy surrounding Quietism at the
end of the seventeenth-century.78 And in fact it was the Quietist controversy
that brought about the abrupt end of this amazing flourish of spiritual writing. For almost immediately after François Fénelon’s (1651–1715) submission to Pope Innocent XII in 1699, a very real anti-mystical attitude
descended upon the Church, and spiritual writing of a more mystical nature
largely disappeared from the public arena.79 This decline left a clear void
that was quickly filled by a resurgent Jansenism—most notably in the writings of Pasquier Quesnel (1634–1719)—which strongly promoted a rigorist
asceticism coupled with the notion that only a few predestined souls would
ever be able to attain mystical union with God.80 Any writing that empha-

77. “That a tradition like that inaugurated by Lallemant, wholly supernatural and
carrying on admirably the general tradition of Christian spirituality, would be formally
outlawed, or excluded, or set aside—they all amount to the same thing—at the reconstitution
of the Society [in 1803] will perhaps help explain why so many of the modern Commentators
have removed the supernatural from their version of the Exercises” (Hugo, Sign, p. 163).
78. In his volume on the period, Bremond used the term “Bérullian Jesuits” to
categorize many of these Jesuits, including Lallemant. But Cognet and Buckley have disputed
this claim, arguing that themes of mysticism and detachment are in fact Ignatian and that
Lallemant, though sharing much in common with Bérulle, was essentially Ignatian at heart.
What is perhaps more interesting, though, is the Ignatian influence on Bérulle. For Bérulle
was a student at the Jesuit College of Clermont and made the Spiritual Exercises in 1602 in
Verdun. One of Bérulle’s earliest spiritual writings was Bref discours de l’abnegation interieure
(1597), which was a “translation” of an Italian work, Breve compendio intorno alla perfezione
cristiana, attributed to the visionary and mystic Isabella Bellinzaga but the true author of
which was her spiritual director, the Italian Jesuit Achille Gagliardi (1537–1607). Gagliardi
wrote one of the earliest commentaries on the Spiritual Exercises. Gagliardi’s writings led to
him being charged with introducing a monastic spirit into the Society of Jesus and the
controversy that followed required Claudio Aquaviva (the Jesuit superior general) as well as
Pope Clement VIII to intervene on Gagliardi’s behalf (O’Malley, “Early Jesuit,” p. 21). For
more on Berulle, see Raymond Deville, The French School of Spirituality, trans. Agnes
Cunningham (Pittsburgh, 1994); and William Thompson, ed., Bérulle and the French School:
Selected Writings, trans. Lowell Glendon, S.S. (Mahwah, NJ, 1989).
79. C.J.T. Talar, “Prayer at Twilight: Henri Bremond’s Apologie pour Fénelon,” in Modernists & Mystics, ed. C.J.T. Talar (Washington, DC, 2009), pp. 39–61, here p. 39.
80. Jean Pierre Caussade, A Treatise on Prayer from the Heart: A Christian mystical
tradition recovered for all, ed. and trans. Robert M. McKeon (St. Louis, 1998), p. 28.

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317

sized the mystical or supernatural quickly became suspect. In The Mystic
Fable (1982), the Jesuit theologian Michel de Certeau observed that by the
end of the seventeenth-century, the adjective mystical had become the noun
mysticism and, packaged as such, was neatly marginalized and quarantined
as mystical prayer became understood as a practice exclusively reserved for
cloistered spiritual elites.81 Union with God and any emphasis on the supernatural in general quickly came to be seen as a phenomenon outside of the
life of ordinary Christians—laity and secular clergy alike.82
The Quietist controversy, then, marked a significant turning point in
Catholicism. In its aftermath “a narrowing, suffocating, and hyper-intellectualization” of the tradition occurred, eventually culminating in the
form neo-Thomism—with its dualist account of nature and grace—that
dominated early twentieth-century Catholic theology.83 This was the “new
theology” that the French Jesuit Henri de Lubac (1896–1991) argued had
exiled the supernatural from the modern world and which Hugo identified
as having shaped the way critics read and dismissed the retreat.84
The upshot here is that depictions of the retreat as “Jansenist” reflect
a misunderstanding of the theology operative in it. If anything, the
retreat—with its emphasis on the supernatural and the universal call to
holiness—is much closer to Fénelon’s vision than that of Quesnel. And, as
Hugo repeatedly asserted, the theological roots of the retreat run deep in
Jesuit spirituality. Despite critics’ contentions, the nature-supernatural
relationship presented in the retreat was one not of sin and grace but rather
of a more mystical Ignatian dynamic of longing and fulfillment. Sin was
not the chief reason for its calls to renounce “natural motives.” Lacouture’s
reading of Ignatius—while not the prevailing one at the time—clearly fit
within a long-held strain in Jesuit spirituality, a strain that sought to maintain Ignatius’s practical mysticism.

81. Michel de Certeau, The Mystic Fable, vol.1, The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,
trans. Michael B. Smith (Chicago, 1992), pp. 16, 76–77, 107–13.
82. William Portier and C.J.T. Talar, “Mystical Element of Modernist Crisis,” in
Modernists & Mystics, pp. 1–22, here p. 17; Talar, “Prayer,” p. 42.
83. Portier and Talar, “Mystical Element,” p. 9. The French philosopher Maurice
Blondel (1861–1949) highlighted “two Catholic mentalities” that emerged from the Quietist
dispute and set the positions in the major conflicts within nineteenth and early twentiethcentury Catholicism. See, Alexander Dru, “Introduction” in Maurice Blondel, The Letter on
Apologetics and History of Dogma, trans. Alexander Dru and Illtyd Trethowan (New York,
1964), p. 25.
84. Henri de Lubac, Surnaturel: Études historiques (1946; rpt. Paris, 1991).

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IGNATIAN RADICALISM

Kindred Spirits in Jesuit Spirituality
The retreat was certainly not the only example of this kind of Jesuit
spirituality to emerge in the 1930s and 1940s. During the same period
Lacouture and Hugo were preaching the theology of retreat in North
America, several European Jesuits were putting forth theologies that were
also profoundly shaped by Ignatius’s practical mysticism. Much has been
written on the effect of Ignatian spirituality on mid-century theologians
such as Karl Rahner, S.J. (1904–84), Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.
(1881–1955), and Hans Urs von Balthasar, S.J. (1905–88).85 Though similarities between the retreat and the work of these Jesuits have yet to be
explored, in The Long Loneliness, Day did suggest a connection between
Hugo’s theology of nature and grace and the theology then being developed
by Lubac in France—a link made all the more significant by the fact that
she made this claim just two years after the promulgation of Humani Generis
in 1950 and the chilling effect it had on de Lubac.86
While Hugo’s ressourcement theology can be seen as at least hinting at
the similar work being done by de Lubac, the theological arguments each
were making at the time reveal some striking commonalities. Both argued
that human nature’s end is beyond itself, not contained in some kind of
autonomous natural order.87 Both recognized nature as being distinct from
the supernatural and sin: nature is not sinful, but neither is it self-sufficient.88 Both saw human nature as inherently marked by a capacity for
something far beyond itself—a theological anthropology consonant with
the dynamic of human emptiness and divine fulfillment which is found in
Ignatius and Lallemant. And both seemed to recognize that this Ignatian
understanding of grace as the fulfillment of an intrinsic insufficiency in
85. For a helpful introduction, see Avery Dulles, “The Ignatian Charism and Contemporary Theology,” America, 176 (Apr. 26, 1997), 14–22.
86. Day, The Long Loneliness (New York, 1952), p. 258.
87. These arguments were first presented in Surnaturel (1946). In response to criticism,
de Lubac later refined the thesis of Surnaturel in Augustinianism and Modern Theology, trans.
Lancelot Sheppard (1965; rpt. New York, 2000), and Mystery of the Supernatural, trans.
Rosemary Sheed (1965; rpt. New York, 1998). This understanding of the relationship
between nature and the supernatural as distinct but not separate was central to de Lubac’s
notion of the Christian paradox: humanity’s natural desire for a supernatural end.
88. The biographical similarities between Hugo and de Lubac are interesting: both
were writing at the same time (Applied Christianity appeared in 1944, Surnaturel in 1946);
both were criticized by the prominent neo-Thomist theologians: Fenton, Connell, and
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.; both were effectively “silenced” by ecclesiastical
authorities, Hugo in 1944 by his bishop and de Lubac by his Jesuit superiors in the wake of
Humani Generis; and both submitted.

BENJAMIN T. PETERS

319

human nature offered an alternative to the more dualistic view of nature
and grace that characterized much early-twentieth century Catholic theology. These were important theological arguments to make in the 1940s.
And in making them, Hugo, and in her own way Day, were part of a growing trend that challenged the “separated theology” of the day—a trend
scholars have generally associated only with Europeans like de Lubac.
This connection with Jesuit spirituality opens up some potentially
fruitful links between Dorothy Day and Latin American liberation theology—particularly that associated with Jesuit theologians. For instance,
Matthew Ashley has identified the fundamental role that Ignatian spirituality played in shaping Ignacio Ellacuría’s thinking.89 For example,
Ellacuría’s notion of historicization was informed by his reading of the
Exercises, a reading that centered around the Second Week’s treatment of
the historical Jesus, just as Lacouture’s reading had centered around the
“Principle and Foundation.”90 For Ellacuría, human history is the place
where the will of God is encountered, and he suggests that the aim of the
Exercises in general and the Second Week in particular is to bring one’s life
and “history” into greater conformity with the divine will through a more
radical love for and imitation of Jesus’s life and history.91 As such, he wrote
that, “in having the personal encounter with the will of God as their goal,”
the Exercises are “already a principle of historicization.”92 While this kind
of “mysticism of the historical event” can be seen as a specific articulation
of Ignatius’s “practical mysticism,” its goal of a “personal encounter with
the will of God” in history suggests a desire to live out the concrete implications of one’s supernatural final end. This was the spiritual commitment
that was preached in the retreat and practiced by Day and the Catholic
Worker.93 Much more can be said about these links between Day and
Ellacuría, but there is certainly a connection.

89. J. Matthew Ashley, “Ignacio Ellacuría and the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of
Loyola,” Theological Studies, 61 (Mar. 2000), 16–39.
90. Ashley, “Ignacio Ellacuría,” pp. 30 and 38. Ashley suggests that “a theological
interpretation of the Exercises will revolve, either implicitly or explicitly, around one particular
part of the Exercises,” for instance, around one particular Week or the “Principle and Foundation” or an accompanying sets of reflections such as the “Rules for Discerning Spirits” (p. 20).
91. Ashley, “Ignacio Ellacuría,” p. 26. Ashley points to Ellacuría’s discussion of the
Exercises in “Lectura latinoamericana de los Ejercicios Espirituales de san Ignacio,” Revista latinoamericana de teologia, 23 (1991), 111–47.
92. Ellacuría, “Lectura,” p. 113, trans. Ashley, quoted here from “Ignacio Ellacuría,” p. 25.
93. For more on the idea of “mysticism in the historical event,” see Ewert Cousins,
“Franciscan Roots of Ignatian Meditation,” in Ignatian Spirituality in a Secular Age, ed.
George Schner, S.J. (Waterloo, Ont., 1984), pp. 51–64, here p. 60.

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IGNATIAN RADICALISM

And when commenting on the role of Jesuit spirituality in his own
life, Pope Francis has also spoken of his attraction to the “mystical movement” in Jesuit history, a movement he identifies with Lallemant and
Surin.94 And echoes of Lallemant’s “school”—as well as Lacouture’s
retreat—can indeed be heard in the pope’s call for Catholics to strip away
their “homicidal attachment to worldliness” and “renounce” themselves.95
For Pope Francis such “worldliness” is presented not as sinful in itself but
rather as a something that leads “the holy middle class” away from the pursuit of holiness or “daily sanctity.” Here, again, the “practical mysticism” of
Ignatius can be clearly seen.
Conclusion
These connections between the Ignatian Exercises and Day’s understanding of the retreat are important because the theological and historical
context of Jesuit spirituality challenges not only the characterization of the
retreat as “Jansenist” but also the marginalization of Day and others influenced by the retreat as perfectionists, sectarians, or—perhaps worst of all—
as irrelevant. The retreat provided a theological foundation for Day’s
attempt to live out a more authentic form of the Christian life. Indeed, the
practice of selective nonparticipation in American political, economic, or
social institutions for which Day has been criticized—along with the continual discernment such selective nonparticipation required—did not stem
from a wholesale rejection of these institutions or of American society and
culture as necessarily sinful or “radically incompatible” with grace. Rather
it emerged from a desire for a life that entailed much more than simply that
which is not sinful. It grew out of a yearning to live what Hugo called the
“higher way of Jesus.”96 Fighting in a just war or smoking cigarettes were
not sinful per se, but neither were they seen as pathways to holiness. The
desire for such holiness—Ellacuría’s “personal encounter with the will of
God”—is not Jansenist, and the theological vision that drives Dorothy
Day’s “Catholic radicalism” is not from the theological fringes; it is
rather—as Hugo argued—Ignatian.

94. Antonio Spadaro, S.J., “A Big Heart Open to Love,” America, Sept. 30, 2013.
Retrieved from http://americamagazine.org/pope-interview on Oct. 5, 2013.
95. This theme has been sounded in many of Pope Francis’s speeches. For example, see
his speech on Oct. 4, 2013 in Assisi.
96. Hugo, “Catholics Can Be Conscientious Objectors,” p. 8.

Book Reviews
GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
The Gnostic New Age: How a Countercultural Spirituality Revolutionized Religion
from Antiquity to Today. By April D. DeConick. (New York: Columbia University Press. 2016. Pp. xii, 380. $35.00. ISBN 978-0-231-17076-5; $34.99
ebook ISBN 978-0-231-54204-3.)
In The Gnostic New Age April DeConick offers an interpretation of “Gnosticism” as a distinctive “countercultural spirituality” that has manifested itself in
numerous incarnations from antiquity to the modern age. The book’s eleven chapters include discussions of many specific historical figures, texts, or movements—
e.g., the Greco–Egyptian Hermetic literature; so-called “Sethian” sources; Simon
Magus; Naassenes; Ophians; Peratics; Justin “the Gnostic”; Valentinus and Valentinians; Manichaeans; “Jeuians” (from the Books of Jeu) and the Pistis Sophia; and
Mandaeans. Each of these has been classified as “gnostic” by at least some scholars.
DeConick’s definition of gnosticism is surely among the most expansive, embracing
not only some of the more familiar candidates mentioned above but others from
Shirley MacLaine and modern New Agers, to Paul the Apostle and the Gospel of
John. She considers gnosticism to be not a single social movement or religion but
rather “an innovative religious identity that emerged in the first century CE when
a number of religious people began to claim that they possessed a new kind of spiritual knowledge (gnosis)” (p. 9).
DeConick avers that gnosticism is “a form of spirituality that in ancient
memory was associated with five ideal characteristics” (pp. 11–12): (1) direct experiential knowledge (gnosis) of a transcendent God; (2) unity with this God experienced in “ecstatic states”; (3) “an innate spiritual nature” in humans guaranteeing
survival of the self after death, but also enabling restoration of “psychological and
physical wellness” in this life; (4) countercultural “transgressive talk that set Gnostics at odds with conventional religions”; and (5) incorporation “into their religious
discussions [of] everything but the kitchen sink” (Homer, Plato, magic, astrology,
ancient brain science, fantastic cosmologies), but with the location of “spiritual
authority in the individual’s soul or spirit.”
DeConick is a learned scholar with extensive knowledge of ancient and lateancient traditions and experience in analyzing them. Her format, aimed at general
readers, is not burdened with footnotes or constant citation of ancient or modern
sources, even though specialists might be aware of DeConick’s more meticulous
arguments elsewhere in articles and monographic research. She certainly provides
nonspecialists with much information about groups and writings that she counts as
321

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BOOK REVIEWS

“gnostic spirituality.” Also, a distinctive feature is that each chapter discussing those
examples is framed with a comparison to a motion picture or television series (The
Matrix, The Truman Show, Man of Steel, Star Trek, etc.). Others have drawn similar
comparisons, but DeConick puts hers to maximal use. If the analogies with the
ancient materials are sometimes strained, the device does serve as an effective attention-getter. DeConick’s style is accessible and employs jargon intended to connect
with her audience—e.g., “dark lords” throughout for cosmic powers of various
sorts; the sci-fi “star gate” (e.g., pp. 221–12) if sources mention “gates” controlled
by such powers or other heavenly portals; and “sky trekking” for ascents into the
supernal realms.
One feature that stands out, as compared with most conventional introductions to gnosticism, is DeConick’s inclination to highlight functional rather than
dysfunctional elements, as in her contention that “the Gnostics belong to one of the
biggest stories of our species, the story of the human quest for health and wholeness” (p. 197). DeConick may oversell this angle in certain instances, and yet many
movements and writings she discusses do, in fact, often reveal far more interest in
and even optimism about life in the body than has usually been recognized.
However, DeConick’s typology of gnostic spirituality is applied across such an
array of data that analytical leverage seems reduced and awareness of diversities
retreats into a cloud of rather vague mysticism. For example, she asserts that
“Mani’s metaphysics is Gnostic spirituality on steroids” (p. 313). Yet the crucial
soteriological process entailing ritual digestion by the “elect” of food brought to
them by the lay majority (“hearers”) in Manichaean communities (pp. 314–15) is
an awkward fit with DeConick’s typology and her emphasis throughout the book
on the centrality of individual ecstatic experience of unity with the transcendent
God.
From her earlier publications, specialists might be aware of DeConick’s speculative interpretations of various sources. But the often controversial character of
these interpretations may not be transparent to general readers of The Gnostic New
Age. Space allows mention of only one example: Paul’s connection with supposedly
“gnostic” themes (either in opposition or support) has been discussed for generations, as has his reputation as a mystic. But DeConick truly wants him to fit her
model of a “transgressor” touting ecstatic experience of a transcendent God. She
points to Paul’s reference to his former life in Judaism as “shit” (skubalon) as “a
transgressive move” (p. 118). According to DeConnick, Paul proclaimed that
“God’s law had never really been kept, because it was impossible to keep” (pp. 124–
25), an assertion that may sound like some form of Reformation orthodoxy. But
she then says Paul had surmised from his “personal encounter with God” on the
Damascus road that “his ancestors must not have really known YHWH. YHWH
wasn’t the God of the Jews and the giver of the law of Moses, but the universal One
God hidden in a distant heaven, largely unknown” until Jesus (p. 126). This would
be less implausible if DeConick were indicating only how some later interpreters
read Paul—Valentinians, or Marcion, for example.

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323

Many will likely find enjoyment in reading this volume and can without question profit from the information it contains. But within its ambitiously sweeping
representation of gnostic spirituality are hazards of which the unsuspecting are
given little warning.
University of Washington, Seattle

MICHAEL A. WILLIAMS

Making Martyrs East & West: Canonization in the Catholic and Russian Orthodox
Churches. By Cathy Caridi. (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press. 2016.
Pp. x, 200. $59.00. ISBN 978-0-87680-495-8.)
Cathy Caridi’s study consists of four chapters on martyr-making in the East
and the West. The first deals with the united church, the second with the Russian
church from the Christianization in 988 up to our time, the third with the Catholic
Church from the great schism, and the last chapter with a comparison of canonization processes in East and West.
Canonization of martyrs would at first glance seem to be a strictly historical
theme, but it is quite the opposite; for example, the canonization of 2000 new martyrs
in Russia in the beginning of this century shows the topicality of this phenomenon.
The study is asymmetric in construction; the Catholic Church is discussed and
compared to the Russian Orthodox tradition and not to the Orthodox Church in
general. The impression therefore gets somewhat one-sided, and some of the findings would certainly be different if the symmetry had been observed.
The study follows the procedure of canonization through history and notes that
the Catholic practice is more formal and more centralized than the Russian one, the
former resting on the authority of the pope. Caridi maintains, however, that many
of the early martyrs have never been officially canonized. Scrutiny of different sorts
of lists of saints (diptychs, saints’ calendars) plays an important part in the study.
There are many categories of saints defined in the book, but the difference between
saints in general and martyrs is sometimes blurred. Caridi rightly notes that miracles
are more important for canonization in Russia than in the [European?] Catholic
Church, but is somewhat overstating the difference between the traditions. Also
studied is the view of the incorruptibility of saints’ dead bodies, which is very salient
in the Russian context as a sign of holiness. Yet other themes dwelt on include the
role of relics and the translation of them in the canonization process.
The most interesting finding in this study is the result of the scrupulous comparison of the criteria (or lack of criteria) for canonization in different times and
different traditions, since there are so many different procedures through the ages.
Sometimes it seems to be impossible to know if a martyr has existed at all.
The subject is huge and has been much studied. What is missing in Making
Martyrs is a firm relation to earlier research, which is, however, known to the
author, as can be seen by the extensive bibliography. Caridi uses primary sources

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instead, which gives impressing results; but still more could have been obtained by
bringing earlier research to the fore. Especially the chapter on the Russian church
would have gained much if more recent studies had been considered. One issue that
would have been interesting to include is that of decanonizations in the Russian
Church, a topic of recent debate and investigation which is only touched on in
Making Martyrs.
In the last pages Caridi lists the formidable problems it would raise to merge
the lists of names in the Catholic and Russian Orthodox calendars. It is a sad reading but ought to be an ecumenical challenge.
The author calls herself “a legalistic Westerner,” a characterization that is
borne out in the book. Caridi is preoccupied with the need for a correct procedure
of canonization and resolving which martyrs are the authentic ones. And a final
remark: All these lives and deaths more or less outlined in the vitae bear witness to
so much of human suffering and so much of Christian faith in East or West, in distant times or just a while ago.
Stockholm University

PER-ARNE BODIN

The Jesuits & the Popes: A Historical Sketch of their Relationship. By John W. O’Malley, S.J. (Philadelphia: St. Joseph’s University Press. 2016. Pp. vi, 149, 19
images. $40.00. ISBN 978-0-91610-191-6.)
Anyone who enjoys flying a small airplane appreciates its unique perspective
at an altitude of 5,000 feet. John O’Malley in his historical sketch The Jesuits & the
Popes takes us to that level on a journey of almost 500 years. The view obviously
sacrifices details one might see from a closer perspective, but its advantages are
found in the trends and movements emerging within the gentle contours that
develop over decades.
Following custom, O’Malley sets the context in the first chapter with an
overview of the relationships between the papacy and other religious orders from
the sixth to sixteenth centuries. This impressive tour in eleven pages indicates the
key developments in religious life and the growing support received from the Holy
See. It sets the stage for the arrival of the Jesuits among the clerks regular, a new
form of religious. The second chapter identifies the central element of the Jesuit
relationship to the papacy, the fourth vow, which enables a Jesuit to receive missions directly from the pope. Though rarely used, this vow recognizes “that the
pope, as the universal bishop, ha[s] the breadth of vision best to deploy them” (p.
20). Almost from the beginning, however, the Superior General, with the vast
intelligence coming from reports of Jesuits around the world, became a better
source of information needed for their assignment.
As with all surveys, some points seek further development. O’Malley states
that “the early Jesuits were influenced by [conciliarist tradition]” (p. 22), citing an

BOOK REVIEWS

325

opinion given by the general’s secretary and admonitor, Juan Polanco, “that a Pope
such as Pius IV might be deposed for serious scandal” (p. 23). A look at Monumenta
Lainii (Vol. VIII, p. 804), to which O’Malley refers, seems much more complicated. Polanco shows more concern about the reform of the papal curia than did
Pius IV (whom he does not mention). Polanco does say, citing those who favor the
authority of the Holy See, that a council “may be called” (alas the passive voice!),
ending this section by noting that it would be better to work with the will of the
pope. But O’Malley points out the crucial question in a way that invites others to
examine it more closely.
St. Joseph’s University Press has established an excellent reputation for publishing works on the Society of Jesus that are not only elegant in presentation but
of high academic quality (the nineteen pages of illustrations are not only well
chosen but beautifully reproduced). So it might be forgiven the caption that indicates Pope Francis as the first pope to “ever set foot on the property of an American
Jesuit school” (p. 114). Pope John Paul II used the campus of Regis University in
Denver to meet with President Bill Clinton during World Youth Day in 1993.
O’Malley also captures the major shifts between revolutions and reactions in
the eighteenth through twentieth centuries. While he provides a thorough onepage list for further reading, the book went to press before publication of John
McGreevy’s American Jesuits and the World (Princeton, 2016), which explores the
irony of Jesuit success in the liberal republic of the United States during the nineteenth century. The Jesuits & the Popes provides a fascinating and clear read while
eliciting thought-provoking questions for further research. O’Malley has already
earned his place among the premier historians of the Society of Jesus; this work
continues to demonstrate how.
Pontifical Gregorian University

MARK A. LEWIS, S.J.

The Jesuits and Globalization: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Challenges.
Edited by Thomas Banchoff and José Casanova. (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. 2016. Pp. viii, 299. $64.95 clothbound; $32.95 paperback. ISBN 978-1-62616-286-0.)
This volume of essays could not be more timely for a political moment when
many countries seem poised to resurrect nationalism. It offers “Lessons for Today”
(p. 280) centered on the question: “Is the experience of Jesuits as global missionaries and educators for almost five centuries relevant to the challenges we face today
. . . [in] an increasingly multipolar and interconnected world?” (p. vii). The answer
is a resounding and inspiring yes. The seven eminent Jesuits and five senior scholars
who convened four workshops to refine these essays have produced an impressively
researched catalogue of how Jesuits have responded and contributed to the phenomenon of globalization over time. While the book features “Historical” prominently in the title and is organized chronologically into “Part I: Historical Perspectives” and “Part II: Contemporary Challenges,” it shines most in addressing and

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contextualizing current Jesuit initiatives to engage with the world. That said, it is a
testament to the Jesuit “way of proceeding” that the contributors—Jesuit and otherwise—are hypercritical of Jesuit shortcomings in this endeavor.
Cumulatively, these essays highlight four globalizing projects associated with
the Society: accommodation, education, interreligious dialogue, and social justice.
In “The Jesuits in East Asia. . . ,” M. Antoni Ucerler, S.J., describes the most
famous historical examples of Jesuit accommodation or inculturation in Japan and
China. There, Ucerler notes that Jesuit policy developed not simply thanks to Jesuit
understandings but as a pragmatic response to pressures from Japanese and Christian interlocutors (p. 29). Aliocha Maldavsky, in “Jesuits in Ibero-America. . . ,”
surveys the variety of different Jesuit missions to Spanish and Portuguese America
while stressing how Jesuits accommodated not only to indigenous societies but also
to colonial political regimes that constrained Jesuit outreach (p. 103). In “Historical
Perspectives on Jesuit Education. . . ,” John O’Malley, S.J., argues that Jesuit colleges stand as a “corrective to the predominantly economic model” of globalization
because they emphasized “more humane . . . working together for the common
good” (p. 164). His proof of this is today’s extensive network of Jesuit schools
staffed by local personnel (p. 147), though he devotes the bulk of his essay to
grounding the development of Jesuit schools in the early modern period and the
Renaissance humanistic tradition. O’Malley is corroborated by Thomas Banchoff
in “Jesuit Higher Education and the Global Common Good.” Banchoff also
stresses that what makes today’s 150 Jesuit universities distinct from other globallyminded institutions is the international reach and extent of collaboration (pp. 253–
54). In “The Jesuits…At Vatican II. . . ,” David Hollenbach, S.J., notes how Superior General Pedro Arrupe followed up on Vatican II policies by stressing social
justice as central to Jesuit mission (p. 176). Hollenbach singles out Jesuits—including Cameroonian Englebert Mveng (p. 177), Aloysius Pieris in Sri Lanka, and
Michael Amaladoss in India (p. 179)—for promoting cross-cultural dialogue. Also
flagging a Jesuit groundbreaker for social justice, Maria Clara Lucchetti Bingemer
describes Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J., martyr and human-rights activist in El Salvador,
who pioneered “a globalization that is not dehumanizing but instead attentive to
. . . the pursuit of justice” (p. 189). John Joseph Puthemkalam, S.J., and Drew Rau
offer a group exemplar founded to rectify the economic imbalances caused by globalization: Jesuits in Social Action (JESA) in South Asia (p. 214). Lastly, Peter
Balleis takes us to a transnational organization and the internet, describing the
work of the Jesuit Refugee Service (p. 231) and the Jesuit Commons: Higher Education at the Margins (pp. 233–34), which since 2007 has brought online education
to refugees unable to otherwise access university courses.
Notwithstanding these increasingly intense projects of global engagement,
the editors wisely caution readers against seeing globalization as linear progress or
as “continuous [or] unidirectional” (p. 3). Four of the most interesting essays in
the volume deal directly with backpeddling and setbacks in Jesuit globalizing
endeavors. In “Jesuit Intellectual Practice in Early Modernity,” Francis Clooney,
S.J., shows how some of the most famed Jesuit accommodationists, including

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Francis Xavier, Alessandro Valignano, Matteo Ricci, and Roberto Nobili, created
a Jesuit apologetic against the Hindu and Buddhist ideas of rebirth, demonstrating
the “limits . . . in understanding beliefs and ideas so deeply different from their
own” (p. 50). In “Global Visions in Contestation,” Daniel Madigan, S.J., likewise
tracks the anti-Muslim attitudes of three prominent early modern Jesuits—Jerome
Xavier and Bento de Góis in India and Tirso González de Santalla in Spain—
lamenting that their global interactions “failed to break them out of a centuriesold and already rather stale and unproductive approach to Muslims and their
faith” (p. 85). Sabine Pavone gives a thorough “History of Anti-Jesuitism,” in
which she isolates four strains of anti-Jesuit sentiment: political, ecclesiastical or
intra-Church, intra-Jesuit, and Enlightenment anti-clerical (pp. 115–20). Along
with John McGreevy, S.J., in his “Restored Jesuits,” Pavone addresses an awkward
transitional period for the Jesuits between their first centuries—often represented
as a Golden Age—and their expulsion and ensuing re-establishment in the early
nineteenth century. While McGreevy tries to show that some post-restoration
Jesuits were “the most global citizens” of that era (p. 132), overall, his survey characterizes most “Restored Jesuits” as nationalist and conservative, not liberal and
globalizing.
Happily, thanks in part to the leadership of (Jesuit) Pope Francis, who is mentioned in more than a third of the essays, this book suggests that the negatives from
earlier periods have not carried over to today, which comes across as the next Jesuit
Golden Age. While the editors have posed significant questions relating Jesuits to
globalization in order to frame the volume (p. 6), overall the essays left this reader
reflecting instead on what today’s Jesuits (and those who study them) want the
Society to be now. José Casanova summarizes those wishes best in the closing chapter, where he presents contemporary Jesuits as “again . . . globally visible and controversial” (p. 269), only this time not through “conversion and civilization,” but
rather through “accompanying the people at the margins . . . those who are being
affected most negatively by contemporary processes of globalization” (p. 280). This
book succeeds best as a compelling defense of this new, radical (if historically
rooted) Jesuit leadership in global engagement.
Macalester College

KARIN VÉLEZ

The Ministry of the Printed Word: Scholar-Priests of the Twentieth Century. Edited by
John Broadley and Peter Phillips. (Stratton-on-the-Fosse, Radstock, Bath:
Downside Abbey Press. 2016. Pp. 381. £35.00. ISBN 978-1-898-663782.)
This elegantly published and weighty (almost three pounds) book recounts the
intellectual and spiritual contributions of eleven English scholar priests, one of
whom became a bishop (Bernard Ward) and another a cardinal (Aidan Gasquet).
Four were Jesuits (George Tyrrell, John Hungerford Pollen, Herbert Thurston,
and Frederick Copleston); two were Benedictines (David Knowles and Christopher Butler, plus Gasquet). One was a parish priest (Adrian Fortescue), and two
clerical scholars (Philip Hughes and Ronald Knox).

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Each priest is given a separate and most readable chapter, with a general introduction by Broadley that is significantly entitled “The ‘Eighth Sacrament’ in the
Life of a Priest.” No Dominicans are mentioned, because Aidan Nicholas has
recently published on the English Dominican scholars. The scholarly contributions
of American, French, Australian, German, Dutch, or other clergy are not the focus
of this book, though many of the priests mentioned did study in Rome, Louvain,
Paris, Germany, or other places where there was a tradition of Catholic intelligence. The English Church in the Reformation survived because of Douai and
other places of exile. In fact, both Stonyhurst and the Downside Abbey have connections to Belgium, something that comes up in several chapters.
The place of intelligence in the Church has suddenly become a lively issue
under Pope Francis after the intense philosophical and theological reflections we
became accustomed to under John Paul II and Benedict XVI. The tradition of the
scholar-priest has often been at odds with the notion of a pastoral role among
diocesan priests or an exclusively contemplative role among the religious orders.
The worthiness of a scholarly vocation was evident in the lives of all the men
recorded in these pages. Their very existence was often the living refutation of the
notion that Catholics were uneducated or uninformed about both temporal and
ultimate things. Not every priest need be a scholar, of course, but every diocese and
every religious order requires for its own good some men who are devoted to things
intellectual. Revelation, after all, is also addressed to intelligence. Athens remains
basic to the training of a priest.
In one sense, this book is dominated by historians. The English Catholic writers strove to identify and defend that earlier Catholic experience in Britain before
the Reformation. This endeavor included writing the history of monasticism in the
Middle Ages with a detailed exposition of what happened during the English Reformation, and with the later experience of the gradual restoration of freedom to
Catholics in the nineteenth century. The abiding theme is that the essential continuity of Christianity is through the Catholic tradition, not through the Anglican
establishment.
Many of these writers came into conflict with their bishops, their Orders, or
even with the Holy See over issues of doctrine and religious discipline. It is not difficult to see the concern that bishops and superiors had in dealing with these unique
intellectuals. This personal conflict is a recurring theme in many of these chapters.
Each chapter gives background on the family and early education of the writer, how
he found his vocation, his university training, his academic achievements, and his
old age and death. There is a useful run-down of each man’s papers and books.
Usually we have an evaluation of the abiding interest in the man’s works and critiques of them by other scholars.
This is a welcome book. Indirectly it is a warning about the danger of a mindless Church. I was particularly struck by this comment about Ronald Knox: “Knox
paid his congregation the compliment of believing that they had minds, minds that

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could be challenged and enlightened” (p. 195). This book is a monument to the
importance of Catholic intelligence, not merely among learned scholar-priests.
JAMES V. SCHALL, S.J.

Georgetown University (Emeritus)

ANCIENT
The World’s Oldest Church: Bible, Art, and Ritual at Dura-Europos, Syria. By Michael
Peppard. [Synkrisis: Comparative Approaches to Early Christianity in GrecoRoman Culture.] (New Haven: Yale University Press. 2016. Pp. xii, 320; [8]
pp. of plates. $50.00. ISBN 978-0-300-21399-7.)
Peppard offers, in his own words, “a fresh, rigorous, and plausible—albeit
sometimes imaginative—historical reconstruction of the Christian community at
Dura-Europos” (p. 43), whose building still counts as our earliest preserved church
(in use around the middle of the third century). The book’s chapters revisit the
famous paintings of the baptistery in turn. Peppard wants his audience “to imagine
early Christian initiation at the nexus of Bible, art, and ritual” (p. 211)—the subtitle
that is applied heavily throughout (see pp. 30, 32, 37, 45, 84, 91, 108, 111, 202,
212; cf. p. 140). He warns against viewing the paintings as “allegorical treasures
unlocked by one hermeneutical key—the right biblical text” (p. 31), appreciating
that the term biblical can be seen as problematic since “a stable canon of the New
Testament did not yet exist” (p. 31) and that the principal framework to interpret
the paintings is their “ritual context”: “We are not trying only to read the biblical
writing on the walls; even more do we seek the liturgical riting on the walls” (p. 32).
Throughout, Peppard puts forward “polysemic interpretations” (e.g., pp. 32, 42,
151, 194, 197).
The first painting to be discussed in chapter 2 is that of David slaying Goliath,
often seen as somewhat out of place in the baptistery. Peppard argues that its
appearance can not only be clarified but “perhaps even be expected” (p. 62), combining the ritual of anointment with “a militaristic visuality centered on the figure
of David” (p. 84). Following an analysis of the shepherd and his flock above the
font and of Jesus’ miracles in chapter 3, the book’s “heart” (p. 111, cf. p. 42) is chapter 4, which criticizes the traditional interpretation of the painting of the processing
women as those visiting Jesus’ empty tomb. Peppard supports the view postulated
by Joseph Pijoan in Art Bulletin, 19 (1937), 592–95, and more recently by Dominic
Serra in Ephemerides Liturgicae, 120 (2006), 67–78; cf. now also the argument made
by Sanne Klaver in Eastern Christian Art, 9 (2012–13), 63–78, that they are in fact
the virgins in the wedding procession from Matthew 25:1–13. The baptistery is
then not so much a grave as a bridal chamber, although Peppard hastens to add that
“the marriage motif dominates, but does not completely subordinate, the notions
of death and resurrection at initiation” (p. 42). That the room could also be understood as a womb is put forward in chapter 5, which is presented as the book’s
“ambitious climax,” where “an original, extensive survey of artistic depictions of the
Annunciation in late ancient and Byzantine art” (p. 43) is added as an expansion to

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what Peppard refers to as the “small gem of an article” (p. 28; cf. p. 159) by Serra
(o.c.), in which the latter first proposed to interpret the painting of a woman at a
well (traditionally viewed as the Samaritan woman) according to a commonly overlooked tradition preserved in the Protevangelium of James, namely, as the annunciation to the Virgin at a well. To Serra’s brilliant hypothesis Peppard now adds
visual comparanda. The book’s conclusion analyzes the paradise imagery within the
framework of the writings of Ephraem Syrus—who “never set foot in the housechurch at Dura-Europos, but his hymns would have felt right at home” (p. 203)—
and especially of the Odes of Solomon, said to reverberate strongly with the concepts present in the baptisterium (pp. 43, 218).
Notably absent from the bibliography is the substantial monograph by Ulrich
Mell, Christliche Hauskirche und Neues Testament: Die Ikonologie des Baptisteriums
von Dura Europos und das Diatessaron Tatians (Göttingen, 2010). Peppard’s own
argumentation, “inductive more than deductive, cumulative and associative more
than classificatory and analytical” (p. 218) may not convince every reader on every
single issue, but he certainly succeeds in making a major contribution “to rebalance
the perspective of modern western viewers looking back after centuries of crosscentered Christianity” (p. 198) and to emphasize the fundamental place in Syria’s
early Christianity of both marriage and birth motifs.
Durham University

TED KAIZER

Constantine and the Cities: Imperial Authority and Civic Politics. By Noel Lenski.
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2016. Pp. ix, 404. $79.95.
ISBN 978-0-8122-4777-0.)
The emperor Constantine continues to engender productive debate among
historians of the later Roman Empire. Noel Lenski’s outstanding new study will be
required reading for scholars working on Constantine, late Roman imperial administration, civic identity in the provinces, and the rise of bishops as civic leaders in
the fourth century.
In contrast to recent approaches that have downplayed the degree to which
Christianity was the driving force behind Constantine’s policies, Lenski returns to
a more traditional view. What is distinctive about Lenski’s approach, however, is
his reliance on “secular” evidence, especially laws, to establish Constantine’s Christian credentials.
The heart of Lenski’s study is his analysis of a number of interactions between
Constantine and the cities of his empire. He argues that Constantine usually preferred carrots to sticks, skillfully leveraging imperial resources to “push cities into
actualizing his own conversion at the local level” (p. 179) while largely resisting the
temptation to impose his will on recalcitrant subjects. In particular, he demonstrates how Constantine promoted Christianity by using “the tools of law and normative communication available to him by virtue of his office to effect changes in
the landscape and culture of cities” (p. 281). Crucial to this approach is Lenski’s

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understanding of imperial power as constituted and mediated through language; in
the dialogues between Constantine and his cities, each side was obliged to take into
account the expectations of the other.
Such a model allows for complexity in both the messages Constantine disseminated and the responses they generated. Not only were there many different layers
in the complex and evolving “archaeology of Constantine’s public personality” (p.
47), but cities might engage with those messages selectively and in accordance with
their own priorities. Thus Lenski is able to account for evidence that often has been
used to question Constantine’s commitment to Christianity. For example, Lenski
argues that the famous rescript to Hispellum—by which Constantine permitted a
city in central Italy to build a temple to himself and his family during the last years
of his reign—exemplifies precisely the sort of compromise that was at the heart of
Roman imperial governance, for the permission was paired with an important
caveat, which Lenski interprets as a prohibition on blood sacrifice at the new temple.
Constantine’s response to Hispellum’s petition was therefore consistent with both
the traditional policy of emperors to favor the requests of supportive cities and his
desire to chip away at traditional religious practices whenever possible (p. 127).
At the same time, Lenski is careful to avoid portraying Constantine as an allpowerful mastermind. To the contrary, he characterizes Constantine’s openhanded conferral of powers, privileges, and patronage on the Church and its bishops as stemming from an almost naive exuberance; many of these measures had to
be scaled back by his successors because they turned out to be excessive and unaffordable (p. 206). Moreover, Lenski illustrates the degree to which Constantine’s
ability to bend powerful bishops to his will was inherently limited; it was often
Constantine who was being manipulated as rival bishops by turns enlisted his support, defied his authority, or used him to attack each other (p. 283).
In sum, Lenski’s compelling interpretation of Constantine as both an energetic
promoter of Christianity and a political pragmatist successfully unites two facets of
this complex emperor that have often been regarded as contradictory. While ecclesiastical scholars may regret the lack of attention given to theological controversies,
Lenski’s study superbly elucidates Constantine’s approach to ecclesiastical conflicts
and his own understanding of his role as the first Christian emperor of Rome.
Willamette University

ROBERT R. CHENAULT

The Greek Historia Monachorum in Aegypto. Monastic Hagiography in the Late
Fourth Century. By Andrew Cain. [Oxford Early Christian Studies.] (New
York: Oxford University Press. 2016. Pp. xii, 329. $135.00. ISBN 978-0-19875825-9.)
Greek hagiography displays two kinds of classics: texts much appreciated
today for their literary merits and wealth of historical information, and texts that
have never excited modern scholars but were favorite readings in late antiquity and
the Middle Ages. Although it benefited from a sound critical edition and anno-

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tated French translation, both by André-Jean Festugière, the Historia Monachorum
in Aegypto (= HM), i.e., the “Inquiry on the Monks of Egypt,” has waited long
before reaping its fair share of attention. To a considerable extent, this has been
achieved by the monograph under review, which redresses the balance on behalf of
this composite and anonymously transmitted collection of monastic stories of the
desert, that was produced in c. 400, a critical time in various respects and one that
lent itself to literary innovation.
In the first five chapters, which make up a separate but coherent section of the
book, the author primarily treats questions of literary identity, inspects and detects
the literary echoes of the text, and offers a detailed discussion of its style. His
declared intention is to go beyond past unfavorable judgments with regard to its
quality and overall value, as well as to do justice to its particular identity. In labeling
HM a literary hybrid, Cain duly takes into account its polychromatic literary character and limited dependence on previous sources, both obvious and not, one of
which is the vita Antonii. Moreover, after a serious and in-depth consideration of
its language and the rhetorical figures that adorn it, he deems HM a work of a
learned and multi-talented monk. Chap. 5 offers an admirable literary analysis of
the HM’s style and technique without leaving out the audience for which it was
intended and the underlying purpose that dictated its writing.
Though some literary aspects emerge again in the next six chapters (6–12) of
this book, their emphasis is on the historical and “cultural” function of this collection of monastic stories. First and foremost, by applying the literary device of storytelling and by indulging in dramatization, HM highlights pilgrimage as a commendable act of religious devotion that calls for imitators. By portraying its
monastic heroes in fully biblicizing tones, its ambition may be far-reaching. Cain’s
consideration of HM as post-biblical “scripture,” on the grounds that its heroes
figure and function as prophets and apostles, cannot be accepted without much
skepticism and reservation. To support this hypothesis more arguments should
have been adduced from similar endeavors (e.g., Palladios’ Historia Lausiaca or
Theodoret’s Philotheos Historia). Aside from that, the contention that HM occupies
a unique position in the early monastic literary tradition is hardly convincing. The
role of Egyptian ascetics in the intra-religious debates of the fourth century and
their contribution to disseminating Christianity is an exaggeration not unique to
HM, since this theme finds its first full attestation in the vita Antonii.
This exaggeration, typical of all late antique ecclesiastic and monastic authors
who extolled saintly heroes, aims to blend “piety and propaganda.” This is the title
of the interesting chapter that concludes this monograph and that associates the
spirituality permeating HM with the teachings of Evagrios of Pontos, the theoretician par excellence of ascetical life and experience. Once more in these final pages
Andrew Cain shows off his mastery of Greek and Latin monastic literature as well
as of secondary literature.
Now that the study of hagiography boasts several sound critical editions and
translations into modern languages, it is crucial to proceed with monographs

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devoted to works that shaped the development of this particular branch of literature
and, beyond that, the thought-world of late antique and medieval society. Should
this be undertaken by such well-read and thoughtful commentators as the present
author, we have good reason to be optimistic.
Open University of Cyprus

STEPHANOS EFTHYMIADIS

La conversion de Gaza au christianisme: La Vie de S. Porphyre de Gaza par Marc le
Diacre (BHG 1570). Edited and translated by Anna Lampadaridi. [Subsidia
hagiographica 95.] (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes. 2016. Pp. vi, 292.
€75.00. ISBN 978-2-87365-032-2.)
Porphyry became bishop of Gaza in the late fourth century. Because the cult
of the local deity Marnas still dominated the city, initially he and his small congregation faced harassment. Porphyry sent Mark, one of his deacons, to Constantinople, where John Chrysostom helped to acquire an imperial letter ordering the closure of the temples at Gaza. A few years later Porphyry himself traveled to
Constantinople. This time Eudoxia, wife of the emperor Arcadius, arranged to
send imperial officials and soldiers to enforce a new edict, and she also contributed
funds and marble columns for the construction of a church. After Porphyry’s
return, the great temple of Marnas was burned. Five years later Porphyry presided
at the dedication of a new church, supposedly “the largest at that time,” which was
called the Eudoxiana after its imperial patron. He died in 420.
Porphyry’s career seems to contribute so much to our understanding of the
great religious and social upheavals in the later Roman Empire. His dealings with
the imperial court illustrated the delicate balance between central administration
and cities on the periphery. His increasing authority exemplified the rise of bishops
as municipal powerbrokers. The replacement of a temple by a church encapsulated
in miniature the transition from paganism to Christianity.
But is any of this factual? Because no other ancient text mentioned Porphyry,
all information about his life is derived from a Vita in Greek attributed to Mark the
Deacon. Scholars have long used the important edition (with a French translation)
by Henri Grégoire and M.-A. Kugener, published in 1930. In her excellent new
volume Anna Lampadaridi offers a better edition of the Greek text (with another
French translation), as well as an extensive commentary on philological, literary,
and historical issues. In her introduction she considers again the fundamental concerns about the authenticity of the Greek Vita.
The author of the Vita introduced himself as a confidant who shared some of
Porphyry’s adventures. But the prologue of the Vita and other passages were
directly borrowed from the Historia religiosa written by Theodoret of Cyrrhus in
the mid-440s, and some passages hinted at theological controversies among monks
in Palestine during the mid-sixth century. One possibility is that the existing Vita
was a redaction of an earlier memoir written by Mark the Deacon. Lampadaridi
suggests instead that the Vita was closer to fiction, and that its purpose was to high-

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light the disappearance of paganism. Rather than an eyewitness report about the
bishop, the Vita was a retrospective validation of the emergence of Christianity, “un
récit patriographique” that “nourished the memory” (p. 37) of the construction of
the city’s huge new church.
A related puzzle is the relationship between the Greek Vita and a Georgian
Vita, edited by Paul Peeters (AB 59 [1941], with a Latin translation). Peeters
argued that the Georgian Vita was a translation of an original version in Syriac; he
also suggested that the Greek Vita had been based on a Syriac version. Other scholars have reversed the sequence by arguing that the Syriac version behind the Georgian Vita was instead a translation of an original Greek Vita. Since some names and
episodes differed between the two Vitae, these arguments about priority have significant consequences. Lampadaridi now eliminates a Syriac version from the
transmission and concludes that the Georgian Vita, despite the omissions and additions, had been translated directly from the Greek Vita.
Lampadaridi’s stimulating introduction and commentary should revive interest in the Greek Vita as both a literary narrative and a possible historical source.
Perhaps it will also inspire the publication of a complete translation of the Vita into
English.
RAYMOND VAN DAM

University of Michigan

MEDIEVAL
Popes and Jews: 1095–1291. By Rebecca Rist. (Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2016. Pp. xxi, 336. $110.00. ISBN 978-0-19-871798-0.)
Rebecca Rist has produced a valuable addition to current research on the relationship between the papacy and the Jews in the High Middle Ages (Popes and
Jews: 1095–1291). Her previous publications have explored crusading, the medieval
papacy, and papal-Jewish relations in narrower contexts; however, this time she
delves deeply into the complexity of the relationship between the papacy, in particular, and the Jews, and the paradox of protection (particularly in Rome) and toleration, while also restricting Jewish life. The two-century period on which she
focuses spanned a transformational era for European Jews of increasing suspicion,
false accusations, and horrific persecution of individuals and whole communities.
In exploring the papal-Jewish relationship, Rist builds on seminal works from the
explosion of research by prominent scholars since the 1960s into Christian-Jewish
relations in the Middle Ages. Scholars such as Kenneth Stow have written numerous articles and books exploring that relationship from the Jewish perspective.
Rist’s aim, as stated in the appendix, is “to re-focus . . . often neglected themes . . .
with regard to specifically papal-Jewish relations” (p. 271). This volume seeks to
offer a more comprehensive analysis of many aspects of that particular relationship
through the use of an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources.

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The chapters in this volume are each dedicated to different aspects of papalJewish interaction, including: papal protection of the Jews, the effect of the Crusades on the Jews, papal claims to authority over the Jews, the papacy and the
Roman Jewish community, the Jews and money, and the impact of the crusades on
Jews and Jewish communities; however, of special note are the sections devoted to
Jewish ideas about the papacy, gleaned from numerous Hebrew sources. Using
Hebrew, papal, and other Christian texts results in an examination of both perspectives in the same volume, and supplies a much more nuanced and complete picture.
Rist’s pragmatic analysis of events within their historical contexts leads to interesting perspectives and suggestions for papal motivations. Coming from a Jewish and
Christian background, Rist strives to analyze and communicate both perspectives,
which makes this study particularly worthwhile. She also explores the legal and theological underpinnings to treatment of the Jews within Christian society in specific
situations, which suggests why individual popes’ actions were not uniform. Her
research reveals the truly limited protective power popes had, despite their
attempts, particularly in the twelfth century in Rome; however, she also points out
papal decisions that led to dreadful consequences for Jewish communities. Rist
effectively sets each situation within its historical context, and rightly warns against
“post-enlightenment distinctions” when exploring papal decrees (p. 4).
Popes and Jews, 1095–1291 will be valuable for university students and academics because of its extensive bibliography and because it addresses multiple
aspects of the papal-Jewish relationship within a limited time frame and in the
same volume. She clearly demonstrates her skill at utilizing a vast collection of
sources to tell this multifaceted story. At times, however, perhaps because the same
sources apply to different topics, some sections from different chapters seem repetitive, and perhaps could have been consolidated for a smoother read; nevertheless,
managing such a mountain of detail reveals a mastery of the sources.
University of West Florida

MARIE-THÉRÈSE CHAMPAGNE

Interpretation of Scripture: Practice. A Selection of Works of Hugh, Andrew, and Richard
of St Victor, Peter Comestor, Robert of Melun, Maurice of Sully, and Leonius of
Paris. Edited by Frans van Liere and Franklin T. Harkins. [Victorine Texts in
Translation, Volume 6.] (Turnhout: Brepols. 2015. Pp. 563; 1 color ill.
€90.00. ISBN 978-2-503-55312-2.)
Following a preface by Hugh Feiss, acknowledgments from the editors, and
the list of general abbreviations that precedes every volume of this series, the present publication opens with a “General Introduction” written by Frans van Liere and
Franklin T. Harkins (pp. 25–50). As a whole, the authors and their writings, which
have been chosen to illustrate what could be understood by exegetical “practice,”
have been arranged in seven thematic groups: “Literal Exegesis” (Hugh of St.
Victor); “Littera and Historia” (Hugh, Richard, Andrew of St. Victor, as well as
Peter Comestor); “The Spiritual Sense in Exegesis and Theology” (Richard of St.
Victor); “From Exegesis to Theology” (Robert of Melun); “Hebraica Veritas, Jews,

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and Judaizers” (Richard of St. Victor); “From Text to Sermon” (Richard of St.
Victor, Maurice of Sully); and “Exegesis and Poetry” (Leonius of Paris). The
volume has been provided with a general bibliography (pp. 497–522) and several
indices (pp. 523–563: Holy Scripture, Ancient and Medieval Authors, Subject).
The reader might be somewhat surprised when he discovers that every translated
text has been provided with notes. This complementary readers’ service has not
been announced anywhere.
The present publication intends to continue the introduction to medieval Victorine culture, science, and theology by a choice of texts which is supposed to represent what one could nowadays call “exegetical practice.” The series titled “Victorine Texts in Translation” has earned this reputation for its volumes already
published. This new book is another striking example of the present-day high
standing of North American study of the medieval French Victorine canons regular
of Paris.
It is evident that, insofar as the Victorine intellectual work is to be considered
as a kind of biblical interpretation, any selection of texts is difficult and always
exposes itself to criticism. I congratulate the editors of this volume on their fine decisions, which have led to the present collection of medieval exegetical texts in English. In its first section the book opens with Hugh of St. Victor’s Commentary on the
Book of Genesis, while, in the following section, various pieces, excerpted from several
authors, have been combined. Nevertheless, the editors’ decision to open this second
part with Hugh of St. Victor’s prologue to his Chronica (that is, De tribus maximis
circumstantiis gestorum) appears somewhat astonishing, because today everybody
knows that Hugh composed the Chronica after having completed all his exegetical
works, except the Homilie in Ecclesiasten. The Chronica preceded by only a couple of
years the writing of the De sacramentis, and was perhaps even a preparation for it.
Thus, putting the De tribus maximis circumstantiis gestorum at the top of this section
interprets the following texts more than it expounds what Hugh could have meant.
The section entitled “From text to sermon,” where three sermons have been
assembled, shows especially convincingly the Victorines’ practical theology. Since
the studies on Victorine preaching written by Jean Châtillon and Jean Longère, for
instance, we know the canons’ attachment to the cura animarum, in which, obviously, they engaged. The texts, chosen from within Richard of St. Victor and Maurice of Sully, demonstrate clearly that it was their love of the Church which moved
them while expounding what Scripture intends to announce.
The translations that I was able to check seem to have been worked out very
carefully. The English versions of what the authors have composed in Latin are
readable and understandable.
As a general remark I would like to add that the “Introductions” seem to rely
widely on what Beryl Smalley thought Victorine exegesis should have been. Meanwhile, however, thanks to international research, which has been conducted for
about eighty years in a good number of European languages, especially in French

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and in German, what has come to light more recently? There is no doubt that the
Victorine foundation, in its origins, sought to reform the Christianity of its time on
the basis of study and of religious re-ordering. Therefore, the Victorines and their
friends pursued exegetical work as being preliminary to theology and because of
their love of the Holy Scriptures.
Despite these minor defects, this book merits without any doubt to be recommended warmly to everybody who is interested in twelfth-century religious life and
the culture of reform.
Hugo von Sankt Viktor-Institut, Frankfurt am Main

RAINER BERNDT, S.J.

Gratian the Theologian. By John C. Wei. [Studies in Medieval and Early Modern
Canon Law, Volume 13.] (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of
America Press. 2016. Pp. xviii, 353. $65.00. Hardcover. ISBN 978-0-81322803-7.)
One of the most significant texts of the twelfth century is Gratian’s Decretum,
or Concordantia discordantium canonum. Gratian has long been hailed as the “father”
of medieval canon law, but, despite his importance, little is known about Gratian
himself. The Decretum remains the only reliable source for Gratian’s background,
interests, and goals. Since Anders Winroth’s discovery of a first recension, scholars
have been able to explore more clearly what Gratian’s intentions were in composing
his text, what sources he did or did not use, and how his thought may have changed
over time. These discoveries, however, have also opened other questions currently
debated in the literature. John Wei’s Gratian the Theologian sets out to reassess the
theological content of the Decretum in the light of this first recension.
Wei’s monograph is the culmination of work that he had begun in his dissertation under Winroth. Although Gratian was a gifted canonist, Wei lays out his
engagement with controversial issues in contemporary theology, especially
penance. He argues that Gratian composed only the first recension and that the
second recension was the work of an unknown redactor. For this reason, Wei
focuses his study on the first recension.
Wei provides a wide-ranging analysis of the role of theology in Gratian’s
thought. The first section of the book introduces Gratian, his text, and some questions about both that still confront scholars. Wei also provides an overview of Gratian’s use of scripture and biblical exegesis. Although Gratian included a theoretical
discussion of scripture and exegesis, Wei shows how he actually used scripture and
the glossa ordinaria both to augment or modify positions contained in his canonical
material and to structure certain portions of the Decretum. Gratian’s familiarity
with the glossa ordinaria is just one link between Gratian and School of Laon that
Wei establishes throughout.
The second and main section concerns Gratian’s De penitentia, a treatise on
penance inserted into Causa 33. Wei provides the context for the treatise by sur-

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veying the development of penance and significant twelfth-century debates regarding its theory and practice. His main argument is that Gratian composed the core
of his treatise as a response to contemporary theological texts circulating in Italy.
Whereas many previous scholars have claimed a link between Gratian and Abelard,
Wei demonstrates instead an engagement with texts connected to the School of
Laon, such as, among others, the treatise Augustinus in libro vite (of which Wei
provides an edition in an appendix).
In the final section, Wei compares the first and second recensions on issues of
sacramental and liturgical law and theology. He contends that Gratian was not particularly concerned with the sacraments (besides penance, which he treated in De
penitentia, and marriage, which he likely did not consider a sacrament) in the first
recension. Likewise, he was even more reticent to discuss liturgical law, the customary nature of which did not fit with Gratian’s plan for his Concordia as an analytic textbook. Arguing from differences in formal sources and in apparent goals,
Wei contends that a subsequent redactor added most of the texts relating to sacraments and liturgy, including an entire section, De consecratione, as a way of transforming this analytic textbook into a more comprehensive collection.
This book is certainly a must-read for specialists in the field of medieval canon
law, but even nonspecialists will find much in it that is useful and enlightening. Specialists who have strong leanings one way or another on some of the questions surrounding Gratian and his text may come away with their existing notions intact. Wei
presents a number of plausible arguments for the existence of two “Gratians” and a
later dating for the Decretum, though at times he seems to assume these points rather
than prove them. There is much here for nonspecialists, particularly those interested
in penance, theology, or intellectual culture in the twelfth century. Wei presents
excellent context for the issues he discusses and clearly guides readers through the
Decretum. The extensive footnotes display his deep knowledge of both the Decretum
and twelfth-century intellectual culture. In sum, Gratian the Theologian is a deeply
researched book that will be valuable for any student of the twelfth century.
Loyola University Maryland

BRANDON PARLOPIANO

The Making of Assisi: The Pope, the Franciscans, and the Painting of the Basilica. By
Donal Cooper and Janet Robson. (New Haven and London: Yale University
Press. 2013. Pp. xii, 296 with 60 color illus. $75.00. ISBN 978-0-30019571-2.)
Specialist scholars, interested students, and passionate readers alike will
warmly welcome the publication of this handsomely illustrated, elegantly written,
and excellently researched book. As the frescoes of Assisi are amongst the most
important (and most studied) Italian artworks of all times, the risk of producing yet
another monograph on the subject was extremely high. Cooper and Robson, however, take a fresh perspective, focusing on patronage and iconography and wisely
leave aside the exhausted attribution debate over the authorship of the paintings.

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The approach itself is not new: indeed it is openly indebted to the seminal studies
of Alistair Smart and Gerhard Ruf (as well as to the more recent work of Chiara
Frugoni), but the authors have added much that is new through their careful rereading of the documents, by offering a fresher visual analysis of both individual
scenes and their actual location within the Basilica, and by setting the art-historical
discourse within the most recent debates on function and “meaning,” as well as
those on physical and intellectual contexts.
Starting from a convincing dating of the nave paintings to the period between
May 1288 and May 1297, and from the demonstrable (and indeed well-demonstrated) fact that the murals are the work of a complex and variously articulated
workshop which follow a single coherent programme of exceptional visual ambition
and intellectual scope, one of the most significant contributions of this volume is
the actual attempt to identify the minds that might have lain behind the conception
and design of such a programme. This leads naturally on to a revision of traditional
ideas about patronage and agency. The established view that Nicholas IV (1288–
92), as the first Franciscan Pope, played a leading role not only in commissioning
but also in shaping the programme is challenged by the observation that he never
visited Assisi, coupled with the fact that the scheme was not only highly site-specific, but also evolved to some extent once work was under way. An analogous argument is used to test the role that might have been played by the Minister General,
Matthew of Acquasparta (also traditionally seen as a key impresario), thus shifting
attention from the Curia to the Franciscan community at Assisi, particularly to the
Provincial Ministers of Umbria and to the Custodians of the Basilica. A subtle and
intelligent prosopographical study of office-holders at the Sacro Convento brings
to the foreground a number of friars who combined extensive administrative experience with sophisticated theological knowledge, presenting us with a cluster of the
names of those who were more convincingly involved in giving shape to Nicholas
IV’s ambition than any ecclesiastic at the Curia. This research has the merit not
only of making us think more broadly about the intellectual context within which
the frescoes were conceived but also successfully refining our understanding of the
pictorial programme as having been painted for Nicholas IV as much as having
been commissioned by him.
There is insufficient space here to allow us to list all the numerous thoughtprovoking ideas and new insights offered by the authors – some will open up new
avenues for research, others will provoke and/or require testing – but together they
unquestionably contribute to make this a must-read book, and an indispensable reference for scholars and students for years to come.
University of Edinburgh

CLAUDIA BOLGIA

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María de Molina, Queen and Regent. Life and Rule in Castile-León, 1259–1321. By
Paulette Lynn Pepin. (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. 2016. Pp. xxxii, 157.
$80.00. ISBN 978-1-4985-0589-5.)
It is increasingly recognized how women played a key role in medieval societies. María de Molina is certainly one of the most remarkable queens from the
Castilian medieval period, and a great example to get into medieval queenship.
That is what Professor Paulette L. Pepin seeks to offer, as she finds that the importance of Queen María has not entailed an appropiate echo in contemporary scholarship, and she had lacked an English biography so far.
The author organizes the book not just following a chronological order, but
observing the different roles Queen María played during the consecutive rules of
her husband, her son, and her grandson, firstly as queen-consort, and secondly as
dowager queen and regent. Chapter 1 explores her marriage with Sancho IV, focusing on their unsuccessful attemps to legitimize their union. The author gathers
good information about this matter, and tries to explain the motivations for both
of them to get married even in the most difficult circumstances. I would highlight
as really positive Pepin’s attempt to look for causes which would correspond to a
medieval mentality and context, while she seeks to avoid romantic assumptions,
sometimes found even in contemporary scholarship. The author also bears constantly in mind the wider European context in order to understand fully Castilian
problems.
Chapter 2 focuses on María as queen-consort, co-ruling together with her
husband. Here, Pepin mostly explores the Queen’s intermediary tasks as well as her
role as counselor, and proposes interesting comparison with other figures, such as
biblical Esther or Vierge María. It would have been interesting to find some insight
about these qualities in the context of the general stereotype of woman in medieval
imagery, as they usually appear as intermediaries and counselors in the literature
and historiography of the period.
Following mostly the Chronicle of Ferdinand IV, chapter 3 explores the difficulties the Queen faced to keep her son’s power as king, with an interesting comparison between María and previous women who lived similar political circumstances (viz., Blanca of Castile and Berenguela). Nonetheless, the author focuses
for a great part of this chapter on the 1295 cortes, which allows her to highlight the
Queen’s tenacious quest for support from the townsmen (her major allies), the
clergy, and the unreliable nobility, a tenacity that her son was unable to maintain
when he reached his age of majority.
Although chapter 4 is meant to focus on the reign of Alfonso XI, its first part
enlightens us on the precedent conflict between Fernando IV and the Aragonese
king. With respect to María’s nine-year regency during the reign of her grandson
Alfonso, Pepin compares the situation with her regency in the previous reign, and
emphasises the significant part townsmen had gained in Castilian society.

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As we observe, albeit the author endeavors to highlight María’s role as queen,
the book mostly explores Castilian political and social history. Therefore, we miss
some more insight into the life of the queen apart from the major political facts of
Castilian history. Besides, Professor Pepin does warn about the need of a critical
evaluation of the historical reliability of medieval chronicles, but many of her assertions are based on these very sources, and, at the end, her book transmits much of
their idealistic construction of the queen’s image. We also miss some relevant
Spanish bibliography, particularly the most recent editions of some of the main
sources used in the book (Crónica de Alfonso X, edited by Manuel González Jiménez
in 1999, and Crónica de Sancho IV, edited by Pablo Saracino in 2014). A more accurate editing of the Spanish citations found in the footnotes would also have been
appreciated.
That having been said, Professor Pepin’s book is an excellent medium to make
María de Molina’s political life more easily accessible to an English-speaking audience, showing a remarkable effort of translation of medieval Spanish sources, and
written by someone who has been in a vivid closeness with the places Queen María
visited and lived in.
Universidad de Sevilla

CARMEN BENÍTEZ

The Register of Edward Story, Bishop of Chichester, 1478–1503. Edited by Janet H.
Stevenson. [Canterbury and York Society, Volume 106.] (Rochester, NY:
The Boydell Press. 2016. Pp. lviii, 365. $60.00. ISBN 978-0-907239-79-6.)
Despite recent diversification in its publications, the Canterbury and York
Society remains best known for its editions and calendars of medieval English episcopal registers. This volume offers a careful and useful calendar of one such compilation, as the first from Chichester diocese to appear in this series (but not the
first to be published).
Edward Story’s episcopate, from 1478 to 1503, was not notably dramatic, and
the bishop himself attracts little historiographical attention. His register, which
survives in two volumes, is perhaps characteristic of the later pre-Reformation registers, revealing an administration which could function almost without requiring
direct input from its formal head. In the contents list the full calendar—699 entries,
extending over 239 pages—appears, somewhat unhelpfully, as a single entity:
“‘Text.” It combines the entries from both manuscript volumes into one continuously-numbered sequence, without indicating the break between the two volumes
(between nos. 403 and 404), or giving details of foliation (they are supplied in the
third and fourth appendices, each offering a “concordance” linking the numbered
entries to two separate runs of foliation for each volume—but giving dates only for
the second).
The editor’s introduction (pp. xvii–li) provides a brief biography of the bishop,
followed by an extended thematic discussion of the register’s contents. This is a
valuable survey, essentially cherry-picking the material from the first original reg-

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ister. (The second is not neglected, but its contents are little more than administrative routine and markers for resumés of clerical careers.) A further note (pp. liii–lvi)
examines the original registers’ physical structure and comments briefly on the
organization of their contents.
The entries up to 402 (and ignoring 403, an institution intruded from 1506)
break into two separate chronological series. Up to 313 the documents reflect a
wide range of tasks and business, entered up primarily in chronological order (but
not always so, and with some entries transcribing material from before Story’s episcopate). This section defies general summary, with some very ordinary business
(institutions and ordinations) mingling with details of visitations, taxation matters,
and other miscellaneous material. How complete this record is cannot be judged.
A series of ordination ceremonies begins at 314, in 1484, and runs through to
December, 1502 (402). The entries from 404 onwards mainly record institutions
and collations, again in chronological order. The run is incomplete: the earliest
entry dates from 1481 (following on from the institutions in the first original
volume), with further long gaps in 1487–90 and 1492–98. The first two appendices
offer reconstructed itineraries. One traces the bishop’s movements throughout his
pontificate, drawing mainly on the register but integrating other material. The
second extracts two sections from that itinerary to lay out the proposed visitation
routes for 1478 and 1482, themselves outlined (and with more detail) in schedules
calendared earlier in the volume (items 37 and 163).
Volumes like this are rarely read for fun. They are quarries, and this one definitely contains much worth digging for. For such purposes effective indices are
essential, but challenging to compile to ensure utility. Here the index of names and
places is necessarily extensive, and easily navigable (although it has some limitations
when searching for people by starting from a place name, and retrieving regulars by
order seems to be especially difficult). Organized under capacious general heads,
the index of subjects is more challenging to work with, but does work with practice.
That said, this is undeniably a job well done, for which the editor is to be heartily
thanked, and a worthy and worthwhile addition to the CYS series.
University of Birmingham (Emeritus)

R. N. SWANSON

EARLY MODERN EUROPEAN
Vives y Moro. La amistad en tiempos difíciles. By Enrique García Hernán. (Madrid:
Cátedra Ediciones. 2016. Pp. 402. €20,99 paperback. ISBN 978-84-3763605-4.)
There were many affinities between these two great intellectual figures of the
Renaissance: their wide learning, their educational ideals, their holiness of life, but
they were very different in temperament, as García Hernán notes on the opening
page, the one, More, alegre y entretenido (cheerful and entertaining), the other quejoso y sufridor (querulous and long-suffering). They differed very much in civil status

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as well, More a powerful statesman and a man of considerable wealth, Vives an outsider and a struggling scholar. For this reason I do not quite agree with the author’s
summation that they complemented each other in such a way that in Vives we find
More and in More Vives. They shared an interest in the education of women, illustrated in More’s letter to William Gonell, but this can hardly be compared with
Vives’ Education of the Christian Woman, the first systematic study to address the
universal education of women and to recognize the equal intellectual capacity of
women, even to say that women often surpass men in this respect. During his residence in Chelsea More demonstrated his concern for the poor, establishing a
house for the sick and the aged, whereas Vives wrote a treatise on the relief of the
poor to alleviate the urgent problems of poverty in Bruges, where he was living,
which became a milestone in the history of social welfare.
More’s good friend Erasmus first took notice of Vives in a letter to Juan de
Parra, tutor of the young Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, in 1519 recommending
him with lavish praise as a supervisor of his studies, and again soon afterwards he
lauds the young humanist for his virtuoso performance against the logicians of
Paris in his In pseudodialecticos. More was also impressed by Vives’ exceptional skill
in eloquence and philosophical debate and wrote a generous encomium of his own
in a letter to Erasmus. Thus began the friendship with More, which was nurtured
in the many trips of Vives to Oxford and his visits to More’s home.
In speaking of Vives’ works, García Hernán blithely attributes to Vives a very
important document that relates the trial and execution of Thomas More, Expositio fidelis de morte Thomae Mori, a Latin translation of a French report of those
tragic events. It is dated July 23, 1535, and was printed by Froben at Basel early in
October of that year. The only proof of authorship provided to the reader is simply
the content of the document, which is of course no proof at all. No attempt is
made, for example, to analyze its style, that of an official report, far from the florid,
reiterative Latin of Vives, which is often difficult to decipher. Few people have ever
made this attribution, most recently Francisco Calero, who also makes the outlandish claim that Vives is the author of the famous Spanish picaresque novel,
Lazarillo de Tormes. Yet García Hernán constantly quotes from this book to compare Vives to More. He also attributes two other books to Vives, one an Apologia
sive confutatio, a defense of Catherine of Aragon, and a Parasceve sive Adversus
improborum quorundam temeritatem, a defense of matrimony, both published in the
fictitious city of Lunenberg.
The book is rather rambling and quotes freely from Vives and More without
giving sources. It ends with a whimsical remark of More’s when he was taking leave
of a friend, “Goodbye, my horse is calling me.”
East Carolina University

CHARLES FANTAZZI

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Reformations: The Early Modern World, 1450–1650. By Carlos M. N. Eire. (New
Haven: Yale University Press. 2016. Pp. xx, 893. $40.00 ISBN 978-0-30011192-7.)
This is a not very brief history of reformation. But as with that earlier work, A
Very Brief History of Eternity (Princeton University Press, 2010), Eire has produced a
volume with radiant prose sure to garner critical acclaim. He has constructed the
book for an educated, nonspecialist audience, with minimal footnotes, focusing the
seventy-three page bibliography wholly on twentieth century and later works in English. He may have intended the tome for an undergraduate audience of history
majors. Slipping it into a backpack, however, will be no small feat. However, given
the goals Eire set out, the girth and heft seem perfectly reasonable. Covering two
hundred tumultuous years, Eire has generated four books in one. In the first, he treats
the later medieval period as a prelude to 1517. In the second and third, he examines
topics most expect to find in Reformation overviews: the emergence of Protestantism
and the reform of Catholicism, respectively. In the volume’s final section, he traces
the effect of the reformations upon global civilization even beyond 1700.
Eire has delivered a picture of reformations informed by the central insight of
historians working across the last two scholarly generations: portrayals of the past
must reveal the vast human complexity found in the documents we study. Myths
and stereotypes about the past that ostensibly identify the roots of what we love or
loathe in the present obscure rather than illuminate history. It is long past time to
expose such myths, plus the corrective human complexity. Such correctives are
needed most where historical myths tenaciously endure, and where evidence of
human complexity too often is ignored: in textbook literature and popular accounts
for nonspecialist audiences. In this sense, Eire has delivered great history. He has
depicted Luther and other famous reformers up front, in living color, exposed with
both their glowing inclination toward theological brilliance, and their distasteful
propensity toward vicious intolerance. Eire has not placed Luther, or any of the
others, at the center of his narrative, however. There instead are multiple reformations, incomprehensible as individual events. Eire’s Luther cannot be understood
apart from both the German princes who took his side, and the Müntzerite radicals
and Swiss Zwinglians who opposed him. Eire has presented the Catholic side of
the story as unfolding in five discrete phases, affected not just by reaction to Luther
and his sarcastic propagandists, but more so by the intellectual habits of Renaissance humanism that allowed numerous theological outcomes. When examining
the British Isles, Eire argues that conflicting religious positions of various monarchs must be considered not just the cause of a wild devotional rollercoaster ride
for subjects, but also the consequence of complex geopolitics.
And yet, Eire has described the age of reformations with terms sometimes
evoking old stereotypes undermined by his eight-hundred-page barrage of details.
While acknowledging that some medieval clerics and laity engaged in decidedly
non-Christian practices such as magic, necromancy, and witchcraft, Eire nonetheless has insisted that one can still “speak of medieval piety and of the Church” in

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generic, rather monolithic language (pp. 41–42). Falling back on a well-worn path,
he considers conciliarist inability “to trump [medieval] political realities” of heresy
and disfunctional authoritative structures a tragic failure (pp. 54–55). His paragraphs on Renaissance “privileging” of the past, as in Italy, where “urban life and
commerce” allegedly “broke through the feudal order” and helped “make the Reformation possible,” have a decidedly neo-Burckhardtian ring (pp. 66–67). Eire
describes central Europeans in 1505—right down to the “rudest peasants”—as
deeply infused with “unquestioned assumptions” about heaven, good works, and sin
(p. 138). In these and other passages, he evokes nineteenth- and early twentiethcentury concepts long under fire from medievalists and early modern scholars, particularly those who scoff at the idea of widespread Christian belief prior to the age
of “confessionalization.”
Many specialists will be gratified by Eire’s nuanced consideration of subjects and
actors too long cooped in historiographic pigeonholes. This will include scholars
studying Spanish humanism and reform ideology. Students of Luther’s theological
rhetoric and the contexts in which it developed—like the twisted politics of indulgences—will be pleased. So will those whose investigations of radical reformers look
beyond violence to the interesting spirituality and apocalypticism they promoted. So
will historians aggravated by myth-driven analysis of the Society of Jesus, not to mention those committed to sophisticated study of early modern sacred spaces and the
densely-layered piety expressed within them. Similarly, scholars of inquisition, witchhunting, and demonology who consider the political, social, and economic circumstances lurking behind claims of diabolical intervention likely will find this overview
highly satisfactory. Others, however, may not. Historians of political thought may
chafe at Eire’s discussion of Machiavelli, portrayed here as a one-trick pony, able to
conceive of government only as the naked pursuit of power. Eire’s claim that
“humanist idealism had become but a dream by the 1530s” (p. 80) will rile those who
eagerly concur that Christian humanism really began in Italy—with rediscovery of
the insights of Greek church fathers—but who find love for such fontes among
humanistic prelates long after the alleged terminus. Similarly, historians of early
modern science may hear in Eire’s claims about empirical science and its rivalrous
clash with religion the echo of a stereotype to which they have long objected.
In the introduction, Eire said he would not identify the origin of modernity in
the age of reformations, as so many historians have before. Instead, he has found in
the reformations an age of contradictions, polarities, and paradoxes. He has found
excesses of faith and an overabundance of doubt; new kinds of piety born and old
kinds intensified; a push to insist that matter and spirit were less compatible, existing
simultaneously with newly energized assertions about the sacrality of the here-andnow. At one point, Eire calls such contradictions “more than a dim reflection of us
today” (p. 285). Still, he has not found the root of what he likes or loathes about the
modern world, but simply the root of what is. In the process, he has made the
human complexities of the reformations far more comprehensible. Bravo!
Bloomsburg University

WILLIAM V. HUDON

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Jesuit Pedagogy, 1540–1616: A Reader. Edited by Cristiano Casalini and Claude
Pavur, S.J.[Sources for the History of Jesuit Pedagogy, Volume 1.] (Boston:
Institute of Jesuit Sources. 2016. Pp. xxii, 346. $45.00. ISBN 978-0-99728230-6.)
The editors of this volume hope it is the first in a series of volumes based on
the Monumenta paedagogica, seven volumes in the Monumenta historica Societatis
Iesu. This book begins with a table of contents, a timetable of early Jesuit education
up to 1613, a list of nine pictures, and ends with an excellent index.
The volume includes an excellent Introduction (pp. 1–33) and thirty documents, each a separate chapter. Each chapter has an introduction almost a page
long, which provides readers with information about the topic and its author. The
first seven chapters were written in Spanish, all by St. Ignatius of Loyola or his
close associates from 1547 until his death in 1556. Thereafter twelve chapters were
written in Latin and eleven in Italian. Three of the thirty chapters were written by
Germans, one by a Frenchman, all the rest by Italians or Spaniards. Interestingly,
after Loyola’s death only one of these documents was written by the Jesuit Superior
General, that by Claudio Acquaviva in 1613, twenty years later than any other of
the thirty documents here published. Acquaviva insisted that Jesuits teaching philosophy should follow Aristotle and those teaching theology should follow Thomas
Aquinas. That directive affected Jesuit schools well into the twentieth century.
The book is divided into four parts. Part 1 is Inspirations: its seven chapters
deal with the first Jesuit colleges, 1541–1556. Two chapters are by Loyola, three by
his secretary Juan Polanco. Part 2 is about Administration. It has nine chapters dealing with the early colleges in Italy. The first important college was at Messina in
Sicily, where the Jesuits taught local students from ages roughly fourteen to twenty.
The town government and benefactors paid for most of the expenses.
Three chapters deal with the prestigious Roman College. Rome was also the
home of the German College, which had many Germans and Hungarians, but the
majority were sons of wealthy Italians. Most students there were boarders and had
to pay for their upkeep, unlike most Jesuit schools, which had free tuition. Here the
Jesuits had to deal with often unruly students twenty-four hours a day, seven days
a week. Chapter 14 looks at similar problems at the Roman College. Imposing discipline was not easy. Chapter 15 examines the plan and order of study at the
Roman College, which in many respects was the model for Jesuit colleges through
much of Europe. Part 2 closes with a chapter on the Roman Seminary, where the
students resisted or ignored the rules of conduct; the Jesuit author of the chapter
suggested that the Jesuits should simply leave the school or impose drastic measures
on the students.
Part 3, Formation, is the shortest part and covers chapters 17 to 22. Chapters
17, 19, and 20 deal with humanistic studies and values. Chapter 18 deals with spiritual and academic progress. Chapters 21 and 22 deal with doctrinal content and
uniformity of doctrine.

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Part 4, Teaching Practice, is likely the most interesting for today’s readers.
Loyola himself wrote chapter 23, on teaching composition. Chapter 24 explains
“How to teach children Latin and Greek.” Then come chapters of literary studies,
mathematics, Hebrew, teaching philosophy, and teaching theology.
I found this book interesting: there was good scholarship and immersion in
topics and primary texts I had not thought about. The book was well organized.
The main weakness was too much focus on Spain and Italy, too little on Germany
and France.
Marquette University (Emeritus)

JOHN PATRICK DONNELLY, S.J.

Das Konzil von Trient und die katholische Konfessionskultur (1563–2013). Wissenschaftliches Symposium aus Anlass des 450. Jahrestages des Abschlusses des Konzils
von Trient, Freiburg i. Br. 18.–21. September 2013. Edited by Peter Walter and
Günther Wassilowsky. [Reformationsgeschichtliche Studien und Texte, Band
163.] (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag. 2016. Pp. x, 569. €69,00. ISBN 978-3402-11587-9.)
This volume assembles over twenty contributions by German, Italian, Belgian, and Dutch historians to a conference held in 2013 in Freiburg im Breisgau in
commemoration of the 450th anniversary of the closure of the Council of Trent. It
investigates Trent as a “theological event” (part II) and as a lieu de mémoire (part I).
It explores the latter before it gets down to the former, thus highlighting how different understandings of the event have always depended on the viewpoint and
intention of the beholder. The emphasis and novelty of the volume lies in its attention to the changing significance of the council for ecclesiology, liturgy, theology,
and pastoral care within a long-term process that shaped a new Catholic confessional culture over the past four centuries.
In many ways the volume itself may be seen as an expression of (German)
Catholic culture as it stands today. It includes the homily by the archbishop of
Freiburg, Robert Zollitsch, (pp. 31–36) that opened the conference in 2013, an
essay by the president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian
Unity, Cardinal Kurt Koch (pp. 37–49) on Trent’s importance for the current ecumenical dialogue, as well as a fully-fledged scholastic disputatio (pp. 487–518)
between the eminent historians and antagonists Wolfgang Reinhard and Peter Hersche over the latter’s concept of “Baroque Catholicism,” which, as Hersche contends, was essentially anti-modern and has since in spats and intervals reversed anything that might have been modern about the allegedly austere Tridentine spirit.
Hersche’s fiddly periodization, attributing something “frühaufklärerisches” to the
humanist-inspired Catholic reform movement, which, as he posits, by 1600 was
smothered by the delaying and reactionary “anti-aufklärerisch” Baroque so that
proper, modernizing reform only came about with the Catholic Enlightenment ca
1750 soon to be superseded again by Neo-Baroque in the nineteenth century (pp.
500–501), does not really convince this reader.

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A while ago John O’Malley asked “what happened at the Council”; this
volume shows that sometimes what happened was just as important as what was
“remembered” to have happened. As Günther Wassilowski states in his masterful
introduction (pp. 1–29), it is probably quite telling that Protestant confessional culture has relied on narratives of mythical founding individuals, whereas Catholicism
has largely worked with a more collective, i.e., conciliar “event myth.” Nonetheless,
the reception of Trent, the theme of the fourth part of the volume, also depended
on individual actors, and in particular on the two poles that marked Trent as an
event—the papacy as a succession of popes, and the bishops.
Maria Teresa Fattori thus shows how Benedict XIV almost two centuries after
the convocation of the Council still engaged with the Tridentine heritage in his De
Synodo diocesana (pp. 417–59). He found a major source of inspiration in Carlo Borromeo, who emerges across many of the contributions as one of the most fertile figures to project and on which to project the alleged true meaning of Trent. Borromeo
operated not only as an individual to condense the “Tridentine myth” for successive
generations; the man himself and his networks, as Julia Zunckel (pp. 391–416)
explores, also actively and consciously shaped the ways in which Trent was transmitted and received across the Alps, in the Swiss Cantons, and amongst some of his
correspondents in the Holy Roman Empire. This rich volume allows the reader to
follow how the willingness or need to remember Trent varied over time, also because
the Catholic Church remained a broad church, in which interpretations of the
Council could be used for diverging agendas (see part III on the Roman Curia and
Trent), and not least to embarrass one’s enemy from within or without.
University of Durham

NICOLE REINHARDT

Elizabethan Espionage: Plotters and Spies in the Struggle between Catholicism and the
Crown. By Patrick H. Martin. (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company. 2016.
Pp. x, 358. $49.95 paperback. ISBN 978-1-4766-6255-8.)
Elizabeth Espionage: Plotters and Spies in the Struggle between Catholicism and
the Crown aims to defend the Catholics of Elizabethan England from the charge of
terrorism. Its main argument is that English Catholics were more the victims than
the terrorists, during what Martin calls “the struggle over England’s religious identity” during the late sixteenth century. He aims to showcase this by re-examining
the activities of late Elizabethan spies in a search for their underlying motives, in
contrast to much scholarly study which consistently portrays spies as nothing more
than traitors.
Martin focuses especially on two spies who worked for opposite sides: George
Gifford and William Sterrell. Martin portrays Gifford as an agent provocateur for
the spymaster Francis Walsingham, while Sterrell secretly worked for the Earl of
Worcester as a Catholic counter–spy. These two characters come alive in the pages
of Martin’s work, as he presents and examines primary evidence such as letters,
notes, and trial transcripts. He delves into the complex world of the code words and
aliases they chose, which clearly demonstrates the humor and intelligence of these

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brave men. Their humanity is shown through Martin’s examination of what he calls
‘seepage’: tiny slips of information or phrasing that shows the true author of various
documents, and allows their movements and loyalties to be tracked despite constant
misdirection.
The book is structured like a legal defense, complete with an eloquent opening
statement in the preface, background information on the defendants in the opening
chapters, and the careful presentation and analysis of evidence in the second half of
the book. It is perhaps for this reason that a few arguments are not entirely supported by historical evidence: defenses, after all, are meant to convince and persuade, putting the defendant in the best light possible. The result is that the motivations of the defendant’s enemies are often oversimplified: in this case, it can be
seen in the portrayals of both Walsingham and the queen herself. Martin also
assumes that Sterrell was affected by particular events that occurred during his
childhood, although there is little evidence that he was even aware of them. It may
be logical that a Catholic child would be affected by the brutal execution of
Catholic priests, but it is still an assumption.
Thus, perhaps the greatest value of this work lies in this characterization.
George Gifford and William Sterrell are forgotten men in current scholarship
about the struggle for faith in Elizabethan England, but both deserve further study.
Sterrell especially was so carefully placed at court, and had such important patrons
during his long and fruitful career, that he could have easily been the sole focus of
the book. Elizabethan espionage through his eyes exclusively, from the 1580s to the
accession of James VI and I, would have tied together all the various strands of
intrigue that make this book so fascinating, and provided a clear timeline.
Martin’s defense of English Catholics effectively demonstrates how many of
the alleged plots against the queen during this time were actually manufactured, or
at least encouraged, by the Elizabethan government itself. Martin successfully
unpacks the sources, taking nothing at face value, and uncovers new meaning in
primary evidence. As he declares in the preface, he aims to show that the goal of
Elizabethan Catholics was not to terrorize but to gain some measure of toleration.
His portrayal of men such as Sterrell fulfils that goal with skill and style, showing
that their ultimate goal was to support their fellow English Catholics, whether that
meant supporting the queen or working around her.
University of York

ANGELA RANSON

Rookwood Family Papers, 1606–1761. Edited by Francis Young. [Suffolk Record
Society, Vol. LIX.] (Rochester, NY: The Boydell Press. 2016. Pp. lx, 115.
$45.00; £25.00. ISBN 978-1-78327-080-4.)
The Rookwood family papers give a significant insight into the economic,
social, and political lives of a substantial Catholic family in early modern England.
In the access it gives to many of those papers, this edited collection will prove helpful to a wide range of scholars of early modern Catholicism.

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As Francis Young’s introduction to the volume points out, the Rookwoods of
Coldham Hall in Stanningfield, Suffolk, were a remarkable family who managed
to maintain their Catholicism in spite of contemporary penal legislation and an
association with treason that started with Ambrose Rookwood’s involvement with
the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, and was revived with his great-grandson’s embroilment with an attempt on the king in 1696. On either side of these moments of
political intrigue the family struggled and, through a combination of pleading, legal
manoeuvring, and dedication to their religious practice, succeeded in maintaining
their estate, religion, and position in local society with relatively little disruption. In
the detail it gives of legal measures and estate matters this collection of papers will
be of especial interest to those seeking to understand the practicalities of Catholic
survival in this period. The collection also throws light on the local and domestic
life of the family in the first half of the eighteenth century; this serves as a welcome
encouragement to scholars to pursue the social and economic history of English
Catholicism in this still under-studied period.
Of particular note are transcriptions of the 1737 inventory of the contents of
Coldham Hall (document 31) and the list of English Catholic books and manuscripts in the library (document 32). The former is valuable as a presentation of
both Catholic domestic devotional culture and of the use of domestic objects to display social status. The entries in the inventory are in some instances quite detailed,
giving, in addition to the value of the objects, indications of how and where pictures were hung and framed, and of the materials, design, and location of purchase
of some of the tableware and furniture recorded. Among these are a number of
Japanned objects as well as fine china teaware, indicating engagement with the
fashions and growing market for consumer objects in the first half of the eighteenth
century. The substantial list of books recorded in the same year will also be of interest for historians of collecting, and Young’s assignation of reference numbers to
each book should greatly improve the ease with which scholars can use and refer to
this collection as an example of Catholic reading practices. It should be noted that
Young has transcribed only the names of volumes identifiable as English Catholic
Books; there are nearly 1,400 more books and pamphlets listed in the original manuscript that cover themes such as contemporary politics, history, gardening, travel,
and housekeeping which may be of interest to other scholars. Nevertheless, this
transcription does a significant service to those researching Catholic reading practices and the book trade in this period.
In combination with Young’s lively and detailed introduction to the family at
the beginning of the volume, this collection of a large proportion of the papers pertaining to the Rookwoods over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is a rich
resource that should provide a helpful stimulus to further scholarship on English
Catholicism in this period.
St John’s College, University of Cambridge

CARYS BROWN

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Irish Voices from the Spanish Inquisition: Migrants, Converts and Brokers in Early
Modern Iberia. By Thomas O’Connor. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 2016.
Pp. xvi, 280. $79.99. ISBN 978-1-137-46589-4.)
Thomas O’Connor’s last book can be considered the ideal continuation of a
journey that began in 2008 with the publication of his Irish Jansenists, 1600–1670.
Based on an impressive amount of European, Irish, and Mexican sources, this new
book aims to provide a groundbreaking analysis of the activities and role played by
the Irish migrants in Spain and in the Spanish colonies in America during the early
modern period. By examining the three most influential and represented groups of
Irish migrants—the clerics, the merchants, and the soldiers—within Spanish society, the author examines their thorny relations with the Spanish Inquisition.
In the first part of the book, O’Connor sets the agenda by providing a clear
picture of how the various groups of Irish migrants in Spain fitted within the context of the Spanish society during the second half of the sixteenth century. This is
a pivotal point, because the author clearly illustrates that the Spanish Inquisition
was not a monolithic structure that adopted a dogmatic strategy. Indeed, by focusing on the Irish merchants, the author shows that the Inquisition had to deal with
a series of different cases in which the political and religious loyalties of this particular migrants’ community were often changing. Due to this the tribunal was forced
to use a multilayered approach that took into account the shifting loyalties of the
Irish migrants. The section on the sixteenth century also includes the Irish clergy.
By drawing on the sources of the local tribunals, O’Connor shows how the Irish
clerics who cooperated with the Inquisition played the dual role of interpreters and
spies amid the migrants who arrived from the British Isles.
The second section explores the seventeenth century, when Irish migration to
Spain considerably increased, and even stretched to the Spanish possessions in
Central and South America. O’Connor demonstrates how, during this period, a
certain number of Irish migrants sought to obtain a role in the Inquisition, a step
that would facilitate their process of integration within Spanish society. Of particular interest is the chapter devoted to the inquisitorial processes that involved Irish
migrants in Mexico. By focusing on the famous case study of William Lamport,
O’Connor reveals the complex web of networks and patronage which existed
behind the Irish migrants.
The last section of the book explores the Irish migration to Spain during the
eighteenth century and how this phenomenon brought the Spanish Inquisition to
elaborate once again a flexible strategy. O’Connor’s analysis particularly focuses on
the role played by the Irish merchants, and how this group was increasingly put
under control by the Inquisition. This last section also includes a fascinating chapter on the female dimension of Irish migration. Using untapped sources in the
inquisitorial records, O’Connor sheds new light on Irishwomen who were involved
in cases of sexual offenses. What emerges from his analysis is the suggestion that
Irishwomen played a crucial brokering role between the “host” society and the Irish
migrant community.

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In conclusion, O’Connor’s book is an outstanding and extremely wellresearched investigation that has contributed to a significant expansion of the historiography on the cultural, political, and religious links that existed between Ireland the Spanish monarchy. By fitting the Irish migration within the difficult
and—most of the time—tricky context of the Spanish Inquisition’s activities, the
author illuminates an unexplored dimension of the Irish diaspora during the early
modern period.
University of Notre Dame, Rome Center

MATTEO BINASCO

An Academy at the Court of the Tsars: Greek Scholars and Jesuit Education in Early
Modern Russia. By Nikolaos A. Chrissidis. (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press. 2016. Pp. xvi, 300. $55.00 paperback. ISBN 978-0-87580-729-4.)
The title of this fine monograph may obscure for nonspecialists its subject’s
larger historical significance. No less than the origins of higher education in Russia,
or college-level training in theology, philosophy, science, and the humanities, are
being examined here. Put otherwise, the book recounts in detail the arrival in late
seventeenth-century Russia of one major element of post-Renaissance, post-Reformation European high culture, a development that worked eventually to bring
Russia, with often spectacular results, into the modern intellectual mainstream. It
is a story that has its parallels in the contemporaneous efforts to bring early modern
European learning and values to the eastern Mediterranean world, Asia, and the
Americas, efforts that were often led by members of the Jesuit order.
Professor Chrissidis’s book focuses on the work in Moscow between 1685 and
1694 of two Greek brothers, Ioannikios and Sophronios Leichoudes, as their names
are spelled here. Born on the Venetian-controlled Ionian Islands and educated in
Italy, the brothers, now Orthodox monks with advanced education in classical
Greek and Latin and the Jesuit-scholastic version of Aristotelianism, were invited by
the Russian authorities to organize an academy in Moscow along the lines of similar
institutions located all over Catholic Europe. In so doing, the brothers were plunged
into the religious and political controversies raging in the Russian capital as the
Muscovite tsardom assumed an ever more prominent role in Europe’s political and
economic life. The stakes were high, as Russia, the only independent state of Greek
or Byzantine Orthodox heritage left in the world (following the Ottoman conquest
of Constantinople/Byzantium and the Balkans), was proving increasingly attractive
to politicians, merchants, and missionaries of one sort or another arriving from western Europe, principally Britain, the Netherlands, and Germany. How were Russian
rulers to orient themselves in this highly competitive environment? Toward the
Turkish-dominated Greco-Orthodox commonwealth, as the Orthodox-populated
lands of southeastern Europe are sometimes called, or toward the burgeoning mercantile states of the Latin and Protestant West? And how was Russia to modernize
in military and related economic matters, and so preserve itself from its enemies
(most notably Poland and more recently Sweden), without abandoning its traditional (we’d say, medieval), hard-won domestic culture?

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Chrissidis does not entirely escape the religio-nationalist biases that informed
the late seventeenth-century Muscovite and wider European debates amid which
the Leichoudes brothers strove to educate, in the contemporary Jesuit manner,
some 150 members of the Russian elite—many of whom went on to serve Peter the
Great in his radical and wide-ranging program of cultural Europeanization (1690s–
1725). Perhaps it was not possible to assume an entirely neutral “view from
nowhere” in relating this history, given the issues in contention, then and for a long
time afterward (even now). At any rate, he has provided in unprecedented detail an
admirably readable account of the Leichoudes brothers’ careers with respect particularly to their role in leading Moscow’s Slavonic–Greek–Latin Academy during its
early years. The Academy, which survived in much its original form until 1814,
when it became an Orthodox seminary, was the first higher-educational institution
ever founded in Russia, its graduates equipped by their training to play their part
in the ongoing Westernization of eighteenth-century Russian elite culture.
Based on a truly impressive array of primary and secondary sources in several
languages, Chrissidis’s extensive notes and bibliography lack reference, among relevant works in English, only to G. M. Hamburg’s splendid new volume, Russia’s
Path toward Enlightenment: Faith, Politics, and Reason, 1500–1801 (Yale, 2016),
which obviously appeared too late to be consulted.
University of Illinois (Emeritus)

JAMES CRACRAFT

God in the Enlightenment. Edited by William J. Bulman and Robert G. Ingram.
(New York: Oxford University Press. 2016. Pp. xiv, 322. $34.95 paperback.
ISBN 978-0-19-026708-7.)
The familiar image of the Enlightenment as an eighteenth-century movement
to clear the way for secular liberal democracy by applying the acid of philosophical
critique to the political and religious institutions of the Old Regime is alive and
well. But for several decades it has come under increasing critical scrutiny, notably
by historians working to delineate alternative, “religious” Enlightenments that
afford religion a positive role in the genealogy of modernity.
This collection of essays, drawn from a 2012 conference at Ohio University
and introduced by co-editor William J. Bulman, advances that critical project.
Lamenting that none of the religious and other recent scholarly alternatives to the
rigidly secularizing, philosophical Enlightenment has proven compelling enough to
replace it as a point of reference in the “intractable and inappropriate” (p. 31) current debate about the role of religion in public life, Bulman proposes defining the
Enlightenment so as to encompass all those alternatives while holding a mirror to
the debate itself. His Enlightenment denotes those who deliberated about public
religion by employing the sacred and secular philological and historiographical
practices characteristic of Renaissance humanism. In response to the religious wars
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they aimed to establish “order, stability,
peace, and well-being” (p. 18), articulating their views from the perspective of “elite

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secularity”: a common recognition, enabled by an influx of reports about the world’s
religious diversity, that their proposals needed to be acceptable to “people of widely
varying types and degrees of belief and unbelief” (p. 19). Familiar from Bulman’s
2015 monograph Anglican Enlightenment, this Enlightenment is chronologically
and ideologically extremely capacious. It begins in the mid-seventeenth century
and can sustain a multitude of mutually exclusive epithets: tolerant and intolerant,
authoritarian and democratic, liberal and conservative, pious and atheistic.
Bulman’s model finds mixed support in the volume’s twelve other essays. On
the one hand, although few contributors explicitly put its key concepts, causal
mechanisms, and chronological boundaries to the test, most offer original and
provocative investigations of authors who bear its hallmarks: intellectual indebtedness to the Renaissance and Reformation, and philological or historiographical
engagement in religious debate outside the confines of academic philosophy and
theology. On the other hand, some contributors characterize Enlightenment itself
in ways that implicitly diverge from Bulman’s.
The least divergent are those who describe it neutrally, in terms of secular,
rational, and philologically oriented discursive principles. Such principles, we
learn, were increasingly adopted over the course of the eighteenth century by
French anti-philosophes (Anton Matytsin); were employed in antiquarian, Christian-apologetic studies of Hinduism in ways that provided libertines with tools for
attacking Christianity (Joan-Pau Rubiés); underlay the cultural-historical study of
indigenous religion in seventeenth-century colonial Peru (Claudia Brosseder); and
regulated seventeenth-century Dutch debates about biblical hermeneutics that
eventually generated doubts, akin to those of Spinoza, about the Bible’s divine
authority (Jetze Touber).
Less in tune with Bulman’s vision, and more noticeably at odds with one
another, are the contributors who associate Enlightenment with a particular theological or political position. Some of these associations are familiar. In various
essays, we find references to an Enlightenment project “to free religious expression
from persecution” (p. 46) either by protecting individuals’ religious liberty from
state interference, in the tradition of Locke, or by subjecting religious claims to rigorous public critique, in the tradition of Hobbes (Justin Champion); to a congenital
Enlightenment inability, inherited partly from the Reformation, to acknowledge
the force of biblical testimony or conceive of a transcendent God (Brad S. Gregory); to an Enlightenment desire to reinstate primitive Christianity while rejecting
Augustinian notions of original sin and predestination (Paul C. H. Lim); and to a
variety of interconnected Enlightenments whose overarching qualities include a
“declining sense of sin” (Dale K. Van Kley, p. 302). In other essays we find a somewhat less familiar Enlightenment, characterized by its meditations on the
inscrutability of divine providence (Jonathan Sheehan), or by its acknowledgment
of supernatural alongside natural causes of medical ailments (H. C. Erik
Midelfort). We also find hints of skepticism about the usefulness of the category
itself: a study of early links between vitalism and Spinozism that avoids mention of

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Enlightenment per se (Sarah Ellenzweig), and an unmasking of the Enlightenment
as a twentieth-century construct that projects a drift from the Calvinist God of
wrath to the Victorian God of nature onto a more static and differentiated Anglican reality (J.C.D. Clark).
If the diversity of Enlightenments represented in this volume suggests a lack
of consensus about how best to apply scholarship on the Enlightenment to ongoing
debates about religion in public life, it also testifies to the unabating fruitfulness of
the research agendas inspired by the imperative of doing so. Religious Enlightenment studies remains a field in full bloom.
Wellesley College

SIMON GROTE

The Catholic Enlightenment: The Forgotten History of a Global Movement. By Ulrich
L. Lehner. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2016: Pp. vi, 257. $29.95.
ISBN 978-0-19-023291-7.)
Of the making of “Enlightenments” there is no end, and it seems only fair that
the Catholic Church should have its own niche patent, however much that association might have unsettled Voltaire and other leading philosophes. But, as Ulrich L.
Lehner argues in his wide-ranging study, it is time to (re)state the exaggerated disconnection between infâme and lumières and show how, in many areas of its life, in
its balance of faith and reason, in its work with state reformers, Catholicism partook of what most scholars would deem characteristics of the moderate Enlightenment. Professor Lehner is not the first historian to point this out. He treads in the
steps of David Sorkin, Christopher M. S. Johns, Michael Printy, and others in
making the case for a/the Catholic Enlightenment. What distinguishes his book is
its global reach and its illumination of so many parts of the Church’s life, witness,
and worship.
In his first chapter, Lehner takes the reader on a worldwide tour of Catholic
Enlighteners at work, specifying contexts as he proceeds and noting “national” variants such as the “Enlightenment in Tridentine mode,” which he finds in Spain and
Italy, and in such practitioners as Ludovico Antonio Muratori. Themes one might
expect to be emphasized are here, including conciliarism, antipathy to the Jesuits,
and the privileging of social utility and good works over mysticism, but less
expected ones, too, such as the Church’s interest in the latest healthcare trends (the
endorsement of vaccination among them) and advocates of flexibility in marriage
teaching and clerical celibacy. He considers the course of Catholic historical criticism of the Bible from Richard Simon to John Geddes, the alignment of so many
clergy behind the temporal régimes that sponsored Febronianism in Germany and
Regalism in Iberia, and the intellectual gifts of such defenders of enlightened
Catholicism as Nicolas Bergier in France, the critic of Rousseau but the personal
friend of Diderot. Lehner argues that religion was becoming “for many an intellectual exercise” (p. 25), but some of the evidence he himself presents in this chapter
might count against him.

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Having set the scene, he then looks at that very ‘Enlightened’ commitment to
toleration in principle and practice evidenced by many Catholic intellectuals, clergy
and lay. Jansenists in France would not be silenced though the Bourbon monarchy
was slower to legalize toleration for non-Catholics than the Habsburgs. In a hyperbolic moment, Lehner hails Joseph II’s 1781 Edicts as a “quantum leap into modernity” (p. 60), but it is Poland’s short-lived Constitution of 1791 that contains the
least restrictions on religious freedom. Then, in a compelling overview of Catholic
women and the Enlightenment, he finds many talented women with progressive
views and not afraid to articulate them, among them Josefa Amar, as well as the
Benedictine Benito Feijóo, who were Spanish precursors of women’s rights, and
scientists like Laura Bassi and Maria Agnesi in Italy. Lehner makes a plausible case
for seeing what he calls a second wave of Tridentine reforms in the first half of the
eighteenth century as offering women more scope in the Church and more recognition by it, with clergy, for instance, being ready to make the case for wives having
an equal share with their spouses in the moral education of the family.
Lehner next ranges on to the Catholic Enlightenment beyond Europe arguing
that the Church was more appreciative of Amerindian culture than secular society.
Among individuals featuring here are the Jesuit Francisco Javier Clavigero with pronounced anti-racist convictions on display in his four-volume history of ancient
Mexico (he demonstrated that syphilis was a European import to the New World,
not the other way round) and, in the post-Independence United States, John Carroll, its first Catholic prelate, one prepared to endorse even the democratic election
of bishops. The fifth chapter, “Devils, Demons and the Divine,” considers the
Church’s determination to free itself from charges that it was riddled with superstitious abuses, adducing in support Benedict XIV’s emphasis on heroic virtue rather
than the miraculous; a policing of exorcisms as seen in the Empress Maria-Theresa’s
outright prohibition of them in 1758, and an overriding preference for careful liturgical presentation that centred on the Mass as laid out in Muratori’s Regulated Devotion (1747). These emphases are further treated in “Saints and Sinners,” where
Lehner points to the new appreciation of virtuous holiness and makes a timely plea
that eighteenth-century Catholic saints “deserve an adequate place in the cultural
history of the century” (p. 179). This chapter reads somewhat as if the leftovers from
the remainder of his survey have been dropped here with St. Aloysius Liguori and
the Passionists, the beggar-saint Benedict Labre, deacon François de Pâris and
Jansenist miracles, and the martyr nuns of Compiègne (1794), all bunched up with
each other. The volume closes with a comprehensive final chapter examining attitudes to slaves, servants, and savages across the Catholic world. The record on slavery is ambiguous, but this was a Church that produced an Henri Grégoire, perhaps
the supreme exemplar of an “enlightened Catholic,” reactions to whose ministry to
this day suggest the potential divisiveness of possessing those attitudes.
For, as Professor Lehner honestly admits (p. 216), the Catholic Enlightenment failed as a popular movement. Its proponents, gifted and well-intentioned
though they were, seldom gave the appearance of empathizing with the observant
laity, but rather sought to “put them right” on a range of behaviors and opinions.

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Nevertheless, this expression of “Enlightenment” fully merits Ulrich Lehner’s
recovery. He writes well and has combed a vast amount of material in several languages, and it is a sign of his book’s vitality that he is occasionally unconvincing.
Thus his claim that the Church was in “an intellectual ghetto” post–1789 (p. 3) is
excessively Manichean. Similarly, that there was minimal resistance to “enlighteners” pre–1789 (p. 11) lies open to question. There were different currents, varied
emphases within Catholic Enlightenment, no one agreed international agenda and,
as the pontificate of Pius VI (1775–99) suggested, there were several “enlighteners”
within the curia itself. He is too keen to squeeze snugly his Enlighteners into some
telelogical connection to Vatican Council II, and shepherd all signs of progress in
eighteenth-century Catholicism into his “Enlightenment” enclosure. One detects,
too, a slight tension between his “Global Movement” and his subscription to
Pocockian multiple enlightenments.” These are points for further debate that do
not reduce the value of Lehner’s effort here and in other publications to keep the
“Catholic Enlightenment” before us, and helpfully to see it in relation to the intentions of the Trent Fathers: “a prolongation of the Tridentine reform” (p. 152).
University of Leicester

NIGEL ASTON

Catholicism, Identity and Politics in the Age of Enlightenment: The Life and Career of
Sir Thomas Gascoigne, 1745–1810. By Alexander Lock. [Studies in Modern
British Religious History, Volume 34.] (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press.
2016. Pp. x, 270. £60.00. ISBN 978-1-78327-132-0.)
Alexander Lock’s Catholicism, Identity and Politics in the Age of Enlightenment is a study of one particular English Catholic—Sir Thomas Gascoigne
(1745–1810)—and how he can be seen as an example of the intersections of the
Enlightenment and English Catholicism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Lock, the Curator of Modern Historical Manuscripts at the
British Library, makes interesting contributions in this work to two important
areas of recent historiography—the construction and manifestation of English
Catholicism at a time during which the penal laws were still in place and of a distinct English national identity. It is an attractive book with a wonderful bibliography. In some ways, it serves as a complementary study to Gabriel Glickman’s
The English Catholic Community, 1688–1745 (2009); while Glickman covered the
period of the perceived Jacobite threat, Lock focuses on the later eighteenth century when English Catholics were slowly making inroads into elite social and
political circles.
The book is divided into three sections. The first section (chapters 1 and 2)
deals with Gascoigne’s years abroad, through which he received a liberal education
and took Grand Tours during which he met with different European heads of
state. This is the most interesting and powerful section of the book, and Lock
places his argument—about how the Enlightenment influenced English Catholic
thought and behavior—within the work of earlier scholars, such as J. C. H. Aveling, Joseph Chinnici, and the aforementioned Glickman. However, while Lock

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makes sure to explain what he means by liberal, he does not fully explain what he
means by Enlightenment; it seems as though he equates the two—liberal and
Enlightenment—which is problematic considering the demonstrated diversities of
the Enlightenment. Lock also argues that Gascoigne’s experiences with fellow
English travelers on the Grand Tour highlight how equating an English identity
with anti-Catholicism can be very misleading. This is good stuff and is an important contribution to English national identity studies, simultaneously being framed
within and challenging earlier studies by scholars such as J. C. D. Clark, Linda
Colley, and Colin Haydon.
In the book’s second section (chapter 3), Lock moves on to explaining how
Gascoigne settled in England and abjured his faith publicly in order to gain a seat
as an MP. According to Lock, this was the deal that Gascoigne was willing to
make—becoming Anglican to make other things possible, though remaining at
heart and in sympathies Catholic. This is a convincing portrait of Gascoigne. But,
it begs the question: how representative was Gascoigne as an English Catholic?
Locke’s answer to this question is not fully convincing as he argues throughout that
Gascoigne was an exceptional figure, given his upbringing and foreign education
and his subsequent political, economic, and social position, but then contending
that any answer to “typicality” is elusive. Nevertheless, scholars with an interest in
how well biographies—or “life histories”—can serve to deepen a broader historical
narrative will find Lock’s argument in his introduction thought-provoking.
In the last section (chapters 4 and 5), Lock provides an analysis of Gascoigne
as a successful manager of his estate, whose ideas regarding estate management
were shaped by the liberal education that he had received. This section should
prove of interest to economic historians as Lock presents Gascoigne in contrast to
the leading view of Anglican gentry who left direct management of their estates to
others; in contrast, Gascoigne was forced to be different because of penal law obstacles and restrictions.
Ultimately, Lock’s work is a welcome addition to studies on English Catholic
history and English national identity. The book’s great strength is in depicting how
the later eighteenth and early nineteenth century was an important time in which
some English Catholics were finding greater avenues for fuller social and political
participation; in the case of Gascoigne, this meant the willingness to make personal
accommodations for a greater political and social role, even if it meant publicly
though not privately abjuring his faith.
MacMurray College

CHRISTOPHER STRANGEMAN

Bach’s Major Vocal Works: Music, Drama, Liturgy. By Markus Rathey. (New Haven:
Yale University Press. 2016. Pp. xi, 234. $35.00. ISBN 978-0-300-21720-9.)
Markus Rathey (Yale University) offers the nonspecialist a short yet instructive guide to the major vocal works of Johann Sebastian Bach. He devotes chapters

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to the Christmas Oratorio, St. John Passion, St. Matthew Passion, and B Minor Mass
as well as the lesser-studied Magnificat and oratorios for Easter and Ascension.
Bach composed all of these as cantor of the St. Thomas School and city music
director in Leipzig, a post he took up in 1723 and held until his death in 1750. The
shorter cantatas, which Bach also composed and regularly performed during these
years, receive only occasional mention.
Rathey makes insightful remarks and offers fresh perspectives, even if the
book never attempts to be comprehensive or groundbreaking. For that, readers can
already turn to a wealth of literature, including Rathey’s newest monograph, Bach’s
Christmas Oratorio: Music, Theology, Culture (Oxford University Press, 2016).
Instead, Bach’s Major Vocal Works, having started as pre-concert lectures and program notes, remains a work for general audiences. The author calls his chapters
“introductions” for music lovers to read before going to a performance or listening
to a recording (p. 4). He presupposes only a limited knowledge of both music and
liturgy. Musical examples are relatively simple, and technical terms appear in a
glossary at the end. Because each chapter stands alone, readers will inevitably
encounter redundancies: chapters on the oratorios or passions each recount the
same basic background information.
A few basic themes link all chapters. Rathey outlines each work’s role in the
eighteenth-century Lutheran liturgy. He also stresses the emotional content and
contrast—what he labels as operatic drama—within each work. The most prominent of these emotions is love. Going against the stereotype of Bach as a craftsman
of abstract counterpoint, Rathey shows that the composer consistently wrote
numerous love duets in response to his texts. Perhaps the book’s finest insights concern the music’s devotional aims. Rathey compares contemporary Lutheran devotional literature with Bach’s librettos and music. Seventeenth-century imagery representing dialogue between Christ and the believer corresponds with an echo-aria
from the Christmas Oratorio. Likewise, a passion meditation published in 1724
encourages the believer to reflect on the biblical narrative through meditative texts
and hymns. Rathey succinctly shows how Bach’s passions do the same, combining
or juxtaposing both communal and individual responses to the story.
At several points, readers would benefit from a wider look at the sacred repertoire Bach knew and performed, for without knowledge of eighteenth-century
musical conventions in church music, readers might too easily conclude that Bach
made many of his musical decisions primarily on personal and theological grounds.
The Central-European mass repertoire that Bach knew suggests otherwise. It is
filled, for instance, with love-like solos or duets for movements like the Christe eleison. Bach’s decision to set his Christe from the B Minor Mass in a similar style suggests that he simply followed this convention. The result might still end up having
the theological significance that Rathey ascribes it (p. 173), but Bach’s special role
as exegete of his text seems more doubtful. Overall, however, the book is free from
the more speculative and esoteric readings of Bach’s music. Rather than delving
into hidden symbolism or proportions, for example, Rathey’s points are humane,

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sensible, and well grounded in eighteenth-century Lutheran theology and devotional practice. As a result, his book makes an excellent starting point for learning
not just how Bach’s music is put together but what it might have meant to eighteenth-century audiences.
DEREK STAUFF

Hillsdale College

LATE MODERN EUROPEAN
Theology and the University in Nineteenth-Century Germany. By Zachary Purvis.
[Oxford Theology and Religion Monographs.] (New York: Oxford University
Press. 2016. Pp. xi, 271. $100.00. ISBN 978-0-19-878338-1.)
This carefully researched book analyzes the origins and trajectory of the genre
of “theological encyclopedia” as it was articulated by several key German-Protestant
university professors between the 1790s and the middle of the nineteenth century.
Written in an engaging, clear manner, the book examines classic early-modern
rationales for the scholarly (wissenschaftlich) character of university theology, especially its proper methods and parameters, and the various ways in which German
Protestant theologians organized its diverse subfields into a unified whole. Nothing
seems left untouched here: published texts, faculty manuals, manuscripts, lecture
notes, correspondence, records of publishing houses. The book thus provides an
excellent overview for how theology developed as a “science” (Wissenschaft) in nineteenth-century German Protestant universities, and it offers many insights into a
period of theological education (“the seedtime of the modern world”) that continues
to impact contemporary understandings of theology and theological education.
The first part concentrates on the initial attempts at writing/lecturing in this
genre, which occurred at the universities of Halle and Göttingen in the late eighteenth century, when the explosion of knowledge and the rise of skeptical positions
about pre–Enlightenment church-oriented theology necessitated a careful response
by university theologians. By the beginning of the nineteenth century a course on
“theological encyclopedia and methodology” was viewed as an integral element in
the theological curriculum of all German universities. Students needed to know
what theology was, how it should be organized and unified, and how its subject
matter related to other forms of knowledge in the university.
The second and larger part of the book examines the revolutionary proposal of
F. D. E. Schleiermacher, who sought to articulate a covenant of peace between theology and the other sciences at the University of Berlin. Purvis does a great job of
providing interesting details about the genesis of Schleiermacher’s “Brief Outline
for the Study of Theology” and its historical setting at the time of that university’s
founding in 1810. Especially informative are Purvis’ observations about the tensions and agreements between the famous Berliner’s rationale (with its threefold
pattern of philosophical theology, historical theology, and practical theology) and
those of earlier thinkers, particularly F. W. J. von Schelling.

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The final part focuses on important developments after the death of Schleiermacher. One chapter examines the post–Hegelians (e.g., Karl Rosenkranz, Philipp
Marheineke) and another the truly monumental textbook by Karl R. Hagenbach
(“the Preceptor of Modern Germany”). The latter’s “mediating” approach, largely
shaped by Schleiermacher’s concerns but returning to the traditional fourfold pattern
(biblical exegesis, church history, systematic theology, and practical theology), would
serve as the basic introduction to the discipline for a majority of German theology
students, and also many American seminarians, well into the twentieth century. Nevertheless, with the rise of modern “religious studies” and in view of the growing challenges to the place of “church theology” in German universities, the genre of theological encyclopedia underwent decline toward the end of the nineteenth century.
(Purvis could have noted that in the second half of the twentieth century a few
German Protestants (e.g., Gerhard Ebeling and Wolfhart Pannenberg) attempted
something akin to theological encyclopedia, and given that an American Protestant
has also recently written a similar textbook, the genre may not yet be extinct.)
While other studies, especially by Germans, have traversed this same territory—ground that Purvis knows well—he does so with his eye constantly on the
institutional location in which these theologians carried out their reflections. That
focus is his main contribution. Two weaknesses, however, mar the book. First,
while the author makes passing reference to a few German Catholic theologians
(e.g., Ignaz von Döllinger), he offers no extended examination of the principal
developments in German Catholic faculties. Such an analysis would have helped to
clarify the similarities and differences between these two types of institutional theology. (The book’s title is thus misleading.) Second, while Purvis briefly refers to J.
C. K. von Hofmann and the University of Erlangen, he does not give much attention to the shape of theological encyclopedia that developed there, despite the fact
that its unique form was quite influential in the large Bavarian Lutheran Church
for many decades. Finally, a very minor note: there are some typos that appear in
the text (e.g., “Greifswald” is misspelled throughout the book).
Valparaiso University

MATTHEW BECKER

San Pio X: Papa riformatore di fronte alle sfide del nuovo secolo. Atti della Giornata di
Studi in occasione del centenario della morte di San Pio X (1914-2014), Città del
Vaticano, 12 giugno 2014. Edited by Roberto Regoli. [Pontificio Comitato di
Scienze Storiche: Atti e documenti, Vol. 41.] (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice
Vaticana. 2016. Pp. 385. €28.00. ISBN 978-88-209-9782-3.)
The volume offers some valuable contributions. Gianpaolo Romanato, “Pio X:
Bilancio e prospettive,” who for decades has been engaged in biographical study of
Giovanni Sarto, goes on to explain the fortunes and misfortunes of his fame,
conducting extensive research on the historiography of the papacy, although with
predominant attention to that in Italian. He also outlines Pius X’s reform initiatives.
Carlo Pioppi underlines the spiritual dimension, next to the pastoral dimension
(“Principi e orientamenti pastorali di San Pio X,” pp. 34–35). Definitely Pius X was

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convinced that “restoration in Christ”—the goal of his pontificate—could have been
realized with a more fervent spirituality of the clergy and Catholic laity, nourished
by references to post-Tridentine piety and Eucharistic-centered religiosity (pp. 32–
33). But in Pius X’s thought the restoration of faith had a major social significance:
the encyclical Iucunda sane (1904), referred to by Pioppi to detect the spiritual
dimension, in another passage reaffirmed the absolute necessity of having recourse
to the Catholic Church in order to obtain peace and even happiness in life, and
restated “the absolute necessity of a perfect harmony between the two powers,
ecclesiastical and civil,” with the second one that must serves the first.
Mirosław Lenart (“Il cardinale Jan Puzyna. Un discusso protagonista del
conclave del 1903 alla luce della documentazione polacca”) presents a first survey of
the Archbishop of Krakow, Jan Puzyna, in reference to local archives and Polish
literature. At the conclave Puzyna presented the Austro-Hungarian emperor’s veto
for the election of Rampolla, paving the way for Sarto. Lenart, in his important
contribution, provides a critical edition of the description of the conclave written
by Puzyna, then cleared almost completely in the final version, already published
by J. Urban. For Lenart, Puzyna used his veto to prevent a result that would have
harmed the Church and that for some time Austria-Hungary and part of the cardinals linked to it intended to avert.
Regoli delineates “La diplomazia di Pio X nel contesto internazionale del
primo Novecento” through a comparison of two new curial reports on the political
situation presented to Pius X and Benedict XV at the beginning of their respective
pontificates. From the documented essay, which focuses on Europe, there emerge
the weight of the confessional perspective, the traditional emphasis on the relationship with the royal dynasties in relations with states, the problematic novelty of
nationalisms—in the 1914 document—in the context of the Austro-Hungarian
and Russian empires, the political interpretations of the events in France and Germany, and the absence of references to Italy.
Claus Arnold investigates “Pio e il modernismo” through the interactions
between the pope and the Roman Curia: from the first condemnation of Alfred
Loisy in 1903, prompted by Pius X, through the long preparation of the decree of
the Holy Office, Lamentabili sane exitu, then the encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis
(1907), and finally the anti-modernist oath, motu proprio, Sacrorum antistitum
(1910). Arnold shows how the papal initiatives for a severe condemnation of the
modernists met, on one hand, the support of cardinals and consultors of ultra-conservative theological positions, and on the other hand, the resistance of other
prelates more aware of the consequences of censorship, which would have resulted
in a number of new dogmatic propositions.
Philippe-Joseph Jacquin (“Pio X e l’Oriente”) is mostly concerned with
blurring the judgment on Sarto’s attitude toward Eastern Christianity, but it is
clear that his pontificate, after the season of Leo XIII’s openings, was characterized
by a markedly Roman Catholic ecclesiological orientation.

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Patrick Valdrini (“Pio X e l’elaborazione del Codex Iuris Canonici”) states that
Sarto autonomously decided to start coding, in order to arrive at a clear and
systematic re-organization of the canonical legislation: a “modern” objective,
similar to that pursued by several states in the nineteenth century, which, however,
was based on the juridical ecclesiology. Thus, Pius X would have liked that the
Codex contained a part of ius publicum externum, to reaffirm the freedom of the
Church against the states.
Michele Luigi De Palma (“I seminari regionali: un’invenzione antimodernista?”) mentions the “southern ecclesial question” and the regional seminaries,
following briefly the developments of the Apulian regional seminary, established in
1908.
Juan Miguel Ferrer Grenesche traces Pius X’s responses in the liturgy, in
relation to access to the sacrament of the Eucharist, to the restoration of Gregorian
chant, and to the reform of the book of Psalms and of the Breviary. The author
examines them appropriately, seeking to identify the origins and also recording the
anticipations of Sarto, before his papacy.
Mario Sensi’s essay (“La comunione ai bambini: implicazione sull’ordine dei
sacramenti dell’iniziazione cristiana”) summarizes the developments of the
catechumenate in the tradition of the Western church from antiquity to the
present. In that context, Pius X’s eucharistic reform, expressed by the decree Quam
singulari (1910), which lowered the age of access to the Eucharist, was a
“Eucharistic revolution”: a judgment of Romanato that Sensi sums up, noting the
innovation and problems caused by that decision.
A relevant critical point has been noticed in several essays of the present
volume: the reading of the Modernist crisis. The fundamental problem is not
detected, namely, the clash between theology (often mistaken by the protagonists
for “faith” tout court) and science, that marks the entire modern history and was
radicalized by Pius’s condemnation in September, 1907, with heavy consequences
on the subsequent development of the Church. Modernism is instead understood
as a problem of disciplining orthodoxy, functional to the realization of Pius X’s
centralized ecclesiological model (Romanato, p. 24) and anti-Modernism as the
outcome of a theology devoid of references to the historical dimension and marked
by a juridical ecclesiology (see Pioppi, pp. 41–42, 47). However, appropriately
Arnold emphasizes the “giant” dimension of the issue of modernism/antimodernism and points out that the matter had a significant role for Pius X, from
the beginning of his pontificate (p. 86).
Part of the volume seems to be dominated by the concern to assert the
“modernity” and the reformist attitude of Pius X. This matter appears in the
balanced introduction of the curator, Roberto Regoli—“Pius X’s pontificate was
really modern”—in reference to his “choice to disengage the Church from highlevel politics” (p. 11). But Regoli also defines Pius X as “an ‘anti-modern’ pope

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[who] pushes the Church to enter into modernity” (p. 11). In Ferrer Grenesche’s
essay, for example, the perspective of reform is apparent right in the title—“La
riforma di Pio X e la liturgia: «sa vivere bene, chi sa pregare bene». Un papa riformatore all’inizio di un nuovo secolo” [“Pius X’s reform and the liturgy: ‘He knows
how to live well, who knows how to pray well’. A reformer pope at the beginning
of a new century”]—even though the conclusion mentions his “pastoral and
spiritual guideline of Catholic restoration” (p. 164).
The collection repeatedly affirms that the most significant aspect of Pius X’s
papacy was “the reform of the Church” (Romanato, p. 20). In fact Pius X
undertook crucial reforms as part of an overall plan for the restoration of Christian
society, in order to bring individuals and nations to the Catholic faith, as he clearly
stated in his 1903 encyclical E supremi apostolatus: against the modern evolution of
Western societies—their gradual assertion of state secularism and religious
pluralism—Pius X proposed a hierocratic societal model, reserving to the Catholic
Church the definition of moral values for civil society.
University of Venice

GIOVANNI VIAN

Gandhi and the Popes: From Pius XI to Francis. By Peter Gonsalves. [Studies in the
Intercultural History of Christianity, Vol. 160.] (Frankfurt am Main: Peter
Lang Edition. 2016. Pp. xv, 244. $72.95. ISBN 978-3-631-65789-8.)
The book consists of three sections, each focusing on a particular aspect of the
personal and ideational intercourse between Mahatma Gandhi and seven Popes
from Pius XI to Francis. Section A has a chapter on Gandhi’s short visit to Rome
on his way home from the second Round Table Conference in December, 1931,
followed by an illustration of tributes and comments on Gandhi offered by the
Popes (except Francis) on various occasions. Section B addresses certain similarities
between Pope Francis and Mahatma Gandhi, two leaders whom the author sees as
heralds of world-changing revolutions. The comparison covers various dimensions,
from “non-verbal communication strategies” and “prophetic-symbolic actions” to
ideas on religion and faith, and adherence to a life of poverty and service. Section
C deals with the nature and extent of the influence of Christ on Gandhi and of
Gandhi on Pope Francis. This is done, on one hand, by perusing Gandhi’s views
on topics such as Christ’s divinity, the Sermon on the Mount, and Christian proselytization, and on the other, by identifying a ‘Gandhian element’ in the reformed
Jesuit spirit which deeply influenced Bergoglio’s experience as a member of the
Church. The author concludes that it would be impossible to deny this two-way
influence, although the ways of transmission may not always be traceable.
The account of Gandhi’s visit to Rome in chapter 1 deserves special consideration. The author has had access to hitherto untapped sources in the Archivio Segreto Vaticano which shed new light on the real reasons for Pius XI’s “not being
able” to grant the Mahatma an audience. These documents confirm what could
have only been supposed until now, namely that the Vatican did not intend to ruin

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the existing cordial relations with Britain at a crucial point in the political evolution
of India. The analysis is accompanied by a reconstruction of other aspects of
Gandhi’s visit to Italy, such as his preparatory conversations with Romain Rolland,
the ‘official’ welcome extended by the Fascist government, the meeting with Mussolini, and the controversial interview published in the Giornale d’Italia. This part
is commendable for its richness in details, although one does not find any substantial addition to already available information.
The main theme of the book is, however, the many-sided interaction between
Mahatma Gandhi and Christianity. The author proposes an original interpretation
through his study of leadership and communication in the context of inter-religious
dialogue. The enquiry might be further developed by placing the pope’s views of
Gandhi against the backdrop of the great variety of attitudes in the Catholic world
toward Gandhi, and generally toward India, as testified by a sizable amount of publications during the twentieth century.
On the negative side, certain assumptions seem to betray a limited familiarity
with recent historical research on India. For instance, on page xi the author presents
a simplistic view of “India’s surge for independence” as a “nonviolent revolution
involving more than 300 million people under the leadership of a single individual”
(i.e., Mahatma Gandhi), thereby denying the multidimensional character of the
social and political movements in colonial India. On page 80 we read that the caste
system and untouchability are “3500 years old,” which would be hard to prove. Other
sweeping statements may make a historian uncomfortable, for instance, the author’s
assertion that within the British Empire, “forty-four nations were born in 37 years
after India’s independence in contrast to only eleven nations in approximately 360
years before it” (p. 87, fn. 3). This seems to superimpose modern ideas of ‘nation’ and
‘independence’ on political cultures which were very distant in time and space.
The narrative would have gained from a more thorough editing, as several
passages in the main text are repeated verbatim in the footnotes. Apart from these
problematic aspects, the book can be appreciated as a lively and detailed introduction to Indo-Christian intercultural exchange.
Sapienza University of Rome

MARIO PRAYER

Pie XI: Un Pape contre le Nazisme? L’encyclique Mit brennender Sorge (14 mars
1937). Edited by Fabrice Bouthillon and Marie Levant. Actes du colloque
international de Brest, 4–6 Juin 2015. [Collection Nouvelles Ouvertures.]
(Brest, France: Editions dialogues. 2016. Pp. x, 452. €28,00 paperback. ISBN
978-2-369-45.)
Pope Pius XI (Achille Ratti), who reigned from 1922 to 1939, has not been
intensively studied, even though the files in the Vatican Archives for his pontificate
were opened several years ago. This is in contrast to the heated debates about the
wartime policies of his successor, Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli), whose papers are still
not open for research. We should therefore be grateful to a group of French scholars,

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based at the University of Western Brittany, for organizing this conference in June,
2015. Their focus is on the most sensational event in the latter part of Pius XI’s
reign, namely the publication of the papal encyclical, Mit brennender Sorge, which
was smuggled into Germany, secretly printed and distributed to every Catholic
parish, and read out at High Mass on Palm Sunday, 1937. The twenty papers
printed in this volume, two of which are in English, explore the origins, scope, and
impact of this forceful encyclical. As well a French translation is printed in full.
This spectacular challenge to the Nazi regime was, however, a political failure.
The reasons are clear. The majority of German Catholics supported Hitler in all but
his religious policies. They approved of his anti-communism and were silent about
the persecution of the Jews. In the following year, they welcomed the seizure of Austria and the Sudetenland. Millions of Catholics enlisted in Hitler’s armies, and
eagerly fought against the Soviet Union. There was never any attempt to build up a
Catholic resistance movement. For their part, the Nazi leaders also recognized the
value of an expedient silence. The Reich Concordat remained in place. Diplomatic
relations with the Vatican were never broken off, and the nuncio remained in Berlin.
Subsequent developments in the Vatican were marked by impatient frustration. The encyclical was, however, noted in the rest of Europe, as described in six
later chapters in this book.. In Germany, the Gestapo quickly confiscated all copies
they could find. In France and Britain, the denunciations of Nazi ideology were
applauded, and the regime’s anti-Catholic measures of persecution were deplored.
In Franco’s Spain and Mussolini’s Italy, however, the need for Germany’s political
and military support led to a cool reception of the Vatican’s initiative. The pope’s
later speeches became more and more apocalyptic. In the following year, he
charged three Jesuit priests, an American, a German, and a Frenchman, with the
task of drawing up a new encyclical, which was designed to spell out clearly the
errors of Nazi racism. This document was allegedly ready for signature when Pius
XI died in early February, 1939. But his successor, Pius XII, believed that such an
anti-German demonstration was inopportune, and ordered all exiting copies to be
destroyed. No similar defiant gesture or public protest was ever issued. The question mark in this book’s title would therefore appear to be justified.
University of British Columbia (Emeritus)

JOHN S.CONWAY

AMERICAN AND CANADIAN
From Mother to Son: The Selected Letters of Marie de l’Incarnation to Claude Martin.
Translated with introduction and notes by Mary Dunn. [American Academy
of Religion: Religions in Translation.] (New York: Oxford University Press.
2014. Pp. xii, 237. $74.00. ISBN 978-0-19-938657-4.)
There is a wealth of scholarship treating the seventeenth-century mystic and
founder of the Ursuline mission in Quebec, Marie de l’Incarnation. Within this
corpus, much of it francophone, Mary Dunn’s translation of selected letters by the
mission’s superior stands out on two levels: first, in its clear and important goal of

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bringing alive the early French history in the New World for an English-speaking
public; second, the collection is remarkable for its personal rather than hagiographic treatment of this monumental figure of New France. Indeed, Dunn’s focus
is the thirty-year exchange between a mother who abandoned her son at the age of
eleven to enter the religious life and the man he has become.
In any epistolary collection, the editor’s introduction is paramount in providing a context through which the ensuing correspondence should be understood.
Dunn’s introductory section offers an excellent framework for comprehension. In
it, she creates a coherent, well-researched, and intellectually solid prism through
which to understand these letters. For Dunn, Marie’s writings are important on
several levels. They reveal “much about the early history of New France,” construct
“an early modern anthropology of the Amerindian,” and trace “the spiritual itinerary of one of the most celebrated mystics of the seventeenth century” (p. 32).
Beyond these elements, however, it is crucial to attempt a deeper understanding of
this figure through the “window Marie’s letters provide into the distinctive relationship between an absent mother and her abandoned son. . .” (p. 32).
The pitfalls of such an approach are many. One could easily fall into an
anachronistic vision which would superimpose our contemporary, ideally fusional
mother/son relationship upon seventeenth-century France. It would be facile to
judge the mother as we think she should be, rather than in her early-modern subjectivity. Dunn deftly avoids such simplification through a complex discussion of
parental roles at the time while simultaneously allowing for sentimentality between
mother and son. The reader learns much from this edition about the history of New
France, but is also drawn in by a fascinating family journey. Indeed, we follow the
relationship between Claude and his mother from one of absent parent and abandoned son, to spiritual advisor and young man entering the Benedictine order, and
finally to a reversal of roles with Marie seeking spiritual and material aid from her
quite influential ordained progeny. Thus, in 1640, soon after her arrival in New
France, we see Marie admonishing her son from afar: “It is time that you know
yourself. You are old enough for that. You were helped mightily during your
schooldays—now it’s up to you to push yourself” (p. 41). As the relationship progresses, it becomes one of a more spiritual and less filial bond, such as in 1653 when
she rejoices, “I render very humble thanks to His Goodness for the attraction that
he is giving you for the mystical life” (p. 121). Finally, as equals, Marie addresses
her religious offspring in 1667, asking him to pray for her eternal peace: “[. . .] our
good God moved me to do so, in order to have recourse to you for the security of
my soul’s affairs” (p. 199).
The maternal relationship’s evolution is fascinatingly drawn upon the backdrop of the rigors of colonial life, a personal spiritual voyage, and the history of seventeenth-century mysticism. In the midst of these captivating details, the reader at
times shares the author’s frustration with the editorial history of Marie’s correspondence, as the letters were anthologized and heavily edited by Claude himself. The
distance between the modern reader and Marie’s original words is thereby

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increased. This fact notwithstanding, Dunn has made an important contribution to
English-language scholarship on New France with this collection.
American School of Paris

BRIAN BRAZEAU

Fordham: A History of the Jesuit University of New York: 1841–2003. By Thomas J.
Shelley. (New York: Fordham University Press. 2016. Pp. xii, 524. $39.95.
ISBN 978-0-8232-7151-1.)
Monsignor Thomas Shelley’s Fordham: A History of the Jesuit University of
New York stands out from a short list of other books about the university for its concentration on the members of the Society of Jesus. It was a small group of Jesuits
who answered the call of New York Archbishop John Hughes in 1846, soon after
his 1841 founding of a small college and seminary at Rose Hill in the Bronx, not
yet part of New York City. It was then called St. John’s College. Hughes was fighting anti-Catholicism in the public schools and worked assiduously to expand
Catholic education. He wanted a college, but was not able to manage it, so an
agreement was made to bring in a group of French Jesuits ready to leave their prior
post in Kentucky.
Shelley, a professor emeritus who taught church history at Fordham, relies
heavily on two firsthand accounts, a book by alumnus Thomas Gaffney Taaffe, S.J.,
and another by Thomas Gannon, S.J., president of Fordham during its most influential years in the 1930s and 40s. Many additional Catholic and Jesuit letters and
publications are cited. The author traces the slow growth of the college in the 1800s
and the vast expansion that began at the dawn of the twentieth century, when the
college became a university and was renamed Fordham after the manor to which it
had been born, at the time part of Westchester.
Amid all the milestones are details about the Jesuit college presidents and their
accomplishments, but not as much as one might like about the personalities, some
of whom were dynamic and fascinating. The same goes for the most influential
alumni; many are listed, but not characterized. Little is written about the students,
generations of young men who learned the classics and humanities under relatively
strict and conservative leadership—until the turbulent 60s. (Women entered via
their own college in 1964 until the undergraduate programs merged in the 70s.)
The author writes in detail about the various buildings as they rose, one by one, and
the rigid coursework taught by his predecessors, that relied heavily on Greek,
Latin, philosophy, and “letters,” in the vernacular of the earlier eras, and the always
important student presence at Mass and prayers.
There are tangents, as an entire chapter dedicated to the founding of another
Jesuit college, the relatively short-lived College of St. Francis Xavier in Manhattan.
The history ends at the start of the tenure of the current Fordham president, the
Reverend Joseph McShane, S.J., who is the author’s cousin.

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Those interested in Catholic education, Jesuit history, and, of course, Fordham University will take to this 500-page tome. Alumni and former faculty and
staff will enjoy the journey from past to present, but will have to wade through a
great deal of detail without the characterizations that would have brightened the
work. It is decidedly and expectedly pro-Catholic and includes a good deal of IrishAmerican history.
DJC Communications

DEBRA CARUSO MARRONE

Pure Heart: The Faith of a Father and Son in the War for a More Perfect Union. By
William F. Quigley, Jr. [Civil War in the North.] (Kent, OH: Kent State
University Press. 2016. Pp. xxix, 381. $39.95. ISBN 978-1-60635-286-1.)
This book grew out of a providential rescue of archival materials that author
William Quigley and several colleagues recovered from a flooded basement “some
twenty years ago” at the preparatory school in Massachusetts where Quigley still
teaches. In them, Quigley found a scrapbook and correspondence between two
prominent Philadelphians from the Civil War era—one, the Reverend Benjamin
Dorr who was the rector at the prestigious Christ Church, and the other, his son
Captain William White Dorr, of the celebrated 121st Pennsylvania Volunteers,
who fought with the Army of the Potomac in many of its key battles before dying
while advancing on a rebel line at Spotsylvania Court House in 1864. In reading
the letters between father and son, and doing necessary research to place them in
historical context, Quigley discovered a story larger than that of the faith and fealty
of father and son, divided by distance during the war but bound together by their
relentless Episcopalian beliefs and love for the Union.
In Quigley’s telling, the remarkable aspect of the story that emerges is not so
much the relationship between father and son but the way(s) that the Reverend
Dorr worked to keep a divided congregation together. Christ Church prided itself
as being “the nation’s church” for its history as the church where George Washington and other Founding Fathers worshipped, and sought to be a vital center of
Christian and civic unity as the nation divided over slavery and then fought a civil
war. In his sermons and his ministry, Dorr pointed to the obligations of a common
history though at the same time abjuring any millennialist conceits of America as
God’s chosen people. He emphasized duty, humility, and charity rather than
excess and zeal in his calls for Union and unity, but the self-interests of church
members kept pulling the church apart. The church was home to some of
Philadelphia’s most prominent Democrats and Republicans and one of America’s
largest slaveholders and one of the city’s most determined abolitionists, and
church members were deeply involved and even implicated in all the great issues
of the day, such as arguments over federal power in wartime, the prosecution of
the war, civil liberties and dissent, conscription, and especially emancipation and
the recruitment of black troops. The vituperative politics of the streets regularly
entered the church, much to the worry of Dorr and the disruption of the congregation. The church survived the war, but was partly remade by it as Dorr’s stead-

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fast support for the Lincoln administration made the church, like the city, more
Republican in interest and attachment.
Although Quigley pitches his book as the story of a father and son becoming
more united in their Christian and political beliefs, in part because the son’s experience in war moved the father toward more vigorous support for the Union war
effort, Pure Heart’s real value is what it reveals about the place of the church in the
city and the ways the war affected the city. Quigley often loses the Dorrs in his deep
description of historical context, but that emphasis on context offers instructive
insights on city politics and the intellectual and social worlds that informed Democratic and Republican interests and actions. More particularly, though he does not
acknowledge it, Quigley’s work also follows several recent studies of churches
during the war in looking beyond denominational concerns generally to investigate
particular churches and thereby to discover how and why those occupying the pulpits and pews within individual congregations were often pitted against one
another. At Christ Church, as almost everywhere, there was no escaping the war,
whatever the preferences of denominational leaders wanting to do so. And no pure
hearts changed that there or elsewhere.
St. Joseph’s University

RANDALL M. MILLER

The Shamrock and the Cross: Irish American Novelists Shape American Catholicism. By
Eileen P. Sullivan. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.2016.
Pp. xii, 361. $30.00 paperback. ISBN 978-0-268-04152-6.)
This book studies popular fiction written by and for Irish Catholic immigrants
to the United States in the mid-nineteenth century. To illustrate, Sullivan analyzes
the works of the seven most important Irish Catholic novelists writing between
1850 and 1873: Fathers John Roddan, John Boyce, and Hugh Quigley; and professional writers Mary Anne Sadlier, Charles James Cannon, Peter McCorry, and
John McElgun. Their selection is based on the frequency of citations, serializations,
and reviews in Catholic and American literature publications past and present, as
well as their recognition by Charles Fanning in his seminal literary histories, Exiles
of Erin and The Irish Voice in America. These novels are a repository of information
about the values and experiences of post-Famine Irish immigrants; the novels were
popular because the authors created characters their readers could relate to in stories recounting why they left, how they found employment, and how they viewed
gender roles, all folded within conversion narratives. Most significantly, Sullivan
discovered that these writers fell into the American Catholic—as opposed to
American Irish—tradition of encouraging readers to view themselves as Irish
Catholics and thus establish an identity both within and apart from American society. Indeed, Sullivan argues that this body of fiction “suggests some of the reasons
why the Church was able to gain its prominent place” in America (p. 6).
The book is divided into an introduction, ten chapters, and conclusion covering the origins of American Catholic fiction, memories of the past, anti-Catholi-

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371

cism, religious liberty, anti-Protestant novels, church as family, the maternal priest,
women’s roles, economic success, and American politics. Within each chapter, Sullivan details each author’s contributions to its theme. This approach has pros and
cons. On the positive side, readers are likely to learn more about the authors and
their various influences than in previous literary histories; on the negative, this
methodology necessitates some degree of repetition since—apart from Mary Anne
Sadlier’s prodigious output of sixty novels over the course of her career—each man
produced a relatively limited oeuvre.
But overall, this study is a valuable contribution to scholarship on Irish American literature. These foundational novels establish themes which can be traced
across subsequent decades. Charles Pise’s Father Rowland takes the form of a Q&A
between a priest and women considering conversion—an exchange echoed in Mary
McCarthy’s Memories of a Catholic Girlhood (1957), although with negative results.
Charles James Cannon’s Oran, the Outcast satirizes the aspirations of the nouveau
riche, an approach Kathleen Thompson Norris drew on during her work as editor
of the San Francisco Call and Examiner in the early twentieth century, and which
re-emerges in Joyce Carol Oates’s Expensive People (1968). Mary Anne Sadlier’s
Old and New and John McElgun’s Annie Reilly warn new immigrants against worshipping material goods at the expense of their religion, a tendency satirized in
Caitlin Macy’s Spoiled (2009). Likewise, Sadlier’s The Blakes and the Flanigans and
Peter McCorry’s Mount Benedict anti-Catholic exposés are appropriated by Macy
in The Fundamentals of Play (2000). Finally, these nineteenth-century authors’ pleas
to embrace the Church anticipate Irish American women writers’ post–9/11 religious devolution. As Erin McGraw’s The Good Life (2004), Alice McDermott’s
After This (2006), and Lisa Carey’s Every Visible Thing (2006) demonstrate, calls for
a return to the Church are cyclical, if not universal.
University of Missouri–St. Louis

SALLY BARR EBEST

Creating Flannery O’Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers. By Daniel
Moran. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2016. Pp. ix, 253. $39.95.
ISBN 978-9-8203-4954-1.)
In Creating Flannery O’Connor, Daniel Moran early offers the nuance of his
book’s subject: not O’Connor’s literary reputation—why she matters—but the creation of her reputation, or how she mattered and to whom (p. 9). Admittedly, the
scope of this investigation is ambitious, for Moran does not confine himself to
O’Connor’s oeuvre in its inspiration and creation; rather, he endeavors to seat
O’Connor’s cultural and literary legacy within a complex matrix of how the
“author’s work, personality, and even image are marketed, packaged, presented,
adapted, and received” (p. 2).
O’Connor’s reputation, he reminds, can be understood not simply as a phenomenon resulting from her talent alone but also “as the result of a network of
events, chance occurrences, personal relationships, media adaptations, cultural

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institutions, and websites” (p. 8). Moran is most deft at articulating this matrix as
a trajectory. Throughout the work, he assembles “the history of [O’Connor’s] critical reception and literary identity” (p. 3) in such a way that we might cast our gaze
forward and backward at once. We muse with Moran over the diverse factors that
created (and continue to create) O’Connor’s literary legacy, while observing how
that legacy shapes our assumptions as we read O’Connor’s past artistic accomplishments in the present.
Through a dexterous mining of vast and diverse sources, Moran demonstrates
his caveat-cum-thesis that O’Connor’s place in the American literary pantheon was
not a fait accompli. He begins by pairing her fiction with its critical reception. Here
Wise Blood stands as prime exemplar, as its first two releases—ten years apart—
allow open space wherein Moran tussles with sources ranging from critical reviews
to cover designs. Later chapters expand this open space further still, illuminating
the growth of “the increasingly widening lens through which O’Connor’s fiction
was being viewed” (p. 100). Along the way, Moran details the subtle ironies of her
literary ascendency, noting with some satisfaction when critics posthumously praise
O’Connor for the very things they castigated her for during her lifetime.
Moran commands an extraordinary volume of critical reviews, spanning a
remarkable historical scope. What impresses the reader even more is his selection
of sources beyond the literary critical establishment. To tell his creation narrative,
he includes, alongside the published criticism, interviews and letters to the editor,
press releases and publication notices, personal correspondence and perm requests,
thank-you notes and fan mail, award speeches and civic proclamations, actor interviews and film trailers. The work on Robert Giroux’s editorial advocacy in chapter
4 is an especially valuable contribution, allowing the reader to see how the marketing, perming, reprinting, anthologizing, and even posthumous publication of
O’Connor was a consciously curated literary legacy. Further, his exploration of the
radical democratization of criticism in online forums and “social reading sites” (p.
164) breaks new ground in O’Connor studies.
Though the content of O’Connor’s Catholic faith is not probed in great detail
(readers eager for this treatment can find excellent works by Ralph C. Wood, Susan
Srigley, Paul Elie, and Farrell O’Gorman, among others), Moran devotes the
entirety of chapter 2 to detailing how her audience (readers as well as critics)
became capable of understanding its significance. Moran thus weighs in on the
critical divide over the relationship between O’Connor’s (more explicitly theological) nonfiction writings to her fiction in a new way through his portrait of O’Connor as an incontrovertibly “Catholic writer,” whether or not her faith may be taken
as the interpretive key to the meaning of her work.
Throughout this handsome monograph Moran charts a course, giving us
“signposts” (p. 49) to mark not only the evolving understanding of O’Connor’s
genius but also the active “building of her literary reputation” (p. 43). Happily, he
also minds the places along the way where current acclaim has “straighten[ed] the
road her reputation has traveled and fill[ed] in the potholes” (p. 197). Moran’s

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work assures that we shall not be so forgetful, mistaking present status for unquestioned fact.
Thus this book is, as much as anything, about memory, where Moran’s reconstruction re-members the shaping and reshaping of the story we tell of O’Connor,
one of America’s greatest and most celebrated Christian writers. In Moran’s fine
book, the stability of texts is not at stake; rather, we observe the shifts in our changing perceptions, culture, and reading habits.
Creating Flannery O’Connor does not simply present a history of criticism but
instead instructs us in how to read that history. Moran does not purport to teach
us how to read O’Connor but how to read her readers—how to understand her
reception, her audience, and her reputation. With his aid, we come to know not
only O’Connor but ourselves for the first time.
Baylor University

JORDAN ROWAN FANNIN

Alexandre Vachon: The Scholars’ Cleric and the Clerics’ Scholar. By André N. Vachon.
(Ottawa: Petra Books. 2016. Pp. iv, 398. $28.00 paperback. ISBN 978-1927032-39-8.)
As an undergraduate at the University of Ottawa I passed by the Pavillion
Vachon many times without ever knowing the fascinating story of Archbishop
Alexandre Vachon, the chemist and priest after whom it was named. Originally
written in French in 2009, André Vachon’s tribute to his distant relative is the most
comprehensive biography ever written on any bishop of the 170 year old Archdiocese of Ottawa. Vachon, the writer, is not a professional historian, nor does he
follow the format of most biographies in this genre. The text is a labor of love, and
the author has skillfully and energetically mined numerous archival deposits, local
newspapers, personal journals, and family collections to produce this thorough
chronicle of Alexandre Vachon’s life and work.
Alexandre Vachon was born in 1885 in the small rural community of Down
River, in the parish of St. Raymond, just outside of Quebec City. He was the thirteenth child of Jean Alexandre Vachon and Mary Davidson, an anglophone of
Scots-Irish descent who converted to Catholicism upon her marriage to Vachon.
This “mixed” marriage may have been one of the most important foundations of
young Alexandre’s life; he spoke English as a first language, but with his surname
and rapid acquisition of French as a second language, he became an important linguistic and cultural bridge between Canada’s “four solitudes of his life time: English-French-Protestant-Roman Catholic. What is remarkable throughout his
career as a scientist, scholar, cleric, and public servant was how he easily moved
through the linguistic and cultural divides of his country, and won the confidence
of politicians, clerics, and scientists from across Canada’s ethno-religious spectrum.
Vachon’s numerous public and private commitments and the pace at which he
lived his life was simply dizzying. Trained in theology and chemistry, he taught

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chemistry, mineralogy, and geology at Laval University beginning in 1912, and
quickly became an advocate for more French Canadian youth to engage in science.
He founded biological field stations in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and was actively
engaged in Canadian and international scientific associations. In the process he
upgraded his qualifications by attending summer schools at MIT and Harvard,
though he never became a doctor of chemistry. Vachon held numerous prestigious
appointments within the Church, Laval University, national scientific councils, and
international scientific congresses. He crisscrossed the continent and traveled to
Europe numerous times to attend meetings, address conferences, make public
speeches in both English and French, and visit his siblings and nieces and nephews
who lived across North America. Andre Vachon documents each of Vachon’s
responsibilities in detail, every trip, every speech, every family visit, every balancing
act undertaken by the future bishop. It is little wonder that Bishop Vachon suffered
from lengthy bouts of illness and chronic fatigue.
Vachon’s appointment as Archbishop of Ottawa, in 1940, marked a resumption
of his numerous church responsibilities, globetrotting, and his exhausting pace. There
are times when the biography itself appears to be more of a travelogue and detailed
itinerary than an analysis of the salient features of Vachon’s career. The author might
have elected to use case studies from the bishop’s life to combine many themes,
instead of a high paced narrative of Vachon’s activities. The Marian Congress of
1947, a pinnacle in Vachon’s career, is a case in point. In this congress dedicated to
Mary, Queen of Peace, the author could have interwoven themes of the bishop’s deep
Marian piety, his ability to harness the energies of both French- and English-speaking Catholics in a historically fractured diocese, the Church’s frontal assault on international communism through Mary, and the growing rapprochement of Protestant
and Catholic Canadians as embodied by ministerial and civil co-operation with the
event. It should also have been pointed out by the author that the debt incurred by
the Congress may have helped to cripple Vachon’s subsequent projects like the diocesan seminary. Episodes like these could brilliantly speak much about Vachon, without reducing his activities to an expansion of his activities calendar.
Nevertheless, the book is a necessary resource for anyone studying the engagement of the Church with modernity and a life well-lived. Vachon died, in 1953, as
he lived—a fatal heart attack at Dallas airport, just having travelled across Latin
America and the Caribbean as a prelude to his attendance at the Eucharistic Congress in Sydney, Australia.
University of Toronto

MARK G. MCGOWAN

God Wills It: Presidents and the Political Use of Religion. By David O’Connell. (New
Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. 2015. Pp. xxxii, 319. $69.95. ISBN
978-1-4128-5486-3.)
David O’Connell finds that American presidents in the postwar era, from
Dwight Eisenhower through George W. Bush, used religious rhetoric in two ways.

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375

This first is communitarian, roughly the language and tropes of civil religion, which
is intended to “help bring the American people closer together” (p. xiii). The
second use of religious rhetoric is what the author calls coalitional, when a president
aspires “to persuade just enough people with his words in order to achieve his political objective” (p. xiii). The first use unites; the second divides.
O’Connell is more interested in the second use of presidential rhetoric: coalitional. He devises criteria to determine when a president employs coalitional rhetoric and even more elaborate criteria to ascertain the success of those efforts, including polling data and the editorial comments of four newspapers: New York Times,
Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times. At the outset, O’Connell telegraphs his conclusions: For all postwar presidents, from Eisenhower to the
second Bush, coalitional religious rhetoric was ineffective as a political tool.
Having dispatched with suspense, the author proceeds to analyze the policy
aims and rhetorical strategies of postwar presidents, although he does so with some
creative couplings. He opens by pairing Eisenhower’s appeals for appropriations for
foreign aid and Ronald Reagan’s demands for increased defense spending. O’Connell characterizes Eisenhower’s appeal as a jeremiad, and of Reagan he notes the paradox “that a man so concerned about the onset of Armageddon would at the same
time be so committed to providing the supplies that might make it happen” (p. 54).
Still, the author argues, all the talk about atheistic communism and the “evil empire”
yielded no discernible results. As Marlin Fitzwater remarked, “Reagan would go out
on the stump, draw huge throngs, and convert no one at all” (p. 78).
The Bushes, father and son, fared no better in their respective efforts to rally
support for wars in the Persian Gulf. George H. W. Bush shamelessly used Billy
Graham as a prop (albeit a willing prop), and he did attempt to justify the invasion
using the arguments of a just war, although the Society of Christian Ethics voted
overwhelmingly that the invasion was not justified. O’Connell fails to point out
that, although George W. Bush frequently used the phrase “war on evil,” he made
no attempt to invoke just-war arguments.
Jimmy Carter, the most pious of postwar presidents, receives his own chapter,
one that focuses on his “Crisis of Confidence” speech—often called the “malaise”
speech, although the word appears nowhere in the text. “There is no other speech
quite like this in the history of American politics,” O’Connell writes (p. 148).
Although initial response to the speech was positive, it did not wear well, especially
when Carter soon thereafter demanded the resignations of cabinet officials, creating a sense of upheaval and chaos in his administration.
Both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson invoked religious language in
their support for civil rights and racial equality, but that rhetoric, O’Connell argues,
had no discernible effect. Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton employed the language of
sin, confession, and redemption, but the author claims that “there is strong reason
to believe their choice of words actually made matters worse for each man” (p. 205).

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Absent in this survey is Richard Nixon. That is a defensible omission, perhaps, but
Nixon used Graham as a prop far more than any other president, and H. Larry
Ingle’s book on Nixon’s faith is conspicuously absent from the bibliography.
O’Connell concludes that although presidents resort to religious rhetoric in
times of political crisis, it provides precious little political benefit. Part of the
reason, he suggests, is that “the force of religious rhetoric has become weaker over
time as the religious foundations of American society have begun to crumble” (p.
277). Perhaps so, but Nixon may indeed be central; the farther we are removed
from Watergate, the less religion figures into our political rhetoric.
Dartmouth College

RANDALL BALMER

Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-life Movement before Roe v. Wade. By Daniel K.
Williams. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2016. Pp. xiv, 365. $29.95.
ISBN 978-0-19-939164-6.)
Daniel Williams positions his political and intellectual history of the pro-life
movement as a corrective to a dominant narrative that there was no organized
opposition to elective abortion prior to the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.
Williams’s treatment does not evidence that he is deeply read in the history of
gender and sexuality that usually serves as background for work on these issues.
Nonetheless, he rightly and convincingly argues that historians of abortion and
reproductive politics in the U.S. have not paid significant attention to the activists
who resisted legalization. As a result, the book will be important to historians
working to achieve a full understanding of the ongoing legislative controversies
over elective abortion.
Williams locates the roots of the pro-life movement in Catholic New Deal
liberalism of the 1930s and 1940s, but his work moves quickly to the 1960s and
efforts to liberalize access to therapeutic abortions and eventually to legalize elective
abortion. The reform effort of the early 1960s drew energy from the 1959 model
legislation drafted by the American Law Institute, Romper Room host Sherri
Chessen Finkbine’s highly publicized pursuit of an abortion upon learning of a fetal
deformity with her pregnancy, and activist Alan Guttmacher’s rise to the leadership
of Planned Parenthood in 1962 and his establishment of the Committee for
Humane Abortion Law in 1964. Pro-life Catholics were caught somewhat offguard by these events.
In pushing back against the initial state efforts at liberalization, rather than
arguing from particular natural-law principles, the pro-life activists concentrated
on the fetus’s inalienable right to life, pointing to Declaration of Independence,
and the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Williams argues
that this rhetorical base sustained the movement in ways that purely religious justifications could not—a strategic move that Catholics used with other issues,
such as opposing state sterilization statutes. Williams also offers an intriguing

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section on the powerful use of fetal imagery within the movement’s print and
media strategy.
In 1968, Father James McHugh of the National Council of Catholic Bishop’s
Family Life Bureau moved to form a separate national organization: the National
Right to Life Committee. Given the separate status of NRLC, eventually the
organization was able to draw in a coalition of liberals and progressives, some significant Lutherans and Methodists, who viewed anti-abortion work as part of their
larger commitment to human rights, including anti-poverty work, opposition to
the war in Vietnam, and to the death penalty. Williams wants to see a deeply ecumenical movement, but it is difficult to discern whether he has found the Protestant activists who are the exception to the rule or whether there was truly a broadbased Christian coalition.
The legal and cultural tide truly began to turn against the pro-life position in
1965 with the establishment of the Constitutional “right to privacy” in Griswald v.
Connecticut birth control decision. The decision set up a pitched battle to balance
the interest in fetal rights with women’s rights. Second-wave feminists argued that
reproductive rights were essential to respecting the women’s human rights, and that
argument worked against the privileging of fetal rights. These conflicts played out
at the state level, with sixteen states successfully liberalizing their abortion laws in
the late 1960s, and with the pro-life advocates successfully opposing twenty-five
measures in 1971. The Roe decision established as settled law that a woman’s right
to privacy included the right to an abortion, pushing the state’s interest in fetal
rights out to the point of viability. The decision and the political realignment on
abortion rights after Roe resulted in shift of the movement to allegiance with the
Republican Party after 1980.
George Mason University

SHARON M. LEON

Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary. By Joe Jackson. (New York: Farrar,
Strauss and Giroux. 2016. Pp. xxii, 600. $30.00. ISBN 978-0-374-25330-1.)
This biography addresses the life of a Lakota (Sioux) holy man who gained
admirers worldwide through John Neihardt’s Black Elk Speaks (1972). His fuller
identity was revealed in Black Elk: Holy Man of the Oglala (1993) and Nicholas Black
Elk: Medicine Man, Missionary, Mystic (2009). Jackson’s primary focus is on the
same period that Neihardt addressed. He devotes 347 pages to the man’s first
twenty-five years, while giving just 118 pages to his last sixty. Both factual and fictional in its portrayal of the holy man, this work is rich in speculation—with Jackson even proposing the name of a never-before-identified soldier that Black Elk
may have killed at the battle of Little Bighorn.
Historical events are fleshed out—providing context at times but also lengthening the work unnecessarily. This is not a criticism of the author’s laudatory desire
to inform but rather of his editor’s having allowed so much to be reported, e.g., six
pages describing John Neihardt’s life! The dust jacket itself gives pause to readers

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when two of its four testimonials are in praise of another book penned by the
author (a fiction writer of some renown).
Although countless assertions are made without documentation, this authorial
style might appeal to nonspecialists. However, one needs to be wary of drawing
conclusions about Black Elk since numerous flaws appear throughout the text—as
shown in the sampling that follows: identification of Tekakwitha as “Mohican”
instead of Mohawk (p. 15); reference to Lakota spirit-entities as “gods” (pp. 16,
426–27, 484); acceptance of Black Elk’s fictional “lament” as fact (pp. 16, 426–27);
reference to men as “braves” (pp. 154, 327), to women as “squaws” (pp. 323, 339),
and to babies as “papooses” (p. 136)—terms not used in scholarly literature;
misidentification of Fort Peck as Fort “Peak” (pp. 174ff); uncritical acceptance of
oral traditions that are debatable or demonstrably false (pp. 272, 321, 338, 397,
with all opinions given equal weight); racialization of “Lakota men” as “exotic,
mysterious, sensual” (p. 272); citation of the Great Sioux “Reservation” (the proper
reference) as the Great Sioux “Reserve” (p. 280); failure to attribute Red Cloud’s
well-known quotation (p. 281); reference to Louis “Gall” when the name is “Goll”
(pp. 286ff, 580)—an important matter since there was a contemporary Lakota
named “Gall” and a priest named “Gall” (pp. 461ff); erroneous placement of
Bernard Fagan on the reservation in the 1930s (p. 356); a reference to interfaith
dialogue “ecumenicism” where it should be “ecumenism” (p. 364); inaccurate dates
for Red Cloud’s war, which took place in 1866–68 (not 1865–68, as a photo notes);
an assertion that Black Elk continued his traditional healing practice when evidence says the opposite (pp. 364, 366ff); ignorance of the fact that a Jesuit “provincial” (not the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions) deploys Jesuit priests (p. 370);
citation of the Book of Revelation as the Book of “Revelations” (p. 373); a claim
that Black Elk identified himself with the Bible’s Paul, along with the proposal that
this association was, and is, widespread (pp. 381ff); etc.
The Catholic Church appointed a postulator in 2017 to investigate the holy
man’s cause for canonization as a saint, but Jackson’s work will not contribute to
this process. His Black Elk is more associated with the oft-heard trope that Lakota
elders resisted embracing a Christian identity. Jackson’s Black Elk is not a devout
Catholic but is, rather, the die-hard traditionalist portrayed by John and Hilda
Neihardt. It is their portrayal that Jackson adopts uncritically—echoing all the
stereotypes that they espoused—of Indians, Black Elk, settlers, soldiers, and the
Native encounter with Christianity.
Jackson commendably provides much information related to the holy man and
his people. Unfortunately, the net result is a one-dimensional misrepresentation of
Black Elk’s experience. The holy man’s religious identity has been a contentious
topic, and the author casts his lot with the position advanced in Black Elk Speaks. That
is, Neihardt’s work became a classic; and when its shortcomings were noted, Hilda
authored works that sought to perpetuate her father’s popular version of the holy
man. Jackson’s biography well represents this longstanding (but inaccurate) tradition.
Wheeling Jesuit University

MICHAEL F. STELTENKAMP, S.J.

Notes and Comments
CAUSES OF SAINTS
At a consistory held on April 20, 2017, Pope Francis obtained the consent
of the cardinals for the canonization of sibling shepherds Francisco de Jesus
Marto (1908–19) and Jacinta de Jesus Marto (1910–20) in a ceremony that took
place in Fatima on May 13, 2017. Consent was also given for the canonizations
on October 15, 2017, of the Brazilian priests Andrea Soveral (1572–1645) and
Ambrogio Francesco Ferro, the layman Mateus Moreira, and twenty-seven
companions massacred for the faith in 1645 by Dutch and indigenous Calvinists; of the converted “Child Martyrs of Tlaxcala,” Cristóbal (1514/15–27),
killed for his faith by his pagan father, and Antonio and Juan (both 1516/17–
29), killed for desecrating pagan idols; of the Capuchin priest Angelo Acri (born
Luca Falcone, 1669–1739), famous for preaching peace in southern Italy; and of
the Spanish Piarist priest Faustino Míguez de González (1831–1925), who
founded the Calasanctius Institute of the Daughter of the Divine Shepherdess
for the education of women.
On May 4, 2017, Pope Francis authorized the Congregation for the Causes
of Saints to promulgate decrees acknowledging miracles attributed to these venerable servants of God: the American Francis Solano (baptized Bernard) Casey,
O.F.M. Cap. (1870–1957); Mother Mary of the Immaculate Conception (born
Adèle de Batz de Trenquelléon, 1789–1828), foundress of the Daughters of
Mary Immaculate; the German Clara Fey (1815–94), foundress of the Institute
of the Sisters of the Poor Jesus; and the Argentine Catalina de Maria (born Josefa
Saturnina Rodriguez, 1823–96), foundress of the Congregation of the Handmaids of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. He also acknowledged the martyrdom
of Luciano Botovasoa, lay member of the Third Order of St. Francis, who was
killed in hatred of the faith in Vohipeno, Madagascar, on April 17, 1947. In
addition, the pope recognized the heroic virtues of Cardinal Elia dalla Costa
(1872–1961), archbishop of Florence; Cardinal François-Xavier Nguyên Van
Thuân (1928–2002), the coadjutor archbishop of Saigon, who was imprisoned by
the Communists for thirteen years, eight of which he spent in solitary confinement; Giovanna Meneghini (1868–1918), foundress of the Congregation of the
Ursuline Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary; Vincenzina Cusmano (1826–94),
first Superior General of the Congregation of the Servant Sisters of the Poor;
Alessandro Nottegar (1943–86), lay founder of the Regina Pacis Community;
Edvige Carboni (1880–1952), a lay member of the Third Order of St. Francis,
mystic, and stigmatic; and Maria Guadalupe Ortiz de Landázuri y Fernández de
Heredia (1916–75), lay member of Opus Dei and of the Personal Prelature of the
Holy Cross.
379

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NOTES AND COMMENTS

PALEOGRAPHY
The Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library in Chicago, in
collaboration with St. Louis University and the University of Toronto, have
launched a website dedicated to French Renaissance paleography and plan to
develop a similar one for Italian paleography. To help develop and improve these
websites, please contact paleography@newberry.org.
With the collaboration of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana and the University of Notre Dame Rome Gateway, the American Academy in Rome is offering a
course in Latin paleography and codicology taught by Dr. David T. Gura, January
8–19, 2018. The application deadline is May 30, 2017. For more information,
please visit http://aarome.org/apply/winter-programs/paleography-codicology or
contact the program director at latin.paleography@aarome.org.

CONFERENCES
On March 22–25, 2017, the Gesellschaft zur Herausgabe des Corpus
Catholicorum e.V., the Arbeitsberich mittlere und neuere Kirchengeschichte der
Universität Freiburg, and the Katholische Akademie der Erzdiözese Freiburg
sponsored a conference “Glaube(n) im Disput: Altgläubige Kontroversisten des
Reformationszeitalters in neuerer Forschung” at the Katholische Akademie in
Freiburg im Breisgau. Over twenty scholars from Germany, Switzerland, and the
United States presented papers under the headings: “Klärungen zum Phänomen
der ‘controversia’,” “Kontexte der Kontroverstheologie,” “Erste Konturierungen,”
and “Transformationen.” For more information, visit www.katholische-akademiefreiburg.de.
On May 4–5, 2017, a consortium of organizations, mostly in Bologna, sponsored a conference held at the Palazzo d’Accursio, titled “Seminario di alti studi
Paolo Prodi: 1517. Le università e la Riforma.” Seven scholars offered personal
tributes to the memory of Paolo Prodi, which preceded fourteen papers delivered
by speakers from Belgium, England, France, Italy, and Spain that traced the reaction of universities and academies across Europe to the Protestant Reformation.
On May 18–19, 2017, a conference entitled “Dorsale cattolica e dorsale alpine
nel lungo Cinquecento, tra poteri politici e Controriforma” took place at the Università degli Studi di Milano. Fifteen scholars from Italy, Switzerland, and France
presented papers in panels with the themes: “La Dorsale Occidentale. Le istituzioni
locali cattoliche: vescovi e abazie,” “La ‘Frontiera del Milanesado’ area confederale,”
“La ‘Frontiera del Milanesado’ area Grigiona e i ‘Bastioni’ contro l’eresia.” For
more information, please contact the Accademia San Carlo at asc@ambrosiana.it.
On May 29–30, 2017, the Accademia Ambrosiana: Classe di Slavistica held a
Dies Academicus on the theme “La Riforma Protestante nei Paesi Slavi” in the Sala
E. R. Galbiati of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana with eleven speakers exploring the

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381

spread of Protestantism to Bohemia, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth,
Romania, Slovenia, and the Ukraine. For more information, please contact segreteria.slavistica@ambrosiana.it.
On May 31–June 1, 2017, the Canadian Catholic Historical Association held
its 84th Annual Conference at Ryerson University in Toronto. John T. McGreevy
delivered the keynote address, titled “American Jesuits and the World: How an
Embattled Religious Order Made Modern Catholicism.” More than twenty speakers presented papers in seven sessions dedicated to such themes as “19th Century
Catholics Fighting for a Place in British America,” “Clothing Catholic Women in
the 20th Century,” “Catholic Education in Atlantic Canada,” “Creative Tension:
North American Women Religious,” “New Directions in Canadian Catholicism:
20th Century and Beyond,” “Book Launch: Conscience of a Nation: A History of the
Jesuits in English Canada, 1842–2013,” and “Book Launch: Jubilee: 50 Years of Solidarity—The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace.” For more
information, please contact Peter Baltutis at peter.baltutis@stmu.ca.
On June 22–24, 2017, in order to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the
death of Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn, bishop of Würzburg (1574–1617), the
Gesellschaft zur Herausgabe des Corpus Catholicorum e.V., the Würzburger
Diözesangeschichtsverein, and the Universität Würzburg will sponsor a conference
at the Archiv und Bibliothek des Bistums Würzburg on the theme “Ideal und
Praxis: Bischöfe und Bischofsamt im Heiligen Römischen Reich, 1570–1620.”
About twenty scholars from German universities will speak on the following topics:
“Bischofsideale—Ideale Bischöfe?” “Zwischen Politik und geistlichen Auftrag,”
“Konfessionelle Konflikt- und Gemengelagen,” “Bischöfe zwischen Kunst und
Kommerz,” and “Der Fürst in der Kirche—Kirche der Fürsten?” For more information, contact Jutta Lingstädt at jutta.lingstaedt@mail.uni-wuerzburg.de or
wdgv@bistum-wuerzburg.de, or Christoph Moos at corpus.catholicorum@
theol.uni-freiburg.de.
On September 14–16, 2017, the Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library in Chicago and the Early Modern Conversions project at McGill
University’s Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas will sponsor a conference
titled “The Politics of Conversion: Martin Luther to Muhammad Ali.” For more
information, please contact renaissance@newberry.org.
On November 27–29, 2017, the École française de Rome will sponsor an
international colloquy on the theme “In partibus fidelium: Missions du Levant et
connaissance de l’Orient chrétien (XIXe–XXIe). For more information, please contact Vittorio Berti at vittorio.berti@unipd.it or Marie Levant at levant@fscire.it.
On March 8–10, 2018, the New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies will take place in Sarasota, Florida. Proposals for papers (abstracts)
should be emailed to http://www.newcollegeconference.org/cfp by September
2017. For further information, contact info@newcollegeconference.org.

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NOTES AND COMMENTS

PERSONALS
On April 1, 2017, Professor Emeritus Paul F. Grendler of the University of
Toronto received the Paul Oskar Kristeller Lifetime Achievement Award from the
Renaissance Society of America at its annual meeting in Chicago.

PUBLICATIONS
An international conference of conciliar history on the theme “Konzil und
Fürst” was held in Vienna on September 18–21, 2014. The papers read on those
days have been published in the recently issued Heft 1–2 for 2014 (Jahrgang 46) of
the Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum. The contents follow: Thomas Prügl,
“Tagungsbericht” (pp. 1–8); Richard Price, “Fact and Fiction, Emperor and Council, in the Coptic Acts of Ephesus” (pp. 9–26); Alberto Ferreiro, “Sanctissimus idem
princeps sic venerandum concilium adloquitur dicens: King Reccared’s Discourses at
the Third Council of Toledo (589)” (pp. 27–52); Agostino Marchetto, “Concili e
potere secolare nelle Decretali Pseudo Isidoriane” (pp. 53–80); Ansgar Frenken,
“Römischer König und Kurfürsten auf den spätmittelalterlichen Generalkonzilien.
Stellung, Einflussnahme und Bedeutung der führenden politischen Kräfte des
Reiches auf den Konzilien von Konstanz und Basel” (pp. 81–104); Johannes Helmrath, “Das Reich, seine Fürsten und das Basler Konzil” (pp. 105–38); Heribert
Müller, “Das französische Krone und die Reformkonzilien im späten Mittelalter”
(pp. 139–56); Elke Faber, “Initiator, Partner, Risikofaktor. Der polnische König
und die Synoden des Gnesener Metropoliten 1447–1643” (pp. 157–90); Nelson H.
Minnich, “Teutonic Knights and Poland at the Fifth Lateran Council” (pp. 191–
224); Michaela Morys, “Das Tridentinum in der Auseinandersetzung um König
Heinrich IV. von Frankreich” (pp. 225–38); Peter Tusor, “The National Council
and the Habsburg State Power in Hungary in the year of the Peace of Westphalia”
(pp. 239–58); Carlo Pioppi, “Politica e religione nell’Europa mediterranea tra ‘800
e ‘900. La prospettiva dei concili provinciali italiani e spagnoli” (pp. 259–92); Klaus
Schatz, “‘Conciliation’ zwischen ‘Societas christiana’ und ‘Trennung von Kirche
und Staat’. Liberaler Katholizismus und Staatsintervention auf dem 1. Vatikanum”
(pp. 293–300); András Fejérdy, “Duas inter summas potestates. Konzil in josephinischem Kontext: Die ungarische Nationalsynode vom Jahre 1822 und die Wiener
Regierung” (pp. 303–18); Tamás Tóth and Zsófia Bárány, “Ungarische Bischöfe
auf dem politischen Spielfeld in der Revolutionszeit 1848–1849: Annullierte
Nationalsynode(n) und annullierte Bischofsernennungen” (pp. 319–38); and Tibor
Klestenitz, “Zum Verhältnis von Kirche und Staat in Ungarn im Spiegel der
ungarischen Diözesansynoden in der Zwischenkriegszeit” (pp. 339–54).
In its fourth issue for 2016 (Volume 96), Church History & Religious Culture
presents six articles on Erasmus: “Erasmus and the Novum Instrumentum,” by R.
Ward Holder (pp. 491–97); “Erasmus the Theologian,” by Greta Grace Kroeker
(pp. 498–515); “Erasmus Openeth the Way Before Luther,” by David M. Whitford (pp. 516–40); “The Mimetic Paraphrase,” by Reinier Leushuis (pp. 541–64);
“St. Jerome’s Exegetical Authority in Erasmus of Rotterdam’s Annotations on the

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New Testament,” by Hilmar M. Pabel (pp. 565–94); and “Erasmus’s Biblical Project,” by Henk Nellen and Jan Bloemendal (pp. 595–635).
A “Special Issue” of Art History (Volume 40, number 2 [April 2017]) is
devoted to “Art and Religious Reform in Early Modern Europe.” Following an
introduction by Bridget Heal (pp. 246–55) are eight contributions: Lyndal Roper
and Jennifer Spinks, “Karlstadt’s Wagen: The First Visual Propaganda for the Reformation” (pp. 256–85); Mitchell B. Merback, “‘Between these Two Kingdoms’:
Exile, Election, and Godly Law in Sebald Beham’s Moses and Aaron” (pp. 286–
311); Shira Brisman, “The Unassembled Grammar of the Drawing in the Era of
Reform” (pp. 312–35); Andrew Morrall, “The Family at Table: Protestant Identity, Self-Representation and the Limits of the Visual in Seventeenth-Century
Zurich” (pp. 336–57); Bridget Heal, “Lutheran Baroque: The Afterlife of a Reformation Altarpiece” (pp. 358–79); Amy Knight Powell, “Images (Not) Made by
Chance” (pp. 380–403); Christine Göttler, “The Art of Solitude: Environments of
Prayer at the Bavarian Court of Wilhelm V” (pp. 404–29); and Mia M. Mochizuki,
“The Reliquary Reformed” (pp. 430–49). Joseph Leo Koerner has contributed an
“Afterword” (pp. 450–55).
“Missionary Encounters in the Atlantic World” are studied in five articles
published in 2017 as Volume 21, numbers 1–2, of the Journal of Early Modern History. The “Introduction” by Katharine Gerbner and Karin Vélez (pp. 1–7) is followed by “Willy-Nilly Baptisms and Chichimeca Freedoms: Missionary Disputes,
Indigenous Desires and the 1695 O’odham Revolt” by Brandon Bayne (pp. 9–37);
“A Moravian Mission and the Origins of Evangelical Protestantism among Slaves
in the Carolina Lowcountry” by Aaron Spencer Fogleman (pp. 38–63); “Cannibal
Theologies in Colonial Portuguese America (1549–1759)” by M. Kittiya Lee (pp.
64–90); “Les Guerrières de Dieu in the French Ursuline Missionary Archives” by
Heidi Keller-Lapp (pp. 91–115); and “A New Model of Christian Interaction with
the Jews: The Institutum Judaicum and Missions to the Jews in the Atlantic
World” by Yaakov Ariel (pp. 116–36).
The Innes Review, the “journal covering the part played by the Catholic
Church in Scottish History,” has devoted its second issue of Volume 67 (November
2016) to “Biography and James VI’s Scotland,” beginning with an introduction by
Amy Blakeway (pp. 83–92). There follow four articles: “Not just a lawyer: Thomas
Craig and humanist Edinburgh” by David McOmish (pp. 93–106); “The life of Sir
James MacDonald of Knockrinsay” by Ross Crawford (pp. 107–37); “Sir William
Keith of Delny: courtier, ambassador and agent of noble power” by Miles KerrPeterson (pp. 138–58); and “Religious tolerance and intolerance in Jacobean Scotland: the case of Archibald Hegate revisited” by Paul Goatman (pp. 159–81).
David Endres, the editor of U.S. Catholic Historian, chose five articles on
Catholics and racial justice for the 2017 winter issue (Volume 35, Number 1):
Suzanne Krebsbach, “James Spencer and the Colored Catholic Congress Movement” (pp. 1–21); Cornelia F. Sexauer, “Beyond ‘equality through segregation’:

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Charles F. Vatterott, Jr., and Post–World War II Efforts for Interracial Justice and
Equality in St. Louis, Missouri” (pp. 23–47); Paul T. Murray, “‘We belong to the
wider world’: The Young Christian Students and the Civil Rights Movement” (pp.
49–80); Kevin Ryan, “’My children feel rejected by their Church’: Managed Integration in St. Philip Neri Parish, Chicago” (pp. 81–97); and Kim R. Harris, “Sister
Thea Bowman: Liturgical Justice Through Black Sacred Song” (pp. 99–124).

Periodical Literature
GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
La metodología histórica al servicio de la causa de santidad. Eutimio Sastre Santos.
Anthologica Annua, 59 (2012), 11–252.
Historia de la iglesia en Galicia: un estado de la cuestión. José antonio Vázquez
Vilanova. Compostellanum, LX (1–4, 2016), 529–73.
Il pio esercizio della “Corda pia.” Francesco Costa, oFMConv. Miscellanea
Francescana, 116 (3–4, 2016), 442–56.
due santi russi a confronto con Francesco d’assisi. Sergij di Radonež e Serafim di
Sarov. Serena Capri. Miscellanea Francescana, 116 (3–4, 2016), 457–76.
La figura del “custode” nell’ordine Francescano Conventuale. Valentín Redondo,
oFMConv. Miscellanea Francescana, 116 (3–4, 2016), 477–95.
Historiografía de la orden de San Jerónimo. F. Javier Campos y Fernández de
Sevilla, o.S.a. Cuidad de Dios, CCXXIX (Sept.–dec. 2016), 727–58.
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Marcello Fogolino e la pala francescana di Camposampiero. Giovanni Baldissin
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1517–2017. die Reformation von Trient aus gesehen. Paolo Prodi. Annali dell’Istituto italo-germanico in Trento, 42 (2, 2016), 137–49.
Il caso e la cosa. Lutero nella storiografica italiana del Novecento. alberto Melloni.
Cristianesimo nella storia, 37 (3, 2016), 613–48.
The Meaning of “Quaker History.” Jeffrey dudiak. Quaker History, 106 (Spring
2017), 1–21.
The Press at Vatican II: The Contribution of Father Edward Heston, CSC.
Richard Gribble, CSC. American Catholic Studies, 128 (Spring 2017), 17–50.
Vatican II: Bibliographical Survey 2013–2016. Massimo Faggioli. Cristianesimo
nella storia, 37 (3, 2016), 675–715.
Two Belgian Jesuit Martyrologies as Models of Conciliar Reform. Marc Lindeijer.
Analecta Bollandiana, 134 (dec. 2016), 412–32.

aNCIENT
Los mártires cristianos como testimonio de la expansión religiosa en el África
romana (ss. I–IV d.C.). Ma ampario Mateo donet. Carthaginensia, XXXII
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385

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The Origins of the Sunday Eucharist. Henk Jan de Jonge. Ephemerides Theologicae
Lovanienses, 92 (Dec. 2016), 549–79.
Did Papias of Hierapolis Use the Gospel according to the Hebrews as a Source?
Michael J. Kok. Journal of Early Christian Studies, 25 (Spring 2017), 29–53.
Did Origen Write the Letter to Theodore? Michael T. Zeddies. Journal of Early
Christian Studies, 25 (Spring 2017), 55–87.
El martirio cristiano en la antigüedad tardía: pluriforme y ejemplar. Johan Leemans
and Anthony Dupont. Augustinus, LXI (July–Dec. 2016), 365–79.
Wealth, Work and the Holy Poor: Early Christian Monasticism between Syria and
Egypt. Peter Brown. Irish Theological Quarterly, 81 (Aug. 2016), 233–45.
Priesthood in Ancient Monasticism from 320 to 830. Adalbert de Vogüé, O.S.B.
American Benedictine Review, 67 (Dec. 2016), 370–402.
Constantinian Influence upon Julian’s Pagan Church. David Neal Greenwood.
Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 68 (Jan. 2017), 1–21.
La cristianización de la calendas de enero en la Hispania tardoantigua. Juan Antonio Jiménez Sánchez. Latomus, 76 (Mar. 2017), 162–84.
The Body, Sensation , and the Art of Medicine in Augustine’s Early Writings 386–
395. Marianne Djuth. Augustiniana, 66 (1–4, 2016), 63–83.
Wandering Wombs, Inspired Intellects: Christian Religious Travel in Late Antiquity. Rebecca Stephens Falcasantos. Journal of Early Christian Studies, 25
(Spring 2017), 88–117.
The life of Senzius of Blera and episcopal appropriation of monastic cults in early
medieval Tuscany. Nicholas Everett. Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia,
LXIX (July–Dec. 2015), 315–34.
The Question of Authorship of the Historia Stephani protomartyris (BHO 1093;
CANT 302; Clavis coptica 0491): Theodosius of Jerusalem, Abba Isaiah, the
monk Romanus and Peter the Iberian. Alin Suciu. Analecta Bollandiana, 134
(Dec. 2016), 279–92.
“La guerra di Costantinopoli.” La posizione politico dottrinale dei vescovi alessandrini dopo il Concilio di Calcedonia. Henryk Pietras, S.J. Orientalia Christiana Periodica, 82 (II, 2016), 307–51.
Stephen the Martyr (Acts VI–VIII) in the Early Jerusalem Lectionary System.
Hugo Méndez. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 68 (Jan. 2017), 22–39.
The Image of Justinianic Orthopraxy in Eastern Monastic Literature. Daniel
Neary. Journal of Early Christian Studies, 25 (Spring 2017), 119–47.
The military, the clergy and Christian faith in sixth-century Gaul. Laury Sarti.
Early Medieval Europe, 25 (May, 2017), 162–85.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

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MEDIEVAL
El diaconisado y las diaconisas en los textos litúrgicos medievales de la Iglesia
Católica en Occidente. Una nota en torno a un estudio de José-Juan Fresnillo.
Manuel Guerra Gómez. Burgense, 57 (1, 2016), 207–29.
Dagli Acta Pilati all’Evangelium Nicodemi, dall’Evangelium Nicodemi a Sens et razos
d’una escriptura. Sulla fonte principale del Vangelo occitano di Nicodemo. Alessio
Collura. Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, series 5, 8 (1, 2016), 37–
72.
Iusta murmuratio: The Sounds of Scandal in the Early Middle Ages. Courtney M.
Booker. Revue Bénédictine, 126 (Dec. 2016), 236–70.
La prassi penitenziale nella Chiesa: i “libri penitenziali” nell’Alto Medioevo. Una
Sintesi della problematica. Francesco Targonski, OFMConv. Miscellanea
Francescana, 116 (3–4, 2016), 382–98.
The Proprietary Church and Monastery in Byzantium and the Eastern Christian
World. Zachary Chitwood. Viator, 47 (3, 2016), 27–46.
When Did the Legend of the Last Emperor Originate? A New Look at the Textual Relationship between the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius and the Tiburtine Sibyl. Christopher Bonura. Viator, 47 (3, 2016), 47–100.
La Reconstrucción del breviario hispano-mozárabe. Tiempo de Cuaresma II.
Gabriel Ramis Miquel. Anthologica Annua, 59 (2012), 297–738.
Adomnán, two saints, and the paschal controversy. Gilbert Márkus. Innes Review,
68 (May, 2017), 1–18.
Quand disparut le monastère féminin du Der? L’éphémère communauté monastique champenoise de Puellemontier (dernier quart du VIIe siècle). Patrick
Corbet. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 102 (July–Dec. 2016), 241–56.
Bede’s Martyrologium and the Martyrologium Hieronymianum. Frederick M. Biggs.
Analecta Bollandiana, 134 (Dec. 2016), 241–78.
Die Gründung der Abtei Reichenau und der Arianismus. Harald Derschka.
Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 72 (1, 2016), 1–32.
Forming Orthodoxy through Friendship: Alcuin, Guarnarius, and Benedict of
Aniane’s Munimenta verae fidei. James B. Williams. Revue Bénédictine, 126
(Dec. 2016), 205–35.
Lateran Thinking: Building an Idea of Rome in the Carolingian Empire. Rutger
Kramer and Clemens Gantner. Viator, 47 (3, 2016), 1–26.
Paschasius Radbertus. Theologe, Mönch—und Fälscher? Einige Hinweise zur
Pseudoisidorthese. Paul Werlich. Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 72 (1, 2016), 33–70.
The Seclusion of Eustochium: Paschasius Radbertus and the Nuns of Soissons.
Hannah W. Matis. Church History, 85 (Dec. 2016), 665–89.

388

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

“Sub virga magistri.” Custodia e disciplina nell’educazione carolingia dei pueri
oblati. Gabriele Archetti. Studi Medievali, LVII (Dec. 2016), 527–78.
The Desert War of a Carolingian Monk. Paul Edward Dutton. Journal of Medieval
and Early Modern Studies, 47 (Jan. 2017), 75–119.
New Insights, Old Texts: Clerical Formation and the Carolingian Renewal in Hrabanus Maurus. Owen M. Phelan. Traditio, 71 (2016), 63–89.
Saint Theokleto: A Female Iconoclast Saint. Oscar Prieto Domínguez. Analecta
Bollandiana, 134 (Dec. 2016), 293–302.
Creativity and History in the Life of Saint Maurus. John B. Wickstrom. Revue
Bénédictine, 126 (Dec. 2016), 271–86.
Inscribing Property, Rituals, and Royal Alliances: the “Theutberga Gospels” and
the Abbey of Remiremont. Steven Vanderputten and Charles West. Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 124 (2, 2016), 296–
321.
The Development of the Consecration Rite for Abbesses and Abbots in Central
Medieval England. Katie Ann-Marie Bugyis. Traditio, 71 (2016), 91–141.
Peace and Purges: Episcopal Administration of Religious Communities and the
Contested See of Reims (c. 931–953). Ortwin Huysmans. Revue Bénédictine,
126 (Dec. 2016), 287–323.
“Per clerum et populum”?: Reflections on Legal Terminology and Episcopal
Appointments in Denmark, 1059–1225. Anna Maria Ciardi. Traditio, 71
(2016), 143–78.
La Influencia de Alfonso VI y Cluny en la configuración monástica del Bierzo
medieval. Juan Antonio Testón Turiel. Compostellanum, LX (1–4, 2016),
333–57.
Prayer and Work: The Example of Robert of La Chaise-Dieu (d. 1067). Hugh
Feiss, O.S.B. American Benedictine Review, 67 (Dec. 2016), 403–22.
Zynische Empfehlungen für einen Besuch der Päpstlichen Kurie: Der Dialog De
quattuor saccis romanam curiam deportandis und die Briefe des Petrus Damiani.
Thomas Haye. Classica et Mediaevalia, 65 (2016).
The Profound Message of Peter Damian’s Book of Gomorrah. Patricia Ranft. American Benedictine Review, 67 (Dec. 2016), 358–69.
The Saint, the Voice, and the Author: Imagining Textual Authority and Personal
Presence at Durham Priory, ca. 1080–1150. Jay Diehl. Viator, 47 (3, 2016),
101–28.
La Vita S. Adelelmi (BHL 71): primera edición completa del texto, transmitido en
las Vitae sanctorum de Bernardo de Brihuega. Jose Carlos Martín-Iglesias.
Analecta Bollandiana, 134 (Dec. 2016), 331–86.
Regesta pontificia medieval de la iglesia de Santiago de Compostela (1095–1417).
Xosé M. Sánchez Sánchez. Compostellanum, LX (1–4, 2016), 115–331.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

389

The Persecution of the Jews in the First Crusade: Liturgy, Memory, and Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture. Iris Shagrir and Netta Amir. Speculum, 92
(Apr. 2017), 405–28.
Glossa ordinaria and Glossa Hebraica: Midrash in Rashi and the Gloss. Benjamin
Williams. Traditio, 71 (2016), 179–201.
Un sermon en langue vulgaire, tiré du Barlaam et Josaphat, sur les parois de baptistère Saint-Jean à Poitiers. Vladimir Agrigoroaei. Cahiers de civilisation
médiévale, 60 (Jan.–Mar. 2017), 1–25.
The ‘Bec Liber Vitae’. Robert of Torigni’s Sources for Writing the History of the
Clare Family at Le Bec, c.1128–54. Benjamin Pohl. Revue Bénédictine, 126
(Dec. 2016), 324–72.
Saints, Pagans, and the Wonders of the East: The Medieval Imaginary and Its
Manuscript Contexts. John Eldevik. Traditio, 71 (2016), 235–72.
Aspects and Problems of the Templars’ Religious Presence in Medieval Europe
from the Twelfth to the Early Fourteenth Century. Jochen Schenk. Traditio,
71 (2016), 273–302.
Monks, Aristocrats, and Justice: Twelfth-Century Monastic Advocacy in a European Perspective. Charles West. Speculum, 92 (Apr. 2017), 372–404.
Le portail royal du Mans et l’évolution de la première sculpture gothique entre les
façades de Dijon et de Chartres. Marcello Angheben. Cahiers de civilisation
médiévale, 60 (Jan.–Mar. 2017), 27–58.
Pour une image passée et future du portail de l’Agneau de San-Isodoro-de-Léon.
José Alberto Moráis Morán. Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 60 (Jan.–Mar.
2017), 59–80.
The three privileges: “Attendentes quomodo” of Alexander III. Revision, use and
tradition of papal documentation among the Cistercians. Guido Cariboni.
Studi Medievali, LVII (Dec. 2016), 631–47.
Peter Comestor’s Lectures on the Glossa “ordinaria” on the Gospel of John: The
Bible and Theology in the Twelfth-century Classroom. Alexander Andrée.
Traditio, 71 (2016), 203–34.
Istituzioni e territorio. I canonici di Sant’Orso nel borgo di Aosta (secoli XII e
XIII). Elena Corniolo. Bollettino Storico-Bibliografico Subalpino, CXIV (2,
2016), 437–65.
Francesco, il cardinale Ugo di Osita e la conferma papale della Regola. Felice
Accrocca. Collectanea Franciscana, 86 (3–4, 2016), 433–60.
Transcripción de la glosa ordinaria de Tancredo de Bolonia al Libro IV de la Compilación Antigua I. Ignacio Pérez de Heredia y Valle. Anthologica Annua, 59
(2012), 739–971.
Ein neues Todesdatum für den lateinischen Kaiser Robert von Konstantinopel: 6.
November 1226. Rudolf Pokorny. Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 72 (1, 2016), 95–140.

390

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Earthrise: The Franciscan Story. Julia McClure. Medieval History Journal, 20 (Apr.
2017), 52–80.
O mosteiro de San Pedro de Esperante. José Méndez Pérez, Begoña González
Aguiar, and Claudio Otero Eiriz. Compostellanum, LX (1–4, 2016), 359–92.
Francescani e alchimia nel XIII secolo. La madre terra si prende cura dell’uomo
malato. Paolo Capitanucci. Antonianum, XCI (Oct.–Dec. 2016), 999–1019.
Guillermo de Saint-Amour y la versión y la profecía antimendicante Insurgent
Gentes. José C. Santos Paz. Studi Medievali, LVII (Dec. 2016), 649–87.
Opere autentiche e spurie, edite, inedite e mal edite di san Bonaventura da Bagnoregio: bilancio e prospettive. Aleksander Horowski. Collectanea Franciscana,
86 (3–4, 2016), 461–544.
Kontinuität und Institutionalisierung im 13. Jahrhundert. Zum Fortbestand der
Ämter an der römischen Kurie nach dem Tod des Papstes. Andreas Fischer.
Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 124 (2, 2016),
322–49.
The management of papal collections and long-distance trade in the thirteenth
century Czech lands. Roman Zaorai. Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome,
Moyen Âge, 127 (2, 2015), 335–345.
Das Purgatorium im 13. Jahrhundert: Schlaglichter auf ein Novum der ost-westlichen Kontroverstheologie am Vorabend des II. Konzils von Lyon (1274).
Andrea Riedl. Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 46 (1–2, 2014), 355–70.
Inscriptions médiévales et histoire du sacrement de l’eucharistie. Robert Favreau.
Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 59 (Nov.–Dec. 2016), 385–409.
Les maîtres parisiens et les Juifs (fin XIIIe siècle): perspectives nouvelles sur un
dossier d’avis concernant le regimen Iudaeorum. Rowan Dorin. Journal des
Savants, (July–Dec. 2016), 241–82.
Die Urkunde Papst Bonifaz’ VIII. für die Universität Lérida im Königreich Aragón
von 1297. Tilmann Schmidt. Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters,
72 (1, 2016), 141–59.
Dante e il Giubileo (II): Bonifacio VIII. Alberto Forni. Collectanea Franciscana, 86
(3–4, 2016), 545–607.
Dante’s Matelda: Queen, Saint, and Mother of Emperors. Jo Ann Hoeppner
Moran Cruz. Viator, 47 (3, 2016), 208–42.
Liminal phenomena: Framing Medieval Cult Images with Relics and Words. Nino
Zchomelidse. Viator, 47 (3, 2016), 243–96.
The Charms of Women and Priests: Sex, Magic, Gender and Public Order in
Late-Medieval Italy. Corinne Wieben. Gender & History, 29 (Apr. 2017),
141–57.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

391

Gli inediti affreschi francescani della chiesa conventuale di Santa Maria del Colle
a Monteleone Sabino (Rieti). Anna Eleanor Signorini. Collectanea Franciscana, 86 (3–4, 2016), 609–39.
The Early Church in the Late Middle Ages. Nicolas de Clamanges and the ecclesia
primitiva. Christopher M. Bellitto. Cristianesimo nella storia, 37 (3, 2016),
453–66.
Papst Gregor XII. am Ende seines Lebens: der Rücktritt, Angelo Correr als Kardinallegat in den Marken, der Streit um den Nachlass. Dieter Girgensohn.
Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 124 (2, 2016),
350–90.
Vocación y formación en el obispo Sánchez de Arévalo (1404–1470). Julián Gómez
de Maya. Carthaginensia, XXXII (July–Dec. 2016), 407–30.
L’autographe retrouvé de Bernardin de Sienne: l’Itinerarium anni et son histoire.
Sophie Delmas and Francesco Siri. Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 109
(July–Dec. 2016), 431–506.
Re-evaluating the Role of Emperor John VIII in the Failed Union of Florence.
Jacob N. Van Sickle. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 68 (Jan. 2017), 40–58.
The Twenty-five Joys of Our Lady: An English Marian Rosary of the Fifteenth
Century from Bodleian Library MS Don. d. 85. John C. Hirsh. Traditio, 71
(2016), 333–42.
The Feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin: Piety, Politics and Plainchant at the
Burgundian Habsburg Court. Emily S. Thielen. Early Music History, 35 (Oct.
2016), 261–307.
“A ciò che la regola nostra promessa meglio possiati observare.” Le Ordinazioni
delle clarisse dei Corpus Domini di Bologna. Juri Leoni, OFM. Archivum
Franciscanum Historicum, 109 (July–Dec. 2016), 507–35.
Pittenweem Priory and the conventuality question. Anthony Lodge. Innes Review,
68 (May, 2017), 19–37.
Pre-modern Interfaith Dialogues with Special Reference to Nicholas of Cusa.
Michael J. Langford. Medieval History Journal, 20 (Apr. 2017), 81–110.
Reading the Bible in the Fifteenth Century: The Case of Juan de Segovia. Jesse D.
Mann. Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures, 43 (1, 2017), 115–34.
Vier übersehene Viten aus Eneas Silvius Piccolominis De viris illustribus. Claudia
Märtl. Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 72 (1, 2016), 177–88.
The Medieval Collegiate Church of Gozo. Stanley Fiorini. Melita Theologica, 66
(1, 2016), 23–45.
El “Ordo Canonicorum” y el “Ordo Fratrum Sancti Augustini.” Teófilo Viñas
Román, O.S.A. Ciudad de Dios, CCXXIX (Sept.–Dec. 2016), 645–79.

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SIXTEENTH CENTURY
Le prêtre en couple: contribution à l’étude des normes de la sexualité (XVIe–XVIIIe
siècle). Sarah Dumortier. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 102 (July–Dec.
2016), 257–69.
St. Thomas More and St. John Chrysostom. Frank Mitjans. Moreana, 53 (Dec.
2016), 129–42.
Late Medieval Nuptial Rites: Paride Grassi and the Royal Wedding of Székesfehérvár (Hungary) in 1502. Antonín Kalous. Questions Liturgiques, 97 (1–2,
2016), 51–64.
Iosif of Volokolamsk and Serapion of Novgorod in Conflict. T. Allan Smith. Russian Review, 76 (Apr. 2017), 207–23.
The Town Chronicle of Johannes Hass: History Writing and Divine Intervention
in the Early Sixteenth Century. Martin Christ. German History, 35 (Mar.
2017), 1–20.
Gastos de la reforma des los monasterios gallegos de Santa Cristina de Ribas de Sil,
San Vicente de Pombeiro y San Martín Pinario (1511–1526). Ernesto
Zaragoza Pascual. Compostellanum, LX (1–4, 2016), 393–448.
Direzione spirituale e autorità eremetica. Paolo Giustiniani e le seguaci fioretine di
Gabriele Biondo. Michele Lodone. Aevum, XC (Sept.–Dec. 2016), 523–45.
Le Liber monasteriorum Walciodorensis et Hasteriensis, miroir d’une difficile introduction de l’observance de Bursfeld au déut du XVIe siècle? Nathalie
Verpeaux. Revue Bénédictine, 126 (Dec. 2016), 373–405.
‘Protestantism’ as a historical category. Alec Ryrie. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 26 (Dec. 2016), 59–77.
Realistische und illusorische Theologie bei Martin Luther (bis 1518). Lothar
Vogel. Lateranum, LXXXIII (1, 2017), 41–60.
Métrica y forma del claustro catedralicio en Santiago de Compostela, 1518–1540.
Víctor Grande Nieto. Compostellanum, LX (1–4, 2016), 449–74.
Johannes von Staupitz’ Amtsverzicht und Ordenswechsel. Hans Schneider. Augustiniana, 66 (1–4, 2016), 185–231.
Reformation und Gottesdienst. Dorothea Wendebourg. Zeitschrift für Theologie
und Kirche, 113 (Dec. 2016), 323–65.
Erasmus’ Apophthegmata in Henrician England. Ágnes Juhász-Ormsby. Erasmus of
Rotterdam Society Yearbook, 37 (1, 2017), 45–67.
Irreverent Reading: Martin Luther as Annotator of Erasmus. Arnoud Visser. Sixteenth Century Journal, XLVIII (Spring 2017), 87–109.
Saints in Parts: Image of the Sacred Body in an Early Modern Venetian Town.
Milena Ulčar. Sixteenth Century Journal, XLVIII (Spring 2017), 67–86.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

393

Immobile Ambassadors: Gout in Early Modern Diplomacy. Megan K. Williams.
Sixteenth Century Journal, XLVII (Winter 2016), 939–69.
Il ciclo pittorico del santuario del Noce. Problemi interpretativi e attributivi.
Alessandra Pattanaro. Il Santo, LVI (1–2, 2016), 93–114.
A ‘conservative’ family? The Howard Women and responses to religious change
during the early Reformation, c. 1530–1558. Nicola Clark. Historical Research,
90 (May, 2017), 318–40.
Im Dienst der Einheit: Die Prinzipien theologischer Erkenntnis des englischen
Kardinals Reginald Pole (1500–1558) im Spiegel seiner Vita und seiner Traktate De Unitate und De Concilio. Mathias Mütel. Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 46 (1–2, 2014), 371–96.
Reflexiones sobre la Cofradía de la Santa Vera Cruz y su relación con el Concejo
de Caravaca. Indalecio Pozo Martínez. Carthaginensia, XXXII (July–Dec.
2016), 431–50.
Ochino gegen Carafa. Una sconosciuta edizione tedesca del cartello di sfida “al cardinal di Chieti” (1543). Michele Camaioni. Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, LXXIX (1, 2017), 133–53.
Lay Cash Donations to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery during the Reign of Ivan
IV. Charles J. Halperin. Slavonic and East European Review, 95 (Apr. 2017),
271–92.
The Russian Gnadenstuhl. Ágnes Kriza. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 52 (2016), 79–130.
Die Reformation in St. Georgen/Schwarzwald. Abt Johannes V. Kern (in St.
Georgen) und das Konzil in Trient. Karl Volk. Freiburger Diözesan-Archiv,
136 (2016), 63–86.
Deux odes d’un réformateur. Théodore de Bèze et sa lutte avec un genre à la mode.
Vanessa Oberliessen. Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, LXXIX (1,
2017), 71–95.
El deseo de la Indias: las cartas indípetas de Alonso de Barzana SJ (1530–1598).
Wenceslao Soto Artuñedo, SJ. Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, LXXXV
(II, 2016), 405–42.
Studi, lettori e studenti nella Provincia dei Frati Minori Cappuccini dell’Umbria
dal 1561 al 1702. Daniele Giglio. Collectanea Franciscana, 86 (3–4, 2016),
641–68.
How to Become a Jesuit Crypto-Jew: The Self-Confessionalization of Giovanni
Battista Eliano through the Textual Artifice of Conversion. Robert John
Clines. Sixteenth Century Journal, XLVIII (Spring 2017), 3–26.
Scrivendo e riscrivendo “ad meam historiam locupletandam.” La Historia delle
grandi e crudeli persecutioni tra Scipione e Paolo Lentolo. Federico Zuliani.
Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, LXXIX (1, 2017), 169–85.

394

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Les saints de Solesmes: des résurgences dans la statuaire espagnole du Siècle d’Or?
Cyril Peltier. Annales de Bretagne et des Pays de l’Ouest, 123 (Dec. 2016), 35–
58.
Early-Modern Magnetism: Uncovering New Textual Links between Leonardo
Garzoni SJ (1543–1592), Paolo Sarpi OSM (1552–1623), Giambattista Della
Porta (1535–1615), and the Accademia dei Lincei. Christoph Sander.
Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, LXXXV (II, 2016), 303–63.
An Unlikely Christian Humanist: How Bess of Hardwick (ca. 1527–1608)
Answered “The Woman Question”. Nicole LaBouff. Sixteenth Century Journal, XLVII (Winter 2016), 847–82.
Not just a lawyer: Thomas Craig and humanist Edinburgh. David McOmish. Innes
Review, 67 (Nov. 2016), 93–106.
Between theological debate and political subversion: Meredith Hanmer’s confutation of Edmund Campion’s Letter to the Privy Council. Angela Andreani.
Aevum, XC (Sept.–Dec. 2016), 557–73.
Why the Reformation failed in Ireland. Henry A. Jefferies. Irish Historical Studies,
40 (Nov. 2016), 151–70.
Time, Space, and Devotion: The Madonna della Clemenza and the Cappella
Altemps in Rome. Kirstin Noreen. Sixteenth Century Journal, XLVII (Winter
2016), 883–914.
L’arrivo dei Teatini a Lecce e un sodalizio artistico al servizio dell’Ordine. Nicola
Cleopazzo. Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia, LXIX (July–Dec. 2015),
335–60.
The Style of the Divine Hand: Francesco Bocchi on the Santissima Annunziata.
Thomas Frangenberg. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 52
(2016), 131–48.
Eclissi e rinascita del rex christianissimus nell’epistolario dell’oratoriano Tomasso
Bozio con il duca di Nevers ritrovato a Parigi. Gennari Cassiani. Rivista di
Storia e Letteratura Religiosa, LII (2, 2016), 241–57.

SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
The Beast of England: Apocalypticism in Seventeenth-Century General Baptist
Literature. David Lytle. Baptist History and Heritage, 51 (Fall 2016), 4–17.
Sede vacante. Les périodes interépiscopales dans les diocèses de Tréguier, SaintBrieue et Saint-Malo aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Olivier Charles. Annales de
Bretagne et des Pays de l’Ouest, 123 (Dec. 2016), 93–131.
Memorializing the Wars of Religion in Early Seventeenth-Century French Picture
Galleries: Protestants and Catholics Painting the Contested Past. David van
der Linden. Renaissance Quarterly, 70 (Spring 2017), 132–78.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

395

Lying Sick to Die: Dying, Informal Care and Authority in Scotland, ca. 1600–
1660. Chris R. Langley. Sixteenth Century Journal, XLVIII (Spring 2017), 27–
46.
L’évolution des fêtes des saints martyrs dans les livres liturgiques de Clément VIII
et d’Urbain VIII: Les fêtes de juillet à décembre. Philippe Beitia. Ephemerides
Liturgicae, CXXX (Oct.–Dec. 2016), 414–54.
Religious tolerance and intolerance in Jacobean Scotland: the case of Archibald
Hegate revisited. Paul Goatman. Innes Review, 67 (Nov. 2016), 159–81.
The life of Sir James MacDonald of Knockrinsay. Ross Crawford. Innes Review, 67
(Nov. 2016), 107–37.
Musk among Perfumes. Annie Rachel George and Amapuma Rath. Church History
& Religious Culture, 96 (3, 2016), 304–24.
El Hospital franciscano de los Naturales de Nueva Cáceres, Filipinas. Cayetano
Sánchez Fuertes, OFM. Archivum Franciscum Historicum, 109 (July–Dec.
2016), 537–83.
Chi deve confutare Sarpi? Scrivere storia nella Roma del Seicento. Andrea Badea.
Cristianesimo nella storia, 37 (3, 2016), 467–94.
Galileo’s Non-trial (1616), Pre-trial (1632–1633), and Trial (May 10, 1633): A
Review of Procedure, Featuring Routine Violations of the Forum of Conscience. Henry Ansgar Kelly. Church History, 85 (Dec. 2016), 724–61.
Peasants and Swedes: the making of a Habsburg nightmare in Early Modern Austria. Peter Thaler. Social History, 42 (May, 2017), 205–32.
The Defence of Episcopacy on the Eve of Civil War: Jeremy Taylor and the Rutland Petition of 1641. Richard Cust. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 68 (Jan.
2017), 59–80.
Providence, punishment and identity formation in the late-Stuart Quaker community, c. 1650–1700. Naomi Pullin. Seventeenth Century, 31 (4, 2016), 471–94.
Notizie Historiche (continuazione). Giancarlo Caputi. Archivum Scholarum
Piarum, XLI (2017), 3–52.
Dissimulation and Memory in Early Modern Poland-Lithuania: the Art of Forgetting [on Meletü Smotrys’kyi, Orthodox Archbishop of Polatsk]. Maria
Ivanova and Michelle R. Vüse. Slavic Review, 76 (Spring 2017), 98–121.
Dreaming Converts in the Seventeenth Century: The Case of Philip Dandulo and
Thomas Warmstry’s The Baptized Turk. Abigail Shinn. Journal for Early
Modern Cultural Studies, 17 (Winter 2017), 97–119.
“Herbis non verbis redeunt in corpora vires.” I rimedi curativi nell’Italia del Seicento: Felice Passera da Bergamo e Francesco Dal Bosco di Valdobbiadene,
speziali e infermieri cappuccini. Angelo D’Ambrosio. Collectanea Franciscana,
86 (3–4, 2016), 669–705.

396

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Vernacular Bible Reading in the Seventeenth-Century Netherlands. A Confrontation between Jansenist Defenders and Anti-Jansenist Opponents. Els Agten.
Internationale Kirchliche Zeitschrift, 106 (July–Sept. 2016), 129–52.
Le voyage littéraire d’Henschenius et Papebroch sur les bords de la Meuse et de la
Moselle en 1668. Bernard Joassart. Analecta Bollandiana, 134 (Dec. 2016),
387–410.
La dedicación a la vida religiosa del linaje Feijoo (siglo XVII al XIX). Miguel
Dongil y Sánchez. Studia Monastica, 58 (2, 2016), 319–25.
Érasme dans l’oeuvre critique de Richard Simon. Jacques Lebrun. Revue de l’histoire
des religions (1, 2017), 73–88.
Patristic Scholarship and Religious Contention, 1678–1716. Jetze Touber. Church
History & Religious Culture, 96 (3, 2016), 266–303.
Dieta e salute nella tradizione francescana. I rimedi terapeutici di fra Bernardino
Cristini (sec. XVII). Angelo D’Ambrosio. Miscellanea Francescana, 116 (3–4,
2016), 422–41.
Der Kapuziner Marco d’Aviano und die Reichspolitik des Kaisers Leopold I. Mit
einem Vergleich der theoretischen Struktur im vormodernen Japan. Taku
Minigawa. Annali dell’Istituto italo-germanico in Trento, 42 (2, 2016), 79–108.
The Many Faces of Ignazio Maria Romeo SJ (1676–1724?), Petitioner for the
Indies: A Jesuit Seen through his Litterae Indipetae and the Epistulae Generalium. Elisa Frei. Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, LXXXV (II, 2016), 365–
403.
Popery, politics, and play: visual culture in succession crisis England. Adam
Morton. Seventeenth Century, 31 (4, 2016), 411–49.
Militant Catholicism, Interconfessional Relations, and the Rockwood Family of
Stanningfield, Suffolk, ca. 1689–1737. Carys Brown. Historical Journal, 60
(Mar. 2017), 21–45.
L’Académie protestante de Saumur et les Néerlandais. Willem Frijhoff. Annales de
Bretagne et des Pays de l’Ouest, 123 (Dec. 2016), 61–90.
“Man is born for society.” Confraternities and Civil Society in Eighteenth-Century
Paris and Milan. David Garrioch. Social Science History, 41 (Spring 2017),
103–19.
Die Missionstätigkeit in Albanien im Lichte der albanischen Plenarsynoden im 18.
und 19. Jahrhundert. Petar Vrankić. Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 46 (1–
2, 2014), 397–426.
Nektarios Terpos and the iconographic programme of Ardenica Monastery. Konstantinos Glakoumis. Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 41 (Apr. 2017),
81–102.
Dom Augustin Calmet, Exegete. Christophe Vuillaume, O.S.B. American Benedictine Review, 68 (Mar. 2017), 57–72.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

397

L’elezione di sepoltura nella diocesi torinese tra diritto canonico e una sentenza del
senato di Piemonte (1723). Luciano Frasson. Bollettino Storico-Bibliografica
Subalpino, CXIV (2, 2016), 523–58.
Nuovi apporti alla biografía di S. Pompilio. Adolfo García-Durán. Archivum Scholarum Piarum, XLV (2017), 209–20.
David Aboab, ou l’itinéraire frustré d’un juif converti au XVIIIe siècle entre lacunes
et certitudes. Évelyne Oliel-Grausz. Revue de l’histoire des religions, 234 (Jan.–
Mar. 2017), 89–118.
Maria Theresa’s Enlightenment: The Habsburgs, Generational Challenge, and
Religious Indifference. Rita Krueger. Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, 46
(2017), 69–80.
La expulsión de los Jesuitas (1767) de la monarquía hispánica. La política regalista
y la pragmática del “extrañamiento.” Laura Lara Martínez and María Lara
Martínez. Razón y fe, 275 (Apr. 2017), 357–67.
Les “Deux corps” de l’abbé de Munster. Essai d’interpretation d’un cérémonial singulier. Gilles Banderier. Revue Bénédictine, 126 (Dec. 2016), 406–22.
Scalan destroyed: a Hanoverian perspective. Alasdair Roberts. Innes Review, 68
(May, 2017), 88–98.
Vivere da gesuiti dopo 1773. Dal carteggio tra Francesco Antonio Zaccaria e Luigi
Mozzi. Pietro Tampieri. Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia, LXIX (July–
Dec. 2015), 437–77.
‘Do not forget your bit wife’: love, marriage and the negotiation of patriarchy in
Irish Presbyterian marriages, c. 1780–1850. Leanne Calvert. Women’s History
Review, 26 (June, 2017), 433–54.
La paroisse Sainte-Marguerite de Paris sous la Révolution: mariage des prêtres et
déchristianisation (1790–1793). Dominique Julia. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de
France, 102 (July–Dec. 2016), 270–98.
La formazione di un’identità cattolica nelle lettere spirituali di Francesco Luigi
Fontana a Carolina Trotti Durini (1793–1821). Marco Ranica. Rivista di
Storia della Chiesa in Italia, LXIX (July–Dec. 2015), 361–81.
Venti lettere inedite dal carteggio Scipione de’ Ricci—Henri Grégoire. Ed. Glauco
Schettini. Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa, LII (2, 2016), 259–314.

NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES
Significados de la visita de Carlos IV a Valencia en 1802. Una aproximación al discurso escolapio. Maria Llum Juan Liern. Archivum Scholarum Piarum, XLI
(2017), 61–90.
La festa di San Napoleone. Itinerari di sacralizzazione della figura di Bonaparte
dalla Repubblica al Regno d’Italia, 1802–1814. Marco Emanuele Omes.
Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, series 5, 8 (1, 2016), 121–59.

398

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Política religiosa de la España josefina. Emilio La Parra López. Jerónimo Zurita, 91
(2016), 57–71.
La lucha por el control de los nombramientos episcopales en España al final del
antiguo régimen (1808–1834). Maximiliano Barrio Gozalo. Anthologica
Annua, 59 (2012), 253–93.
Le berceau et la tombe: culte mémoire de Louis-Marie Grignion aux XIXe et XXe
siècles. Samuel Gicquel. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 102 (July–Dec.
2016), 299–321.
Ambition, anxiety and aspiration: the use and abuse of Cambridge University’s tenyear divinity statute. Sara Slinn. Historical Research, 90 (May, 2017), 381–403.
Grundkurs in katholischer Aufklärung: Andreas Benedikt Feilmoser, seine Lehrer
und die Bildungswelt der Benediktiner in Villingen. Michael Tocha.
Freiburger Diözesan-Archiv, 136 (2016), 133–58.
Newman’s Interpretation of Luther: A Reappraisal. T. L. Holtzen. Theological
Studies, 78 (Mar. 2017), 121–46.
“Tu lo dici!!.” Il caso Grignaschi 1848–1850. Federica Albano. Bollettino StoricoBibliografico Subalpino, CXIV (2, 2016), 559–96.
Sull’italiano lingua franca della Chiesa cattolica missionaria. La corrispondenza
epistolare di Rosendo Salvado, fondatore di New Norcia, Western Australia
(1849–1860). Federica Verdina. Aevum, XC (Sept.–Dec. 2016), 645–70.
The Karen and the Politics of Conversion. Pum Za Mang. Church History & Religious Culture, 96 (3, 2016), 325–45.
Die Erlebnisse der Fürstin Katharina von Hohenzollern im Kloster Sant’Ambrogio. Gregor Patt. Freiburger Diözesan-Archiv, 136 (2016), 159–240.
La Sicilia e l’Unità d’Italia. L’intervento del card. Francesco Saverio Apuzzo per la
soppressione della Legazia apostolica. Gaetano Zito. Rivista di Storia della
Chiesa in Italia, LXIX (July–Dec. 2015), 383–99.
P. Gianbattista Perrando de S. Venanzio, Prepósito General de la Orden de las
Escuelas Pías (1861–1868). Adolfo García-Durán. Archivum Scholarum
Piarum, XLI (2017), 91–208.
Learning Hygiene: Mortality Patterns by Religion in the Don Army Territory
(Southern Russia), 1867–1969. Noël Bonneuil and Elena Fursa. Journal of
Interdisciplinary History, 48 (Winter 2017), 287–332.
The Irish Reform Act of 1868. Colin Barr. Parliamentary History, 36 (Feb. 2017),
97–116.
L’industrie au service de la Vierge: Lourdes et la statuaire de série. Pauline Carminati. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 102 (July–Dec. 2016), 323–45.
Fonti e storiografia del Concilio Vaticano I: Dal XX settembre 1870 al Secondo
Dopoguerra. Dries Vanysacker. Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 46 (1–2,
2014), 427–38.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

399

Women as diviners and as Christian converts in rural South Africa, c. 1880–1963.
Sean Redding. Journal of African History, 57 (Nov. 2016), 367–89.
José María Salgado Ferreiro (1840–1919). Fundador de la escuela coruñesa de
niños pobres y ciegos. Carlos García Cortés. Compostellanum, LX (1–4, 2016),
647–95.
Writing the Lives of Saints: Archives and the Ownership of History. Sarah A.
Curtis. French Historical Studies, 40 (Apr. 2017), 241–66.
Islanders, Protestant Missionaries, and Traditions regarding the Past in Nineteenth-Century Polynesia. Tom Smith. Historical Journal, 60 (Mar. 2017),
71–94.
The Language of Anti-Semitism in the Catholic Newspapers Il Veneto Cattolico/LaDifesa in Late Nineteenth-Century Venice. Ulrich Wyrwa. Church
History & Religious Culture, 96 (3, 2016), 346–69.
Alfred Loisy’s Comparative Method in Les mystères païens et le mystère chrétien.
Danny Praet and Annalies Lannoy. Numen, 64 (1, 2017), 64–96.
Tabriz New Catholic Church: A Construction of Urban Constitutional Crisis
(1908–1912). Saghar Sadeghian. Iran & the Caucasus, 21 (1, 2017), 55–72.
L’histoire religieuse de la première guerre mondiale, 2. Xavier Boniface. Revue
d’histoire de l’Église de France, 102 (July–Dec. 2016), 353–70.
La Passione di Oberammergau (1930). Leonello Vincenti. Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa, LII (2, 2016), 334–49.
Heilige Gastfreundschaft. Louis Massignon als Prophet des islamisch-christlichen
Dialogs. Carol Cooke Eid, dmm. Geist & Leben, 90 (Jan.–Mar. 2017), 24–32.
Kein Ende der Debatte?—Erzbischof Conrad Gröber und sein Verhältnis zum
Nationalsozialismus. Christoph Schmider. Freiburger Diözesan-Archiv, 136
(2016), 249–74.
Dr. Conrad Gröber als förderndes Mitglied der SS. Wolfgang Proske. Freiburger
Diözesan-Archiv, 136 (2016), 275–86.
Masters in Their Own Home or Defenders of the Human Person? Wojciech Korfanty, Anti-Semitism, and Polish Christian Democracy’s Illiberal RightsTalk. Piotr H. Kosicki. Modern Intellectual History, 14 (Apr. 2017), 99–130.
Giovanni Battista Montini e Sergio Paronetto. Tracce di un’amicizia. Tiziano Torresi. Istituto Paolo VI, notiziario n. 72 (Dec. 2016), 72–86.
Antonio Gonzalez, O.P.: Purveyor of Truth, Servant-Leader and Scholar. Pilar I.
Romero. Philippiniana Sacra, LI (May–Aug. 2016), 351–71.
Ébauches de l’inculturation. Lettres de Pierre Ceyrac à l’Abbé Jules Monchanin
(1942–1946). Françoise Jacquin. Nouvelle Revue Théologique, 139 (Jan.–Mar.
2017), 86–99.

400

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Il travagliato percorso di un cattolico di sinistra. Ettore Passerin d’Entrèves nell’immediato secondo dopoguerra. Fulvio De Giorgi. Cristianesimo nella storia, 37
(3, 2016), 495–540.
‘Lobby for the Nazi Elite’? The Protestant Churches and Civilian Internment in
the British Zone of Occupied Germany, 1945–1948. Andrew H. Beattie.
German History, 35 (Mar. 2017), 43–70.
Ökumene von unten. Augustin Bea di fronte alle attività del movimento tedesco Una
Sancta. Saretta Marotta. Cristianesimo nella storia, 37 (3, 2016), 541–611.
Working for Things Eternal: Engelbertus Lagerwey (1880–1959), Bishop of
Deventer. Wietse van der Velde. Internationale Kirchliche Zeitschrift, 106
(July–Sept. 2016), 153–79.
Brother Urbain O.S.B., Monk and Martyr, 1918–1968. Witness to the Faith.
Denis Huerre, O.S.B. American Benedictine Review, 68 (March, 2017), 3–14.
“Un faiseur d’embarras.” Les historiens et les débats autour de la culture et de la
religion populaires (1960–1980). Dominique Julia. Archives de sciences sociales
des religions, 61 (Oct.–Dec. 2016), 119–36.
Le débat sur le catholicisme populaire en France (1960–80). Une crise de légitimité. André Rousseau. Archives de sciences sociales des religions, 61 (Oct.–Dec.
2016), 137–52.
Liturgical Observations on the Second Vatican Council by a Forgotten Catholic:
The Old Catholic Observer’s Perspective on the Liturgical Developments at
the Second Vatican Council. Peter-Ben Smit. Questions Liturgiques, 97 (1–2,
2016), 84–103.
Other ’68ers in West Berlin: Christian Democratic Students and the Cold War
City. Anna von der Goltz. Central European History, 50 (Mar. 2017), 86–112.
Lucio Gutierrez, O.P. and the Study of the Christianization of the Philippines.
Cecilio Vladimir E. Magboo, O.P. Philippiniana Sacra, LI (May–Aug. 2016),
403–17.
Pietro Rossano in URSS (1975) e l’Ostpolitik vaticana. Giuseppe Ghini. Rivista di
Storia della Chiesa in Italia, LXIX (July–Dec. 2015), 401–16.

AMERICAN AND CANADIAN
Death and Resurrection: The Suppression of the Jesuits in North America. Raymond A. Schroth, SJ. American Catholic Studies, 128 (Spring 2017), 51–66.
Nurturing the Vision: First Baptist Church Raleigh, 1812–2012. Glenn Jonas.
Baptist History and Heritage, 51 (Fall 2016), 29–38.
A Journey of Faith and Community: The Story of the First Baptist Church of
Augusta, Georgia. Bruce T. Gourley. Baptist History and Heritage, 51 (Fall
2016), 39–50.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

401

Scripture, Time, and Authority among Early Disciples of Christ. Seth Perry.
Church History, 85 (Dec. 2016), 762–83.
Swept into Puritanism: Emerson, Wendell Phillips, and the Roots of Radicalism.
Kenyon Gradert. New England Quarterly, 90 (Mar. 2017), 103–29.
Martin Luther’s Small Catechism: A History of English Language Editions and
Explanations Prepared by The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. David
Aaron Fiala. Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly, 89 (Winter 2016), 19–54.
“The weapon which wounds the rationalist kills the truth of revelation”: the Christian roots of “intellectual atheism” in nineteenth-century America. Richard P.
Tison. American Nineteenth Century History, 17 (Sept. 2016), 247–72.
Liberal Intellectual Culture and Religious Faith: The Liberalism of the New York
Liberal Club, 1869–1877. Scott M. Shubitz. Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 16 (Apr. 2017), 183–205.
Significant Influences of Baptists on Politics in America. C. Welton Gaddy. Baptist History and Heritage, 51 (Fall 2016), 51–65.
One-Man Missionary Society. The Indefatigable Work of Don Carlos Janes.
Jeremy Hegi. Restoration Quarterly, 58 (4, 2016), 211–27.
The Quest for an “Indigenous Church”: German Missionaries, Chinese Christians,
and the Indigenization Debates of the 1920s. Albert Monshan Wu. American
Historical Review, 122 (Feb. 2017), 85–114.
Toyohiko Kagawa and Reinhold Niebuhr. The Church and Cooperatives. Brian
G. Byrd and John Paul Loucky. Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 28 (1/2,
2016), 63–88.
“La maman est l’économie de la maison”: la Ligue ouvrière catholique et la consommation quotidienne au Québec, 1939–1954. Marilyne Brisebois. Revue
d’histoire de l’Amérique française, 70 (Summer–Autumn, 2016), 139–62.
The year of living supernaturally. James T. Fisher. Rethinking History, 21 (Mar.
2017), 28–47.
“The Most Extraordinary Ordinary Person”: Charlene Richard, the Little Cajun
Saint, and the Gift of Redemptive Suffering. Nancy Autin. Catholic Southwest,
27 (2016), 26–40.

LATIN AMERICAN
Lengua de los indios, lengua española: Religious Conversion and the Languages of
New Spain, ca. 1520–1585. Daniel I. Wasserman-Soler. Church History, 85
(Dec. 2016), 690–723.
Friar Francisco Ximénez and the Popol Vult: From Religious Treatise to a Digital
Sacred Book. Néstor I. Quiroa. Ethnohistory, 64 (Apr. 2017), 241–70.

402

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Toribio Alfonso de Mogrovejo. Pequeño, pero significativo aporte de la universidad compostelana a la configuración del “Nuevo Mundo.” José Luis Fernández Cadavid. Compostellanum, LX (1–4, 2016), 475–528.
Continuidad de los cargos en la cosmovisión religiosa del altepetl: fiscales y mayordomos. Antonio Cano Castillo. Efemérides Mexicana, 34 (Sept.–Dec. 2016),
357–78.
Un acercamiento al Catecismo para uso de los párrocos (1772) del IV Concilio Mexicano. Juan Carlos Casas García. Efemérides Mexicana, 34 (Sept.–Dec. 2016),
419–35.
Disciplina litúrgica en la diócesis Tlaxcala-Puebla y su presencia en el IV Concilio
Mexicano. Jesús Joel Peña Espinosa. Efemérides Mexicana, 34 (Sept.–Dec.
2016), 436–65.
La Iglesia novohispana y la Independencia de México: el caso de Manuel de la
Bárcena y Arce. Tomás Pérez Vejo. Efemérides Mexicana, 34 (Sept.–Dec.
2016), 466–85.
Narratives of Saintly Crisis Intervention in Sonora, Mexico. Jim Griffith. Journal of
the Southwest, 58 (Winter 2016), 617–31.

Other Books Received
Aram I. The Armenian Church: An Introduction to Armenian Christianity. (Antelias,
Lebanon: Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia. 2016. Pp. 241.)
Baum, Gregory. The Oil Has Not Run Dry: The Story of My Theological Pathway.
[Footprints Series, volume 23.] (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s
University Press. 2017. Pp. xii, 259. $37.95 cloth.)
Benz, Arnold. Astrophysics and Creation: Perceiving the Universe through Science and
Participation. Trans. Martin Knoll. (Crossroad Publishing Company. 2017.
Pp. xvi, 201. $19.95 cloth.)
Bruening, Michael W. (ed.). A Reformation Sourcebook. Documents from an Age of
Debate. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2017. Pp. xxiv, 273. $59.95
paperback.)
Cornelissen, Christoph, and Paolo Pombeni (eds.). Spazi politici, società e individuo: le tensioni del moderno. [Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in
Trento, Quaderni, 98.] (Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino. 2016. Pp. 405.
€32.00 paperback.) Among the essays in the second part, “Lo spazio del
politico nell’età moderna,” are “Somatizzazione dell’io nelle scienze mediche
e reazioni cattoliche nel primo Ottocento,” by Fernanda Alfieri (pp. 189–
214), and “La Compagnia di Gesù e la modernità del cattolicesimo. Da
Ignazio di Loyola a Pedro Arrupe,” by Claudio Ferlan (pp. 215–37). In the
fourth part, “Riflessioni conclusive,” is “Politica e religione,” by Antonio
Trampus (pp. 363–80).
D’Souza, Mario O. A Catholic Philosophy of Education. The Church and Two Philosophers. (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. 2016. Pp.
xii, 290. $32.95 paperback.) The two philosophers are Jacques Maritain and
Bernard Lonergan.
Dei, Francesco. La Chiesa senza leggi. Religione e potere secondo un vescovo della Rivoluzione francese (1791–1794). [Storia, 65.] (Brescia: Editrice Morcelliana.
2014. Pp. 162. €16.00 paperback.)
Ferngren, Gary B. (ed.). Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction. 2nd ed.
(Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press. 2016. Pp. xiv, 484. $32.95 paperback.)
The first edition was published in 2002. The second edition includes revised
chapters that reflect current scholarship and new chapters on the relation of
new scientific approaches and disciplines to various religious traditions. Part
V, “The Response of Religious Traditions,” contains a chapter (17) on
“Roman Catholicism since Trent,” by Steven J. Harris and Mariusz Tabaczek
(pp. 251–67).
403

404

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

Harrington, Jay, O.P. (ed.). Christian Faith and the Power of Thinking. A Collection
of Essays Marking the 800th Anniversary of the Founding of the Order of Preachers
in 1216. (Chicago: New Priory Press. 2017. Pp. xiv, 181. $12.95 paperback.)
Contents: “‘The Astonishing Wonder’: Albert the Great (1200–1280), Scientist, Theologian, and Politician,” by Thomas F. O’Meara, O.P. (pp. 1–12);
“Meister Eckhart and the Rhineland Mystics,” by Richard Woods, O.P. (pp.
13–33); “Augustine of Dacia, O.P. (†1285) and the Fourfold Sense of Scripture. The Bible in the Thirteenth Century,” by Jay Harrington, O.P. (pp. 35–
66); “Chenu’s Vision of the Gospel and Church Institutions,” by Paul Philibert, O.P. (pp. 67–83); “Engaging Modernity through Art: The Dominicans
and L’Art Sacré,” by Mark Wedig, O.P. (pp. 85–99); “Conflicts and Ministries: The Dominicans in Bolivia in Recent Times,” by Charles Dahm, O.P.
(pp. 101–26); “Channeling the Divine,” by Scott Steinkerchner, O.P. (pp.
127–48); “Democracy in the Bible and in the Dominican Order,” by Benedict
Thomas Viviano, O.P. (pp. 149–61); “The Power of Preaching Through
Music,” by James V. Marchionda, O.P. (pp. 163–68).
Kolin, Philip C. Benedict’s Daughter: Poems. (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock. 2017.
Pp. 80. $11.00 paperback.) The poems in Benedict’s Daughter offer a spiritual
biography of a remarkable woman of faith, a Benedictine Oblate and spiritual
director who lived her life according to St. Benedict’s Holy Rule (“ora et
labora”). Though she lived and taught in the world, she “cultivated the monk
within.” Juxtaposed with poems on her life, other poems reflect on such Benedictine traditions as praying the Liturgy of the Hours; taking vows of stability,
hospitality, and silence; plus engendering respect for the environment and all
living things. There are poems, too, on Benedictine saints, abbeys, and history. This collection includes a variety of poetic forms, styles, and voices,
including even St. Benedict’s. Abbot Cletus Meagher, O.S.B., of St. Bernard
Abbey in Cullman, Alabama, declared that “Kolin’s poetic words bespeak an
eye that sees beyond the superficial and penetrates to the very essence of all
things—God.”
Kuehn, Thomas. Family and Gender in Renaissance Italy, 1300–1600. (New York:
Cambridge University Press. 2017. Pp. xvi, 387. $31.99 paperback.)
Laveille, August Pierre. The Life of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. The Original Biography
Commissioned by her Sister. Trans. M. Fitzsimmons, O.M.I. (Notre Dame, IN:
Christian Classics. 2017. Pp. xxii, 424. $18.95 paperback.) First published in
English in 1929.
Legge, Dominic, O.P. The Trinitarian Christology of St Thomas Aquinas. (New
York: Oxford University Press. 2017. Pp. xviii, 261. $95.00 cloth.)
Manca, Anna Gianna. Costituzione e amministrazione della monarchia prussiana
(1848–1870). [Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento, Monografie, 67.] (Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino. 2016. Pp. 486. €38.00 paperback.) Chapter 9 is devoted to “La Chiesa” (pp. 263–87).

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

405

Maritain, Jacques. Contro l’antisemitismo. Dignità della persona, mistero di Israele,
sionismo. Edited by Daniele Lorenzini. (Brescia: Editrice Morcelliana. 2016.
Pp. 276. €22.00 paperback.) Excerpts from his writings dating from 1921 to
1972.
Martin, Dale B. Biblical Truths: The Meaning of Scripture in the Twenty-First Century. (New Haven: Yale University Press. 2017. Pp. xiv, 394. $40.00 cloth.)
Meszaros, Andrew. The Prophetic Church: History and Doctrinal Development in John
Henry Newman and Yves Congar. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2016.
Pp. xvi, 268. $99.00 cloth.)
Mondini, Marco (ed.). La guerra come apocalisse. Interpretazioni, disvelamenti, paure.
[Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento, Quaderni, 96.]
(Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino. 2016. Pp. 266. €22.00 paperback.) Sante
Lesti has contributed an essay, “Predicare l’Apocalisse al tempo della Grande
Guerra: Il caso di don Angelo Roncalli” (pp. 179–95).
Morton, Peter A. (ed.). The Trial of Tempel Anneke: Records of a Witchcraft Trial in
Brunswick, Germany, 1663. Trans. Barbara A. Dähms. 2nd edn. (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press. 2017. Pp. lxxvii, 170. $29.95 paperback.) The
first edition was published in 2006. In this expanded edition new information
about Tempel Anneke (Anna Kage, née Roleffes) and her village of Harxbüttel has been added.
Norget, Kristin, Valentina Napolitano, and Maya Mayblin (eds.). The Anthropology
of Catholicism: A Reader. (Oakland, CA: University of California Press. 2017.
Pp. xii, 369. $34.95 paperback.)
Norris, Robert J. Exonerated: A History of the Innocence Movement. (New York: New
York University Press. 2017. Pp. x, 289. $35.00 cloth.)
Procko, Bohdan P. Ukrainian Catholics in America: A History. Edited by Ivan
Kaszczak. 2nd ed. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America. 2016. Pp. xvi,
287. $25.00 cloth.) The first edition was published in 1982 and reviewed by
Petro B. T. Bilaniuk, ante, 71 (Jan., 1985), 138. In this second edition Ivan
Kaszczak has contributed the final chapter (“The Contemporary Era”), the
timeline, the illustrations, and some editorial inclusions and exclusions.
Rainini, Marco. Il Profeta del Papa. Vita e Memoria di Raniero da Ponza, Eremita di
Curia. [Dies Nova: Fonti e studi per la storia del profetismo.] (Milan: Vita e
Pensiero. 2016. Pp. 189. €20.00 paperback.)
Roche, Mark William. Realizing the Distinctive University: Vision and Values, Strategy and Culture. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. 2017. Pp.
viii, 275. $25.00 paperback.)
Rogers, James Silas. Irish-American Autobiography. The Divided Hearts of Athletes,
Priests, Pilgrims, and More. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America
Press. 2016. Pp. 184. $24.95 paperback.) Chapter 5, “A Culture of Diffidence:
Mid-Century Irish-American Priests’ Autobiographies” (pp. 69–81), consid-

406

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED
ers books by James A. Kavanaugh, Thomas Merton, James Keller, Edward J.
Murphy, Daniel Berrigan, Gerald McGinley, Francis Clement Kelley, and
Fulton Sheen.

Ryan, Salvador (ed.). Death and the Irish: A Miscellany. (Dublin: Wordwell Ltd.
2016. Pp. x, 289. €25.00 paperback.) The book contains seventy-five brief
sketches by different authors. Most of them are followed by “Sources” or “References.”
Stone, Keith A. Singing Moses’s Song: A Performance-Critical Analysis of Deuteronomy’s Song of Moses. [Ilex Foundation Series 17.] (Boston, MA: Ilex Foundation, in partnership with the Center for Hellenic Studies; distributed by Harvard University Press. 2016. Pp. viii, 180. $19.95 cloth.)