THE CATHOLIC
HISTORICAL REVIEW
VOL. 105

SUMMER 2019

NO. 3

The Black Cistercians: The Reactions of
Black Monks to Bernard of Clairvaux and the
Challenges of Increased Competition
TJAMKE SNIJDERS*
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Black Monks possessed more
works by Bernard of Clairvaux than the Cistercians themselves. This
situation has historically been taken as evidence for the Black Monks’
great admiration for Bernard’s spiritual message. Based on a comparison of booklists from Southern Germany, England, and the Southern
Low Countries, this article argues that the reality was more acomplicated. In the Southern Low Countries, the Black Monks studied
Bernard’s works and for a while attempted to counter the pull of Clairvaux by becoming more like the Cistercians themselves. In England
and Southern Germany, where Bernard posed less of a threat, the Black
Monks were significantly less interested in his writings.
Keywords: Bernard of Clairvaux; Benedictine monasticism;
monastic reform; booklists; monastic libraries

A

round 1122, Bernard of Clairvaux addressed a treatise to his Cluniac
friend William of Saint-Thierry, in which he asserted his great
respect for the Cluniacs. “And so? I am a Cistercian. Do I therefore condemn the Cluniacs? Far from it. Rather I love them, I praise them, I extol
them.” Bernard allegorizes that Cluniacs, Cistercians, canons regular, and
faithful laypeople together form the robe of the Church. “Not only our
Order or only yours belongs to that one robe, but ours and yours at the
*This article was written at UC Berkeley (USA) as postdoctoral fellow of the Research
Foundation-Flanders (FWO); and finished at KU Leuven, KU Leuven Libraries Special Collections. The author would like to thank Maureen Miller, Wim Verbaal, and Micol Long for
their comments on the draft of this article.

429

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THE BLACK CISTERCIANS

same time, unless perhaps—may it never happen—mutually envious and
provoking, we gnaw at each other in turn and in turn we are devoured.”1
While Bernard of Clairvaux acknowledged the great similarity
between Cistercians and Cluniacs, he also belittled them by noting that the
Cistercian path was more rigorous and demanding [fortior] in what it asked
of its monks. These hardships, according to Bernard, made the Cistercians
shine brighter than the Cluniacs: “Star differs from star in glory, and so it
will be at the resurrection of the dead.”2 Bernard considered the Cistercians
as stars that shone with greater clarity because they were stricter in their
observance. He considered the Cistercians as superior to the Cluniacs, and
inherently more holy.3
What did Bernard mean when he spoke about “Cluniacs”? The term
“Cluniac” could refer to the houses that were formally affiliated with the
abbey of Cluny: the Ordo Cluniacensis. However, “Cluniac” could also signify a much vaguer milieu of “Benedictine” houses of Black Monks who
either followed the customs of Cluny or were perceived as following the
customs of Cluny.4 Like many of his contemporaries, Bernard used this
broader interpretation of “Cluniac” when he subdivided the monastic
world into Cluniacs and Cistercians.5 Similarly, when he drew a contrast
between “our Order” (Bernard’s Cistercians) “or only yours” (William of
Saint-Thierry’s Cluniacs) he used this broader interpretation, for SaintThierry was not a formal member of the Ordo Cluniacensis.6
1. Bernard of Clairvaux, Apologia, in The “Things of Greater Importance”: Bernard of Clairvaux’s Apologia and the Medieval Attitude Toward Art, ed. Conrad Rudolph (Philadelphia,
1990), 244. The Apologia was written between 1121 and 1125, possibly in 1122; see Brian
Patrick McGuire, “Bernard’s Life and Works: A Review,” in A Companion to Bernard of Clairvaux (Leiden and Boston, 2011), 34.
2. Bernard of Clairvaux, Apologia, 244–249 (1 Cor. 15:41–2).
3. Conrad Rudolph, “Bernard of Clairvaux’s Apologia as a Description of Cluny, and the
Controversy over Monastic Art,” Gesta 27, no. 1/2 (1988), 125–132; David Knowles, Cistercians
& Cluniacs: The Controversy Between St. Bernard and Peter the Venerable (London, 1955), 20.
4. Adriaan Hendrik Bredero, Cluny and Cîteaux au douzième siècle: L’histoire d’une controverse monastique (Amsterdam, 1985), 58–59n1. Note that the Benedictines, technically
speaking, did not constitute an Order at this moment in time, and that contemporaries would
refer to them as “Black Monks,” though it has become common to refer to Black Monks as
Benedictines in the scholarly literature.
5. Elsewhere, Bernard divides monasticism into Cluniacs, Cistercians, and the monks
of Tours. See Rudolph, “Bernard of Clairvaux’s Apologia,” 132n6.
6. Whereas scholars agree that the “Benedictines” or Black Monks did not yet form an
Order in the eleventh century, it is less obvious whether the Cistercians can already be called
an Order at this moment in time. Constance Berman controversially argued in The Cistercian
Evolution: The Invention of a Religious Order in Twelfth-Century Europe (Philadelphia, 2000)

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This article will explore how Black Monks reacted to Bernard’s accusations of inferiority. Bernard’s opinions mattered because he was quickly
becoming a public figure. In the 1130s he successfully engaged with Cluniac opponents such as Peter the Venerable, and Bernard in the 1140s is
described as a popular hero.7 Eventually, many people judged that Bernard
was singlehandedly responsible for the Cistercians’ great luster. He made
the Black Monks seem dull in comparison.8
Bernard’s insistence that Black Monks were inferior to Cistercians did
not stop the Black Monks from collaborating with him, or from reading
Bernard’s works.9 In fact, twelfth- and thirteenth-century Black Monks
appear to have copied and collected more of Bernard’s writings than the
Cistercians themselves. Why was this so?
One suggestion, put forth by Dom Jean Leclercq, places the Black
Monks in a most admirable light. Based on a case-study of German-speaking monks, Leclercq suggested that these monks were able to see what their
contemporaries could not—that Bernard’s message was not Cistercian, but
Christian, and belonged to the whole Church.10 The Benedictines recognized the greatness of Bernard’s message, embraced it with fervor, and
expressed their enthusiasm by copying a large number of Bernardine texts.
Leclercq’s reasoning is unconvincing. First, because he proceeded
from the methodological assumption that the number of Bernardine books
in a library correlated one-on-one with that house’s approval of Bernard’s
that the Cistercian Order did not truly exist until the third quarter of the twelfth century.
However, her use of the primary source material has been questioned, primarily by Chrysogonus Waddell, “The Myth of Cistercian Origins: C. H. Berman and the Manuscript
Sources,” Cîteaux 51 (2000), 299–386, and by Elizabeth Freeman in “What Makes a Monastic Order? Issues of Methodology in The Cistercian Evolution,” Cistercian Studies Quarterly 37,
no. 4 (2002), 429–42. For the purposes of this article, it is important to underline the general
consensus that the Cistercian Order did not emerge fully formed in the mid eleventh century,
but took several decades to acquire its final form. Bernard’s contrast between ‘our Order’ and
‘yours’ was therefore a rhetorical device, rather than the objective description of two competing Orders.
7. McGuire, “Bernard’s Life and Works,” 33–61; Aviad Kleinberg. “Are Saints Celebrities? Some Medieval Christian Examples,” Cultural and Social History 8, no. 3 (2011), 394.
8. See Martha G. Newman, “Foundation and Twelfth Century,” in The Cambridge
Companion to the Cistercian Order, ed. Mette Birkedal Bruun (Cambridge, 2013), 30–33.
9. For a more detailed discussion of the relations between Black Monks and Cistercians, see below.
10. Jean Leclercq, “Die Verbreitung der bernhardinischen Schriften im deutschen
Sprachraum,” in Bernhard von Clairvaux: Mönch und Mystiker. Internationaler Bernhard
Kongress, ed. J. Lortz (Wiesbaden, 1955), 185.

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THE BLACK CISTERCIANS

spirituality. This assumption is an over-simplification because the number
of Bernardine books in a library could be influenced by many factors other
than admiration. Availability was one: in Southern England, even
Bernard’s most faithful devotee would be hard-pressed to find a copy of his
works in the 1150s.11 Second, it is conceivable that Bernard was popular
because of his charisma or his political stances, rather than because of his
spiritual ideas, so that the number of Bernardine works in a library might
not reflect the reception of his spiritual message at all. Thirdly and most
importantly, instead of contrasting “the Benedictines” with “the Cistercians” as two fairly homogeneous groups with two different appreciations
for Bernard’s spirituality, we need to focus on the political, economic, and
cultural factors that influenced each individual house’s reception of
Bernard in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
This article will use the evidence of booklists to show that the reception of Bernard in different houses was indeed shaped by a complex web of
considerations and motivations. A community’s enthusiasm for Bernard
was influenced by how it remembered Bernard as a man. Some houses had
hosted him with grace, others had been the recipient of his ire, while yet
others had had very little to do with him. Each community’s idiosyncratic
memory of Bernard influenced the amount and nature of the Bernardine
writings that it copied, studied, and stored.12 Even more important than
memory, however, was politics. While Bernard could be set up as a role
model or a saint, many communities considered it inopportune to make
Bernard larger than life. Some Cistercians feared that Bernard’s popularity
was luring too many people to Clairvaux and thereby threatening the stability of the Cistercian Order. The Black Monks, for their part, had good
reason to fear that some brothers might exchange their black habits for
whites. Was it prudent to admire openly a brother who represented a competing order? By investigating how various communities of Black Monks
responded to the very concrete threats and possibilities that Bernard presented, this article aims to clarify the initial reactions of the Black Monks
to an increasingly competitive world.
Saint Bernard among Cistercians
By the 1150s, the Cistercians themselves were beginning to see
Bernard as something of a problem. In previous decades the Cistercian
11. Phillips, “Bernard of Clairvaux,” 48.
12. See James Fentress and Chris Wickham, Social Memory (Oxford, UK and Cambridge, MA, 1992).

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433

Order had worked very hard to achieve a corporate identity of spirituality,
liturgy, and observance.13 They encouraged and valued unity and solidarity
and experimented with a new system of hierarchical leadership. Cîteaux
had founded four daughter houses, La Ferté, Clairvaux, Morimond, and
Pontigny. They, in turn, started to found daughter houses that were subordinate to their motherhouse, and everyone was supposed to obey the decisions of the General Chapter. By the 1150s this system was beginning to
come into its own, but it was not yet completely stable. It might break
down if one daughter house were to acquire so much clout that it would
gain ascendency over its peers and its motherhouse.
As a result, Bernard’s popularity was a problem while Bernard lived,
and became even more of an issue in 1153, the year of his death. After his
burial, the “insistent demands” of a “great crowd of people” at the gates of
Clairvaux instilled great fear in the Abbot of Cîteaux, according to the
Exordium magnum. It was feared that “if increasing miracles were to draw
an intolerable crowd of people their unruliness might endanger the discipline of the Order and that the fervor of holy observance might grow tepid
in that place.”14 Even more importantly, the crowds would give Clairvaux
a prominence that it was never meant to have, changing the balance of
power between Cîteaux and its daughter house, and probably rekindling
old tensions between Clairvaux and Morimond.15 Therefore, the Abbot of
Cîteaux “reverently and by virtue of obedience forbade the saint from
working any more miracles.”16
Some of Bernard’s admirers were unimpressed by these fears and arguments and were well underway with the compilation of Bernard’s first Vita. It
depicts Bernard as a man who was almost without fault, an unparalleled religious leader, a thaumaturge, and an accomplished miracle worker.17 When in
1155 or 1156 a Cistercian grand assembly convened to discuss this Vita
Prima, it quickly decided that Bernard’s posthumous miracles should not be
circulated, and a version omitting them was quickly drawn up.18 Yet even this
reworked Vita was not circulated widely among Cistercian audiences.
13. Emilia Jamroziak, The Cistercian Order in Medieval Europe, 1090–1500 (London
and New York, 2013), 81–82.
14. Konrad of Eberbach, The Great Beginning of Cîteaux: A Narrative of the Beginning of
the Cistercian Order. The Exordium Magnum of Conrad of Eberbach, ed. Benedicta Ward, Paul
Savage, and E. Rozanne Elder (Collegeville, 2012), 158.
15. Goez, “‘...Erit communis et nobis,’” 203–04.
16. Konrad of Eberbach, Exordium Magnum, 158.
17. McGuire, “Writing, ” 452–53; Goez, “‘...Erit communis et nobis,’” 196–200.
18. Bredero, Bernard of Clairvaux, 67.

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Several reasons have been given for the lukewarm reception of the Vita
Prima among the Cistercians. Brian Patrick McGuire points out that the
Vita Prima had been written by four different authors, each with a different
approach to Bernard, which may have been off-putting.19 Adriaan Bredero
speculates about four other possible causes. First of all, one of the Vita’s
authors, Geoffrey of Auxerre, had fallen out of favor and had been removed
as abbot of Clairvaux. Secondly, Bernard was being portrayed as this perfect, saintly miracle worker who was well-nigh unrecognizable for Cistercian monks who remembered him as thoroughly human. Thirdly, highranking Cistercians feared that propagating Saint Bernard would risk
disturbing the balance of power within their order, raising Clairvaux above
Cîteaux. Fourthly, Bredero thinks that the extraordinarily long Vita Prima
was simply unattractive.20
This Cistercian aversion to the Vita Prima, combined with external
factors such as the diminishing luster of Bernard after the failure of the
Second Crusade, relegated Bernard to some kind of limbo directly after his
death.21 This not only slowed down the veneration of Saint Bernard but
also hampered the popularity of his writings among Cistercian audiences.
After all, this was a culture in which author and authority were closely
intertwined.22 Cistercians were understandably hesitant to go against the
wish of the Abbot of Cîteaux and their General Chapter that there should
not be a cult of Saint Bernard and showed a calculated aversion of appearing overly fond of the abbot in the years following his death.
A cult of Saint Bernard only emerged in the 1170s, when the Cistercians had gained a new self-assuredness about their identity and role in the
church.23 At this time, Geoffrey of Auxerre had managed to regain favor
and could once again champion Bernard. Alain of Auxerre composed a
Vita Secunda that was shorter, more homogeneous in style, and presented
19. McGuire, “Writing,” 453.
20. Bredero, Bernard of Clairvaux, 53–55, 65. For the difference between life-like
“type-1” and idealized “type-2” saints, see Kleinberg, “Are Saints Celebreties?” 395.
21. For Bernard’s reputation after the Second Crusade see Giles Constable, “A Report
of a Lost Sermon by St. Bernard on the Failure of the Second Crusade,” in Studies in Medieval
Cistercian History Presented to Jeremiah F. O’Sullivan (Spencer, MA, 1971), 49–54.
22. See A.J. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the
Later Middle Ages, 2nd ed. (Aldershot, 1988). Bernard’s limbo likely curbed his portrayals in
art as well, according to James France, “The Heritage of Saint Bernard in Medieval Art,” in
A Companion to Bernard of Clarivaux, ed. Brian Patrick McGuire (Leiden, 2011), 307–12.
23. Brian Patrick McGuire, “The First Cistercian Renewal and a Changing Image of
Saint Bernard,” in The Difficult Saint: Bernard of Clairvaux and His Tradition (Kalamazoo,
1991), 157.

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435

a more conventional picture of the saint. A new generation of Cistercian
monks who did not personally remember Bernard had come to the fore,
and the pope officially canonized Bernard in convenient terms without a
single reference to his miracles.24 As a result, Saint Bernard no longer
threatened to disturb the unitas ordinis and was embraced by the Cistercians.25 By 1260, Bernard was incorporated into Jacobus de Voragine’s
Legenda Aurea and venerated throughout Christianity.
The Works of Bernard in Booklists
The Black Monks’ responses to Bernard were even more complicated.
This article investigates their enthusiasm for his writings through an investigation of their booklists. Booklists were used to inventory part of a community’s library before the invention of the true library catalog.26 They are
difficult sources to use because their makers tried to fit a square peg in a
round hole: they attempted to make formal, hierarchical descriptions of
libraries that were inherently informal and non-hierarchical. Libraries
tended to develop organically and without much forethought. Books could
be added to the library on purpose, but also because they happened to be
available, or because someone donated a book to the monastery. Some
books were internally homogeneous, but others incorporated an apparently
random collection of texts. As a result, there was an inherent element of
chance and circumstance to each monastic library. Yet booklists attempted
to impose a pre-determined order onto that diverse collection.
Booklists usually arranged the manuscripts in a library on the base of
their main auctoritas and/or their theme. A booklist could distinguish
between works by Augustine, Gregory the Great, and Bernard of Clairvaux; hagiographical works, juridical works, and so on. This required that
the cataloger pegged each manuscript according to one author or theme,
even if the manuscript contained divergent texts. This made the booklists
highly selective and therefore, subjective.
24. Elke Goez, “‘…Erit communis et nobis’. Verstetiging des Vergänglichen: Zur Perpetuierung des Charismas Bernhards von Clairvaux im Zisterzienserorden,” in Charisma und
religiöse Gemeinschaften im Mittelalter, ed. Giancarlo Andenna, Mirko Breitenstein, and Gert
Melville (Münster, 2005), 173-215, here 203-04.
25. Ibid., 209, 212–13.
26. See Rosamund McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word (Cambridge,
1989), 165–210; Albert Derolez, Les catalogues de bibliothèques [Typologie des sources du
Moyen Âge occidental, 31] (Turnhout, 1979), 60; Steven Vanderputten and Tjamke Snijders, “Echoes of Benedictine Reform in an Eleventh-Century Booklist from Marchiennes,”
Scriptorium 63, no. 1 (2009), 79–88.

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THE BLACK CISTERCIANS

For example, say that a manuscript opens with Gregory the Great’s
commentary on the Song of Songs, followed by Gregory’s commentary on
the Twelve Steps of Humility, some extracts from the works of Bernard of
Clairvaux, and Bernard’s commentary on Missus est Gabriel. Most cataloger
would choose to list this manuscript among the works of Gregory the
Great, describe it as “Pope Gregory on the Song of Songs,” and omit any
mention of the other texts. However, others could choose to list such a
manuscript among the works of Bernard (with or without mention of the
Gregorian works). Yet others might choose to list the manuscript among
the works of Gregory the Great, but mention the presence of the Bernardine texts as well.27 Booklists thus reflect the cataloger’s choices about the
relative importance of the texts in each manuscript, and it is possible that
Bernardine texts went unmentioned on booklists because of this.
Secondly, most booklists meant to convey a hierarchy among the books.
If a booklist included Scripture, it would be the very first item on the list. A
typical booklist would then enumerate works by Augustine and the Church
Fathers in order of their importance, and end with secular literature and miscellanea. Such a booklist was not meant as a blueprint of an institution’s
actual library but as an edited representation of that library. If a booklist
included a work from Bernard of Clairvaux, it meant that the community
possessed his work and considered it worth mentioning on the list. Furthermore, the place of Bernard’s works on the list (right at the top, or at the very
bottom of the list) often shows how important he was to the community.
Thirdly, it should be noted that most catalogers could not properly distinguish—and may not always have felt the need to distinguish—between
works by the real Bernard of Clairvaux and the various Pseudo-Bernardine
writings.28 They would all be lumped together as Bernardine texts.
As we will see, Bernard’s importance varied greatly from one booklist to
another. This, of course, makes perfect sense. Even the Cistercians, though
they prided themselves on the homogeneity across their Order, had not yet
established an archetypical “Cistercian library” in the twelfth and thirteenth

27. This example is based on an entry in a 1049–1158/60 booklist from Lobbes: “Et
aliud Gregorii papae super cantica et de duedecim gradibus humilitatis, <in> quo Bernardi
abbatis Clarevallensis excerpta et tractatus super evangelium ‘Missus est Gabriel,’” edited as
“Additions to the 1049 catalogue of the conventual library, up to about 1158–1160,” in Corpus
catalogorum Belgii: The Medieval Booklists of the Southern Low Countries IV, ed. Albert Derolez
et al. (Brussels, 2001), 271 [# 102.16]. Hereafter cited as CCB.
28. See Ann Astell and Joseph Wawrykow, Pseudo-Bernardine Essays (Collegeville, 2018).

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437

centuries.29 The heterogeneity among communities of Black Monks was even
stronger, as they explicitly functioned in terms of small-scale networks. While
Cluny and some other networks achieved long-term stability and international fame, most other networks remained pragmatic cooperations on a
purely regional basis. These small networks emerged in response to some local
issue—trouble with a local magistrate, disciplinary issues, economic difficulties—and changed their nature when the troubles that inspired them ended
or transformed into different issues.30 Thus, it is important to analyze the
Black Monks’ reception of Bernard from an explicitly regional point of view.
Dom Jean Leclercq has distinguished three separate regions in which
Bernard’s works circulated: the German-speaking world (Germany, Austria, North-Eastern Switzerland, and their immediate surroundings),
Great Britain (England, Ireland, and Scotland), and the more heterogeneous Latin region (the Southern Low Countries, France, Italy, Spain,
Portugal, and the south-western part of Switzerland).31
The following sections examine booklist from each of these three
regions. The Latin region is represented by a group of twelve booklists
from the Southern Low Countries and Northern France (which will be
called “the Southern Low Countries”), that were mostly created in the
second half of the twelfth century. The German region is represented by
thirty-seven booklists from Southern Germany and North-Eastern
Switzerland (which are called “Southern Germany”) that were mostly created in the thirteenth century. The region of Great Britain is represented
by fifty-two booklists from England, mostly from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.32 For each of these regions, a comparison is drawn
29. Thomas Falmagne, “Le réseau des bibliothèques Cisterciennes au XIIe et XIIIe siècles,” in Unanimité et diversité Cisterciennes: filiations, réseaux, relectures du XII e au XVII e siècle,
ed. Nicole Bouter (Saint-Étienne, 2000), 196–202.
30. See Jens Röhrkasten, “Regionalism and Locality as Factors in the Study of Religious Orders,” in Mittelalterliche Orden und Klöster im Vergleich: Methodische Ansätze und Perspektiven, ed. Gert Melville and Anne Müller (Berlin, 2007), 243–68.
31. Leclercq, “Die Verbreitung der bernhardinischen Schriften,” 176.
32. These regions have been chosen on the basis of the available source material—the
booklists from England edited in the Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues and its online index at http://www.history.ox.ac.uk/research/project/british-medieval-library-catalogues.html; the booklists from the Imperial bishoprics of Konstanz, Chur, Mainz, Erfurt,
Augsburg, Eichstätt, Passau and Regensburg edited in the Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge
Deutschlands und der Schweiz (1962–1970); the booklists from the Southern Low Countries
and Northern France (the bishoprics of Thérouanne, Tournai, Arras/Cambrai and Liège)
edited in Albert Derolez’ CCB, supplemented with catalogues from the communities of
Marchiennes, St.-Martin in Tournai, St.-Amand, and Cluny.

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THE BLACK CISTERCIANS

FIGURE 1. Illumination from the Chroniques abrégées des Anciens Rois et Ducs de
Bourgogne. Southern Netherlands, c. 1485–1490, by an unknown fifteenth-century
illuminator (attributed to the Master of the Trivial Heads). Collection: British
Library, London, UK. Public Domain. Translation of text: Bernard of Clairvaux,
chaplain of the Virgin Mary, leaving his house on his way to Burgundy. The church
depicted is not the Clairvaux Abbey, as is to be expected, but the Church of Saint
Servatius in Maastricht.

between the presence of Bernard in booklists from Black Monks and his
presence in Cistercian lists. This gives a first, quantitative indication of the
Black Monks’ enthusiasm for Bernard in a particular region in comparison
to that of their Cistercian neighbors.
Bernard’s popularity was greatest in the Southern Low Countries. It
comes as no surprise that the Cistercian community of Villers, which had
been founded during Bernard’s lifetime by monks of Clairvaux, possessed
many of his works.33 Seventeen out of the 455 books on their list dealt with
33. Villers (1309) CCB IV 88. Clairvaux monks that participated in the foundation of
Villers were Laurent (Villers’ first abbot), Gerard of Tournai (its abbot in 1147), and Boniface
(who became its prior in 1160), as well as five anonymous conversi. Laurent Veyssière, “Le
personnel de l’abbaye de Clairvaux au XIIe siècle,” Cîteaux 51 (2000), 17–90, notes 107, 187,
255, conv-47.

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439

Bernard. The Villers monks possessed theological works by Bernard in the
form of tracts meant for study and meditation, such as the Tractatus sancti
Bernardi de gratia et libero arbitrio, which defends the dogma of grace and
free will according to the principles of Saint Augustine. His talents as a
preacher were underscored with seven volumes of sermons, which were
probably read in chapter or a similar setting.34 The monks also studied or
venerated Bernard as a person, both through hagiographical texts and of a
collection of the many letters that Bernard wrote as abbot of Clairvaux.
Villers thus possessed works that gave a well-rounded view of Bernard’s life
as a man and a saint, and his ideas as theologian and preacher.
The Cistercian monks of Villers were not the only ones in this region
to study and venerate Bernard. In fact, most preserved Black Monks’ booklists contain at least some of his writings.35 The booklist from St.-Martin
in Tournai gave him the most prominence, highlighting him as one of ten
authors who were especially important to their community.36 The St.Martin booklist was ordered hierarchically and started with the works of
Augustine, followed by Jerome, Gregory, Anselm, Ambrose, Bede,
Origen, Isidore of Seville, Cyprian, and other doctores. Then the Life and
works of “domni Bernardi abbatis” were listed, and the booklist closed with
hagiography and pagan texts. Bernard was thus among the most important
authors to the monks of St.-Martin, although they called him “abbot”
instead of “doctor,” and placed him in a no man’s land between the Church
Fathers, and the anonymous and pagan authors.37
Other communities from the Southern Low Countries and Northern
France focused on Bernard’s sermons and treatises. St.-Laurent, Lobbes,
Marchiennes, and St.-Amand together possessed six treatises (including
the Apology in which Bernard expounded on the differences between Cis34. As the language and arguments in these sermons are so refined, they were probably
reworked versions of sermons that Bernard delivered in Clairvaux. Jean Leclercq, “Introduction,” in Bernard of Clairvaux, on the Song of Songs, ed. Kilian J. Walsh and Irene M. Edmonds
(Spencer, MA, 1976).
35. With the exception of a will and a donation from Ter Doest (OSC), a thirteenthcentury list of improbable attribution, a sale, and a donation from Les Dunes (OSB/OSC), a
short list of schoolbooks (Brogne, OSB), an inventory of the treasury (St.-Bavo, OSB), a
donation (St.-Peter, OSB), and another inventory of the treasury (St.-Trudo, OSB).
36. St.-Martin (ca. 1160–1180) CCB IV 135.
37. Note that there was no consensus over a definite list of Church Fathers yet: Bernice
Martha Kaczynski, “The Authority of the Fathers: Patristic Texts in Early Medieval Libraries
and Scriptoria,” The Journal of Medieval Latin 61 (2006), 1–27. The official title “Doctor of the
Church” was only bestowed upon Bernard in 1830 by Pius VIII.

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THE BLACK CISTERCIANS

tercians and Cluniacs), seven volumes with Sermons, and Bernard’s Life of
Saint Malachy.38
One special case from the Southern Low Countries is the monastery
of Anchin. The booklist that has been preserved from Anchin dates to circa
1130, when Bernard would have been forty years old. At that time, the
Anchin monks did not yet include any of his works on their booklist. In
later years, however, they would wholeheartedly venerate him.39 About ten
years after Bernard’s death, an Anchin monk called Sigerus began to compile a magnificent opera omnia, working from a codex with Bernardine
writings that had been submitted to the pope in 1163 in a failed attempt
to secure Bernard’s canonization.40 Sigerus managed to lay his hands on
this codex and immediately began to copy it—and probably expanded on
his model as well. He included several unique texts, as well as two miniatures of Bernard, which in fact are two of the three only representations of
Bernard that were painted before his canonization in 1174.41 One of these
miniatures portrays Bernard standing in heaven, next to Christ and Saint
Benedict. Benedict is busy writing his Rule, and Bernard is safeguarding it.
The image thus places Bernard on par with Benedict as a regulator of the
community of Anchin. He is depicted as an important saint, and scribe
Sigerus prays to him on two occasions: “Ora pro misero pater O Bernarde
Sigero,” “[…] tuque pater miseri Bernarde memento Sigeri: ut donetur ei lux
38. Lobbes (1049–ca. 1158/1160) CCB IV 102: …Bernardi abbatis Clarevallensis
excerpta et tractatus super evangelium “Missus est Gabriel”; …liber Bernardi abbatis Clarevallensis
de praecepto et dispensatione; St.-Laurent (first half of the thirteenth century) CCB II 53:
Bernardus super cantica canticorum, Liber de filio regis in quadriga sedenti, Sermones Bernardi
abbatis Clarevallis, Item sermones magistri Guerici; Marchiennes (12th or 13th century)
Dehaisnes, Catalogue general, 766–767: Vita Malachiae, Sermones sancti Bernardi, Cantica
sancti Bernardi. After this catalogue was completed, Marchiennes acquired more works from
Bernard, which led Martène and Durand to remark “Nous y trouvâmes un assez bon nombre
de très-beaux manuscrits; car, sans parler des ouvrages des Pères de l’Église et particulièrement de saint Augustin, […], de saint Bernard, parmi lesquels se trouve la belle lettre aux
Chartreux du Mont-Dieu sous le nom de ce saint.” Ibid. St.-Amand (12th century) Léopold
Délisle, “Bibliothèque de l’abbaye de Saint-Amand—XIIe siècle,” in Le cabinet des manuscrits
de la Bibliothèque Nationale 2, ed. Léopold Délisle (Paris, 1874), 448–458: Bernardi liber de
libero arbitrio, Bernardus tractatus de diligendo Deo, Bernardi liber apologeticus, Sermones venerabilis abbatis Barnardi super Cantica Canticorum.
39. Anchin (shortly after 1130, lists only works that were to be read aloud to the
monastic congregation). Dehaisnes, Catalogue general, 765–66.
40. Bredero, Bernard of Clairvaux, 42. Watkin Williams, “The Anchin Manuscript
(Douai 372),” Speculum 2 (1933), 244–47.
41. France, “The Heritage,” 308–12.
42. Douai BM 372 vol. I f. 2r and vol. II, f. 4r. Also see Williams, “The Anchin Manuscript,” 247; Bredero, Bernard of Clairvaux, 48-49.

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perpetuę requietis [?].”42 When Sigerus completed his work around 1165, he
had created three large codices that have been called the most beautiful of
the genre, and were more comprehensive than even Migne’s 1879 edition
of Bernard’s works.43 Anchin was, without a doubt, a heart of Bernardine
veneration in the Southern Low Countries.
In contrast, the monks of Cluny, the most obvious target of Bernard’s
Apology, were less eager to embrace his works. Some five to ten years after
Bernard’s death, Cluny’s booklist contained some of his letters, in a “Volumen in quo continentur epistole Bernardi, abbatis Clarevallensis.” This probably referred to his correspondence with Peter the Venerable, the Abbot of
Cluny. The Cluny monks also list a “Petrus de Provencia liber epistolarum
domni Bernardi.”44 Was this another volume with Bernard’s letters? If so,
the monks tried their best to emphasize Peter of Provence’s importance over
that of Bernard. The booklist contains no other works by Bernard, even his
famous sermons on the Song of Songs. This indicates that the Cluny monks
either were uninterested in his works or refused to acknowledge that they
possessed his works in their most important booklist.
The situation in the South of Germany is more difficult to determine.
There are hardly any preserved booklists that date to the second half of the
twelfth century so that an analysis of Bernardine manuscripts in booklists
has to be based on thirteenth and sometimes even fourteenth-century
sources. The best they can do is provide us with the terminus ante quem for
when a book entered a monastery. This is potentially useful in the case of
negative evidence: if a thirteenth- or fourteenth-century booklist does not
contain any Bernardine entries, it can be assumed that the monastery did
not possess many Bernardine works a century earlier.
From the available booklists, it appears that the Southern German
Cistercians wholeheartedly embraced Bernard in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In their booklists, Bernardine writings were invariably
important. Aldersbach added three Bernardine volumes to their library
between 1295 and 1308, with sermons, letters, and his Life of Malachy.45
Wettingen possessed nine volumes with Bernardine texts and accorded
him the supreme honor of combining his comments on the Song of Songs
43. For Bernard’s miracle, see the Vita prima, lib. 5, cap. 2 (Goez, “‘...Erit communis et
nobis,’” 198n141 with further references).
44. Cluny (ca. 1158–1161): Délisle, Le cabinet des manuscrits 2, 458–85.
45. Aldersbach (1250–1300 and 1295-1308). Christine E. Ineichen-Eder, Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands und der Schweiz, IV:1. Bistümer Passau und Regensburg
(Munich, 1977).

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THE BLACK CISTERCIANS

with Scripture, binding them together as one volume. They also possessed
Bernard’s Life, a missal for his feast, his letters, his Apology, as well as various sermons and excerpts (flores).46 Heilsbronn possessed a remarkably
similar collection—they listed a four-volume Bible that also included
Bernard’s Life of Malachy.47 This was a strange combination indeed. In the
Wettingen Bible, Bernard’s writings could at least serve as a commentary
to the Song of Songs, but the Life of the twelfth-century saint was wholly
out of place in the context of a Bible. Perhaps Heilsbronn’s Bible was
meant to show Wettingen that they too put Bernard on the highest possible pedestal and were willing to combine one of his works with Scripture.
In contrast, the Black Monks in this region were not particularly interested in Bernard. Only three out of the thirty-two preserved booklists mention Bernardine texts. The extensive Prüfening booklists include six Bernardine items—his sermons on the Song of Songs, six volumes with treatises,
and his Life of Malachy.48 Wessobrunn only possessed his sermons on the
Song of Song, and a volume with the general title “Bernardus Clarevallensis,”
Weingarten also possessed his sermons on the Song of Songs, two more volumes of sermons and the treatise De diligendo Deo. As a whole, these German
monks were rather less eager to collect Bernardine texts than their Cistercian
neighbors and the Black Monks of The Southern Low Countries.49
The situation in England was similar. Among the Cistercians of
Rievaulx, Bernard was very popular—they possessed a sound holding of his
works that represented the theologian as well as the preacher and the man,
although they were not particularly interested in Bernard as a saint. From
the twenty monasteries of Black Monks that left us library catalogs, eight
46. Wettingen (1232–73): [totam bibliam] insuper Bernardum super cantica. Paul Lehmann, Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands und der Schweiz, II. Bistum Mainz:
Erfurt (Munich, 1918), 414.
47. Heilsbronn (13th or 14th century): Paul Ruf, Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge
Deutschlands und der Schweiz, III. Bistum Augsburg, Eichstätt, Bamberg (Munich, 1932–39).
48. Prüfening (1165): Christine E. Ineichen-Eder, Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge
Deutschlands und der Schweiz, IV:1. Bistümer Passau und Regensburg (München, 1977): De precepto et dispensatione with a few shorter treatises and three letters, De XIIcim gradibus humilitatis, De sacramentis, Super Cantica Canticorum, De consideratione, Vita Malacie ep. Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge deutschlands und der Schweiz, Bd. 4, 1: Bistümer Passau und Regensburg,
ed. Bernhard Bischoff (Munich, 1977), 420, 427.
49. As not all monasteries left booklists, there are more institutions that we know
copied Bernardine works than are listed here. Other Benedictine monasteries that possessed
at least one Bernardine text, were Engelberg, Füssen, Kremsmünster, Lippoldsberg, Naumburg, Oberaltaich, Ottobeuren, Saint-Blaise, Saint-Pierre de Salzbourg, Tegernsee, and Weihenstephan. See Jean Leclercq, “Manuscrits cisterciens dans des bibliothèques d’Italie,”
Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis 10 (1954), 302–07.

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possessed at least one Bernardine volume.50 Two of these deserve to be
named. The abbey of Glastonbury had a complicated relationship with
Bernard. Their abbot Henry of Blois (1126–1172) was the younger brother
of King Stephen, a close friend of Peter the Venerable and no friend to
Bernard. In 1136, Bernard had famously prevented Henry from becoming
Archbishop of Canterbury. In Glastonbury’s 1247 booklist, the monks nevertheless list a well-rounded collection of Bernardine texts, including his
Life, epistles, sermons on the Song of Songs, the Apology, and various treatises.51 Even more tellingly, they honor Bernard with a position right after
Gregory the Great. Apparently, their past contacts with Bernard, though
unfriendly, engendered a greater interest in the man. The second center
with a significant collection of Bernardine works was Christ Church Cathedral Priory in Canterbury. They only started to collect Bernard’s writings
after his death and did so with the sole intention of studying his theological
ideas.52 To that end, they possessed four copies of “De XII gradis humilitatis,” four copies of “De consideratione,” two copies of “De diligendo deo,”
and two copies of “De praecepto et dispensatione,” next to a scattering of sermons and letters.53 They were uninterested in Bernard as a man or a saint.
This short overview indicates that the Black Monks in the Southern
Low Countries were remarkably enamored of Bernard—in absolute numbers, we possess more manuscripts with Bernardine writings from monasteries of Black Monks in the Southern Low Countries than from the Cistercian institutions in that region, and the quality of these manuscripts is
generally outstanding. Quite a few of these manuscripts were created
before the true start of Bernard’s cult in the 1170s: Lobbes’ manuscripts
50. Twenty institutions left fifty-two booklists. Eight institutions (ten booklists) contain
at least one Bernardine work: Burton-on-Trent: Bernardus super Missus est; Gloucester: Meditaciones sancti Bernardi; Reading: Bernardus super Cantica Canticorum, Tractatus Bernardi abbatis de
Deo et Apologeticum eisudem ad Willelmum abbatem; Rochester: Vita sancti Bernardi cum aliis, De
nouitiis et liber Bernardi de Diligendo; Whitby: Liber de sermonibus et Sentencie abbatis Clareuallensis
in uno uolumine; Peterborough: Sermons Bernardi \abbatis/ clareuallensis, Liber Bernardi Abbatis ad
Eugenium papam, and in a later booklist: Raimundus abbreviatus cum meditationibus Bernardi.
51. English Benedictine Libraries: The Shorter Catalogues, ed. Richard Sharpe (London,
1996), 60–215.
52. cf. infra.
53. Christ Church possessed eleven manuscripts with eleven Bernardine works: De
laude novae militiae (line 7 in the catalogue), De XII gradibus humilitatis (four copies, line 83,
161, 171, 222), Sermo de XII portis Ierusalem (line 83), De consideratione (four copies, line 110,
176, 215, 235), De diligendo Deo (two copies, line 161, 222), Homiliae quattuor super Missus
est (line 161), De praecepto et dispensatione (two copies, line 171, 222), Vita S Malachiae (line
215), Epistolae (line 222), Sermones (line 223), Dulcis Iesu memoria (line 271). The catalogue
has not been printed yet.

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THE BLACK CISTERCIANS

were created before 1160 and Anchin’s before 1174. Elsewhere, centers
such as Prüfening, Christ Church, and Glastonbury also had respectable
Bernardine collections, but as many of the German and English booklists
date to the late thirteenth or even early fourteenth century, it is more difficult to determine whether their interest in Bernard predated or postdated
the more general upswing of his cult in the 1170s.
Secondly, it is obvious that there was not one “Benedictine” response to
Bernard. The attention he received varied from region to region, and also
from monastery to monastery. This seriously undermines Jean Leclercq’s
conclusion that Black Monks felt a spiritual closeness to Bernard that made
them eager to possess his writings. The situation was much more complicated than that.
Thirdly, and adding to the complexity, not every institution focalized
the same Bernard.54 Although booklists are no ideal sources to investigate
this issue, it appears that some institutions were interested in Bernard the
theologian; while others just liked his sermons, were fascinated by the man,
or venerted the saint. The latter category is interesting, because a focus on
Bernard the man or the saint is likely to have been most affected by memories of the living Bernard, and colored by the fear of making him seem too
attractive. Why, and to what extent, did communities of Black Monks venerate Bernard?
The Memory of Charisma?
One may assume that communities that had personally interacted with
Bernard remembered him more powerfully, and perhaps differently, than
others. The living Bernard possessed intense charisma. When he was a
young man “mothers hid their sons, wives their husbands, and friends their
friends, lest they lose them to his persuasive charm,” and women are
described as eager to jump into his bed.55 He has been called “the unchal54. For the idea of various saint Bernards, see Jean Leclercq, “Toward a Sociological
Interpretation of the Various Saint Bernards,” in Bernardus Magister: Papers Presented at the
Nonacentenary Celebration of the Birth of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Kalamazoo, Michigan;
Sponsored by the Institute of Cistercian Studies, Western Michigan University, 10–13 May 1990,
ed. John R. Sommerfeldt (Spencer, MA, and Cîteaux, 1992), 19–33.
55. Michael Casey, “Reading Saint Bernard: The Man, the Medium, the Message,” in
A Companion to Bernard of Clairvaux, ed. Brian Patrick McGuire (Leiden and Boston, 2011),
81 summarizing the Vita Prima 1.14. See also Idem, “Towards a Methodology for the Vita
Prima: Translating the First Life into Biography,” in Bernardus Magister. Papers Presented at
the Nonacentenary Celebration of the Birth of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Kalamazoo, Michigan
(Cîteaux, 1992), 55–70.

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lenged spiritual superstar of his era,” and the biggest celebrity of the twelfth
century.56 Monks who had been in the presence of this remarkable man
would probably remember him vividly and possibly pass their memory on
to subsequent generations. Did communities where Bernard had visited
acquire more of his writings, and focus on his Life and letters—texts that
showcased the flesh-and-blood man and supported their memory of him?
The answer to this question is two-sided. On the one hand, there is not
enough data to study meaningfully the manuscripts in places where Bernard
once visited. First, because we only have vague notions of Bernard’s itineraries, and second, because many places where we know he stayed did not
leave a contemporary booklist. On the other hand, it is clear that booklists
from the Southern Low Countries, where Bernard spend a relatively large
amount of time, list significantly more books with Bernardine contents than
booklists from Germany and England, where Bernard was less active.
The Southern Low Countries had long had strong ties to the region of
Champagne, where Clairvaux was situated. Champagne, with its
renowned Fairs, enjoyed close economic relations to the bustling cities of
Flanders.57 To this commercial bond, Bernard now added a religious
dimension, because he regularly traveled to the north. In 1128, he was
“dragged” to a synod at Arras, and in 1131 he returned to the region in the
retinue of Innocent II. On that occasion, he may have stayed in Liège and
Cambrai, and certainly visited Lobbes.58 In October he was involved with
a number of abbots from the archiepiscopate of Reims who were organizing their first General Chapter, an annual meeting to discuss internal rules
and regulations in the mold of the Cistercians. Among those present were
the abbots of Anchin, St.-Amand, Lobbes, St.-Sépulcre in Cambrai, and
possibly Marchiennes, while St.-Martin would later join this reformist
group of abbots as well. Bernard wrote that although affairs elsewhere prevented him from attending physically, his heart tied him to their Chapter:
“there my devotion holds me, my love impels me; there do I cling with my
approbation and remain by sharing in your zeal.”59
56. Kleinberg, “Are Saints Celebrities?” 394.
57. Janet L’Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony: The Wolds System A.D. 1250-1350
(New York, 1989), 56–60.
58. E. Rozanne Elder, “Communities of Reform in the Province of Rheims: The Benedictine ‘Chapter General’ of 1131,” In The Making of Christian Communities in Late Antiquity
and the Middle Ages, ed. Mark F. Williams (London, 2005), 126–27.
59. Bredero, Bernard of Clairvaux, 128; for the 1131 chapter Steven Vanderputten, ‘The
First “General Chapter” of Benedictine Abbots (1131) Reconsidered,” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 66 (2015), 715–34.

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THE BLACK CISTERCIANS

There is no evidence that Bernard ever stayed in Anchin—the abbey
that played an important role in the conceptualization of the General Chapter and would later undertake the immense project of compiling Bernard’s
opera omnia. We know, however, that Bernard was in close correspondence
with Anchin’s abbot Alvisus. In one of his letters, he praises Alvisus for his
mercy towards a monk who had left Anchin to enter Clairvaux and seeks
his forgiveness for having received that monk.60 Alvisus may well have asked
for a favor in return, because shortly before February 1142, Bernard sent a
letter to the pope to plead Alvisus’ case in a conflict with the abbot of St.Vaast, even though Alvisus was clearly in the wrong.61
Some years later, in 1146, Bernard began to preach the Second Crusade in the Southern Low Countries. Over a three-month period he stayed
in St.-Bertin, Afflighem, and Gembloux; and visited Arras (where the
abbey of St.-Vaast was situated), Ghent (with the abbeys of St.-Peter and
St.-Bavo), Tournai (St.-Martin), Liège (St.-Laurent and St.-Jacques),
Valenciennes (St.-Amand), Cambrai (St.-Sépulcre), Ypres, Bruges,
Binche, Fontaine-l’Évêque, and Mons. He also visited the Cistercian
houses of Villers and Vaucelles and probably made a tour of the recent Cistercian foundations Clairmarais, Loos, Liessies, and Furnes.62
Bernard clearly inspired the men from the Southern Low Countries.
Jonathan Phillips has remarked that an unusually large number of Flemings heeded Bernard’s call for war, donned armor, and left for Jerusalem.63
Laurent Veyssière has added that those that could or would not depart on
crusade, yet liked Bernard’s message, not infrequently left for Clairvaux.64
Almost one-fourth of the Clairvaux monks whose backgrounds are known

60. Translated as letter 68–69 in Bruno Scott James, The Letters of St Bernard of Clairvaux (Kalamazoo, 1998), 92–95.
61. Steven Vanderputten, “A Time of Great Confusion: Second-Generation Cluniac
Reformers and Resistance to Monastic Centralization in the County of Flanders (C. 1125–
1145),” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 102, no. 1 (2007), 65; see also James, The Letters of St
Bernard, 355–56.
62. Jonathan Phillips, “Bernard of Clairvaux, the Low Countries and the Lisbon Letter
of the Second Crusade,” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 48, no. 3 (1997), 486. We know
for certain that he visited the cities of Arras, Tournai, Ghent, Liège and Cambrai, but do not
know whether he visited the Benedictine abbeys there. However, as he did need a bed once
in a while, it is likely that he stayed in at least some of these houses; and monks probably
heard him preach even if he did not visit their abbeys.
63. Phillips, “Bernard of Clairvaux,” 487.
64. For a prosopographical overview of the Clairvaux monks see Veyssière, “Le personnel,” 17–90.

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came from the Southern Low Countries.65 In turn, 24% of the Clairvaux
monks who were sent off on business (usually to found a daughter house)
were sent to the Southern Low Countries. This strong bond between
Clairvaux and the Southern Low Countries does much to explain the fascination for Bernard in the Benedictine abbeys there.
Bernard never set foot in England, though he sometimes interfered in
its politics.66 As we saw, he prevented Glastonbury’s bishop-abbot from
becoming Archbishop, which appears to have increased the Glastonbury
monks’ interest in him. Christ Church Priory in Canterbury, the other center
that possessed a good collection of Bernardine writings in the thirteenth century, had never been in direct contact with Bernard. It was, however, in very
frequent contact with the Flemish abbeys across the Channel.67 Perhaps the
Flemish interest in Bernard spilled over to Canterbury where they acquired
a taste for Bernard’s teachings, though not for the man himself. As we saw
earlier, they possessed enough works to enable a thorough study of Bernard’s
theology but did not systematically collect his letters or Lives.
In Southern Germany, finally, there is no meaningful correlation
whatsoever between Bernard’s travels and the manner in which he was
remembered. Bernard had a number of important contacts in Germany,
preached the Second Crusade for many months, and had extraordinary
success as a preacher.68 The German booklists from the places he visited—
most of which significantly postdate Bernard’s death—show that these
monasteries were not usually inspired to start collecting his works.
In sum, Bernard’s personal contacts with an institution, and the institutional memory of those contacts, do not fully explain why some Benedictine communities were so enamored of him, while others were not. While
strong contacts with Bernard appear to have increased the likelihood that
a community would acquire some Bernardine writings, there was no causal

65. 57% of these monks were French, 22% came from the Southern Low Countries,
and 16% from the present Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, or Swiss. Ibid.
66. Christopher John Holdsworth, “St Bernard and England,” Anglo-Norman Studies 8
(1986), 138–53.
67. See John O. Moon, “The European Connection: Aspects of Canterbury Cathedral
Priory’s Temporalities Overseas,” in Canterbury: A Medieval City, ed. Catherine RoyerHemet (Newcastle, 2010), 177–93; Eljas Oksanen, Flanders and the Anglo-Norman World,
1066–1216 (Cambridge, 2012), 208–09; as well as Steven Vanderputten, “Canterbury and
Flanders in the Late Tenth Century,” Anglo-Saxon England 35 (2006), 219–44.
68. Michel Parisse, “Les relations avec l’empire,” in Bernard de Clairvaux: Histoire,
mentalités, spiritualité (Paris, 2010), 401–27.

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THE BLACK CISTERCIANS

link between the two: the memory of his charisma did not automatically
lead to sustained intellectual and spiritual interest.
Regional Politics
So far, we have seen that Benedictine monasteries did not copy
Bernardine writings because they were unanimously convinced by
Bernard’s spirituality, or awed by his charisma. This last section will examine to what extent regional political strategies influenced the amount of
Bernardine writings in libraries of Black Monks.
For many Black Monks, the first half of the twelfth century felt like a
religious landslide, as the center of gravity was shifting from the Black to
the White monks. Monks were enticed to leave their monasteries in order
to become monks in Clairvaux, and young men were inspired to enter Cistercian houses instead of joining an established community of Black
Monks. The Black Monks were losing monks, status, and the donations
that came with that status. Bernard and his Cistercians thus posed a threat
to them and forced them to consider their reaction meticulously. In simplified terms, there were two possible responses. They could defend their
traditional “Cluniac” customs (which would presumably lead them to
ignore, or even attack, Bernard and his writings) or they could adapt their
customs to more closely resemble those of the Cistercians (and, presumably, embrace the Bernardine oeuvre).
Yet it must be emphasized that not all Black Monks were keenly aware
of Bernard’s existence. As Paschal Phillips has remarked, scholars who
study Bernard easily fall into the trap of exaggerating his importance. We
may call him “the biggest celebrity of the twelfth century,” but most
twelfth-century chroniclers—almost all of them monks themselves—did
not deem him so very important. He was only a peripheral character in
most of their writings, and several important chroniclers, including
William of Malmesbury, failed to mention him even once.69 In fact,
Phillips argues, the idea that Bernard dominated his age results from a distinctly Whiggish interpretation of history.70 The monastic communities of
Germany and Great Britain that did not possess any text of Bernard’s were
69. Paschal Phillips, “The Presence—and Absence—of Bernard of Clairvaux in the
Twelfth-Century Chronicles,” in Bernardus Magister: Papers Presented at the Nonacentenary
Celebration of the Birth of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Kalamazoo, Michigan; Sponsored by the
Institute of Cistercian Studies, Western Michigan University, 10–13 May 1990, ed. John R. Sommerfeldt (Spencer, MA and Cîteaux, 1992), 36–38.
70. Phillips, “The Presence—and Absence—of Bernard of Clairvaux,” 44.

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thus not creating a damnatio memoriae around him, or making some kind
of strategic statement by refusing to copy his works: it is far more likely
that Bernard had simply failed to make an impression on them.
In the Southern Low Countries, Bernard had certainly made an
impression, though it is hard to determine whether admiration or concern
predominated. The monks from the Southern Low Countries had very
good reason to fear Bernard’s influence, for the twenty-two percent of the
monks in Clairvaux that came from the Southern Low Countries did not
wholly consist of farmers and poor clerics who were hardly missed. On the
contrary, many of Clairvaux’ new recruits came from Benedictine communities. We know several of these defectors by name. Godwin, a monk from
the abbey of Anchin, left his community of Black Monks to enter Clairvaux between 1127 and 1131.71 His old Abbot, Alvisus, was furious about
his defection and let Godwin know in no uncertain terms.72 Bernard subsequently sought to placate Alvisus by means of a letter. He emphasized
that he had not solicited Godwin’s defection.
I did not try to anticipate his wishes by inviting him to come, I did not
attempt to lure him away from you. God knows that, on the contrary,
when he was imploring me to take him in I would not do so before I had
first tried to persuade him to return to you. Only when he refused to
return, and then only grudgingly, did I give way to his importunity.73

Bernard did not think he was at fault there. Nevertheless, he wished Alvisus to know “that I do not treat this matter lightly or negligently” and—
switching to mild irony—asked him for forgiveness “with bare shoulders,
and bearing the rods in my hands, prepared, as it were, to strike at your
bidding; I seek your pardon, and trembling wait for your forgiveness!” That
Bernard was not wholly serious becomes more obvious with each new
defector who was graciously received in Clairvaux. Renaus, who had been
with the Black Monks of St.-Amand for more than 20 years, left his community for Clairvaux.74 In 1138, Bernard emphatically urged Thomas of
Saint-Omer, who was an oblate in St.-Bertin, to leave his community as
soon as possible and become a monk of Clairvaux. Thomas’ abbot and
Alvisus (who had by then become the Bishop of Arras) both protested that
71. Veyssière, “Le personnel,” no. 193.
72. After Godwin died, Bernard wrote Alvisus and reminded him of “all the sternness
and severity which you formerly showed him, all the anger which was evident in your words
and looks.” James, The Letters of St Bernard of Clairvaux, 92.
73. Ibid., 93. See also the Rule of Benedict, ch. 61.
74. Veyssière, “Le personnel,” no. 305.

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Thomas should not be received in Clairvaux, and again Bernard sought to
placate them with letters.75 However, he had already become far less apologetic. To Alvisus he wrote:
God is calling Thomas; he is calling him “to leave his country behind
him, his kinfolk, his father’s house, and to come away into a strange land
which he will show him.” Who am I to set myself up against the Spirit
of God, and hinder Him when He calls His own sheep by name and goes
ahead of them Himself so that they shall follow no other but Himself?
Thomas has chosen to be poor, and are you asking me to send him back
to live at his ease in riches?76

Many others followed in the footsteps of Godwin, Renaus, and Thomas.
Robert, a Premonstratensian from Bonne-Espérance, left his monastery
for Clairvaux in 1150, and an impressive number of canons did the same.77
Irritating though it must have been for Alvisus and his colleagues to
lose valued monks to Clairvaux, it was nothing compared to the loss of
wealthy noblemen, abbots, and entire monasteries. One of the noblemen
who joined Clairvaux was Albéron, nephew to Thierry of Alsace, the Count
of Flanders (1128–1168).78 Arnold “de Maiorca,” a scion of a rich WesternFlemish family, also entered Clairvaux, just as the Flemish noblemen Geoffrey of Clairmarais and William of Bailleul.79 Robert of Bruges, who is
commonly identified as a member of the influential Gruuthuse-family, also
joined Clairvaux as a monk. He made such an impression there that
Bernard hand-picked him as Clairvaux’ next abbot.80 These were all men of
high birth, influence, and wealth, and several of them were obvious abbot
material. They could have played important roles in the Benedictine abbeys
of the Southern Low Countries if they had not been lured to Clairvaux.
Quite apart from losing these promising men to Clairvaux, the Black
Monks in the Southern Low Countries witnessed the defection of reigning
abbots. The monastery of St.-Amand lost its abbot in 1150. The monks
described their loss briefly in their Breve Chronicon Elnonense, a short annal
that lists only the year’s most important occurrences—it is mostly confined
75. Veyssière, “Le personnel,” no. 337; James, The Letters of St Bernard, 487–88.
76. James, The Letters of St. Bernard, 488–89.
77. Veyssière, “Le personnel,” no. 311.
78. Ibid., no. 14.
79. Ibid., nos. 88, 168, 207. For the De Maiorca’s, see Alain Derville, Saint-Omer: Des
origines au début du XIV e siècle ([Villeneuve-dÁscq], 1995), 114; for the Bailleuls, see Francis
Bayley, The Bailleuls of Flanders, and the Bayleys of Willow Hall (London, 1881).
80. Veyssière, “Le personnel,” 315.

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451

to the election and death of kings, bishops, and abbots, acts of war, natural
disasters, and miracles.81 Whether the foundation of the Cistercian Order
in 1098 was a disaster or a miracle was perhaps not immediately clear, but
it was important enough to be noted down: “MXCVIII. Ordo Cisterciensis
coepit institui.” For 1147, they noted that a monk from Clairvaux had
become their new bishop.82 For 1150, they just noted that “Abbot Walter
II relinquished his abbacy, and went over to Clairvaux; Hugh of
Homblières succeeded him.”83 The resignation of Abbot Walter (1146–
1150) must have shaken the monastery to its core. Its only consolation was
that he had not, like Abbot Fulco of Les Dunes in Western Flanders,
transformed his black-robed flock into a Cistercian community before running off to Clairvaux, leaving it to Bernard to send a white-robed replacement to the leaderless monks.84
By 1150 the abbots of the Black Monks in the Southern Low Countries had thus suffered a number of disturbing losses to Clairvaux. They had
seen many monks and canons knock on Clairvaux’ doors and be welcomed
by Bernard; they had seen wealthy and influential men join Clairvaux
instead of local monasteries; they had seen how respected men would
rather be a monk in Clairvaux than an abbot among Black Monks, and
they had seen their neighboring abbeys become Cistercian.
Bernard was personally responsible for many of these losses: almost
half of the Clairvaux monks who originated in the Southern Low Countries were said to have been converted personally by Bernard.85 He converted many while he was physically present in 1131 (Alain d’Auxerre,
Geoffrey of Clairmarais, William of Bailleul, Robert of Bruges) and 1146
(Arnold of Maiorca, Philip of l’Aumône, canons Walter and Werric), and
others flocked to him when he was miles away, such as Thomas of Saint81. Breve chronicon Elnonense S. Amandi, ex Ms. Elnonensi, ed. Edmond Martene and
Ursin Durand, Thesaurus novus anecdotorum, tomus tertius (Paris, 1717), 1397–98. The Breve
chronicon was edited shortly after 1169 by an unknown scribe from St.-Amand: Henri Platelle,
“Une chronique inconnue de l’abbaye de Saint-Amand,” Revue du Nord 37, no. 2 (1955), 219.
82. “MCXLVII. Obiit Anselmus episcopus Tornacensis, successit Geraldus monachus Claraevallis.” Breve Chronicon Elnonense, 1398.
83. “Abbas Galterus dimisit abbatiam, & transiit Clarae-valli. Successit Hugo abbas Humolariensis.” Ibid., 1398.
84. M. Dubuisson, J.-B. Lefèvre, and J.-Fr. Nieus, “Une lecture nouvelle des sources
relatives aux origines pré-Cisterciennes et Cisterciennes de l’abbaye des Dunes (1107–1138),”
Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique 97, no. 1–2 (2002), 481–485; Veyssière, “Le personnel,” 143.
85. Veyssière, “Le personnel,” 17–90 (13 out of the 29 monks name Bernard as their
reason to enter Clairvaux).

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THE BLACK CISTERCIANS

Omer in 1138, and Walter II of St.-Amand in 1150. While the Cistercian
lifestyle was attractive in and of itself, it was Bernard who had enticed these
men to leave for Clairvaux.
The Black Monks of the Southern Low Countries tried to counteract
the pull of Clairvaux (as well as the pull of Cluny and the Premonstratensians) by becoming more like the Cistercians themselves.86 Securely
wrapped in their black habits, they aspired to imitate the Cistercian
lifestyle. As contemporaries generally perceived the Cistercians’ greater
strictness as the element in which they differed most from the Black
Monks, it appeared that a new reform was due, on a scale that surpassed
that of individual communities.87 This was a difficult requirement, because
the monasteries of the Black Monks were very proud of their right to selfdetermination, and had fought tooth and nail to preserve it.88 Yet if each
monastery would institute its own idiosyncratic measures of reform,
inevitably some would not achieve the desired strictness; and the Black
Monks would never be able to convince anyone that they, as an “order,”
were a worthy alternative to the Cistercians. Also, increased cooperation
between the houses might attract individuals who wanted to be part of a
universal congregation with wider influence.
To stand a chance of succeeding, the abbots from the Southern Low
Countries needed to strike a balance between their old privileges and the
new requirement to start thinking as an Order. Around 1131, when
Bernard was touring this region and an alarming number of men were
flocking to his call, Alvisus was working tirelessly to create a network of
Black Monks that permitted the abbots to maintain their independence;
while at the same time counterbalancing Bernard’s influence and achieving
a variety of similar political and spiritual goals.89
Paradoxically, Bernard was a great proponent of this plan—primarily
because he was generally interested in promoting renewal in a traditional
monastic context, but perhaps also because he foresaw that this Benedictine attempt to imitate the Cistercians was likely to strengthen the Cister-

86. For the role of Cluny and the Premonstratensians, see Vanderputten, “The First
‘General Chapter,’” 726.
87. See Steven Vanderputten, “A Time of Great Confusion: Second-Generation Cluniac Reformers and Resistance to Monastic Centralization in the County of Flanders (C.
1125–1145),” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 102, no. 1 (2007), 47–75.
88. For example, Vanderputten, “A Time of Great Confusion,” 53–75.
89. Vanderputten, “The First ‘General Chapter,’” 715–34.

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453

cian’s reputation more than that of its imitators.90 He was very sympathetic
towards those who were organizing a first General Chapter in October of
1131.91 In this semi-official meeting, the abbots that were present agreed
to, for example, shorten the time spent on psalms and readings during the
liturgy, maintain silence as much as possible, cut back on the number of
occasions that required festive liturgical vestments, and make their processions more sober affairs.92 These were decisions that were calculated to be
clearly perceivable as a very deliberate step away from their old customs and
towards the Cistercian way of life.
In essence, the Black Monks from the Southern Low Countries were
attempting to present as Black Cistercians: monks who were adhering to
new customs in an old habit. This was relatively easy to do for the monks
of Anchin and St.-Martin, which were young monasteries that had only
been in existence for a few decades and were not much bound by tradition.93 Older institutions such as St.-Amand were perhaps less eager to
embrace Bernard. Their lack of enthusiasm may have contributed to the
failure to convene regularly a General Chapter, and to impose stringent
reforms on the Benedictine abbeys in this region. The attempt to become
Black Cistercians quickly bled to death.94 When Bernard made another
appearance in 1147 to preach the Second Crusade, large numbers of men
again left for Clairvaux, soon to be followed by St.-Amand’s own abbot.
While the Southern Low Country’s attitude towards Bernard was thus
likely to have been shaped by the complex mixture of promise and threat
that he posed to the Black Monks, the situation in other parts of Europe
was less urgent.
In the Empire, Bernard was, of course, very well known. Although he
never intervened much in Imperial policy, he was revered by the crusader
90. Vanderputten, “The First ‘General Chapter,’” 718–19; Steven Vanderputten and
Johan Belaen, “An Attempted Reform of the General Chapter of Benedictine Abbots of
Reims in the Late 1160s,” Revue Mabillon n.s. 27 (= t. 88) (2016), 23–47.
91. See Vanderputten, “The First Benedictine ‘General Chapter,’” passim; Elder,
“Communities of Reform,” 118–19, 129; Bredero, Bernard of Clairvaux, 128–29.
92. Ceglar, “Guillaume de Saint-Thierry,” 312–19. Also see Steven Vanderputten.
“Fulcard’s Pigsty: Cluniac Reformers, Dispute Settlement, and the Lower Aristocracy in
Early Twelfth-Century Flanders,” Viator 38, no. 1 (2007), 57–59.
93. See Jean-Pierre Gerzaguet, L’abbaye d’Anchin de sa fondation (1079) au XIV e siècle:
Essor, vie et rayonnement d’une grande communauté bénédictine (Paris, 1997), 80; and Ursmer
Berlière, “Abbaye de Saint-Martin de Tournai,” in Monasticon Belge, ed. Ursmer Berlière
(Maredsous, 1890–1897), 271–93.
94. Vanderputten and Belaen, “An Attempted Reform.”

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THE BLACK CISTERCIANS

crowds and had influence over Conrad III and other important men.95
However, the Cistercian houses in the Empire were not founded by Clairvaux, but by Morimond.96 Morimond and Clairvaux had been rivals from
the day they were founded, and the Morimond monks were not particularly keen to encourage Bernard’s influence among their daughter houses.
This was one reason imperial men who longed for a white habit would not
pound on Clairvaux’ doors, but beg to be admitted in Morimond.97 Only
7% of Clairvaux’ monks originated in the vast German territories, which
means that most people there would not actually have known somebody
who had left for Clairvaux.
In the Empire, the Black Monks’ losses to Cistercian monasteries
were thus not perceived as having been caused by Bernard himself. Though
Bernard had enchanted the masses with his charisma, he had not inspired
many monks or important laymen to leave for Clairvaux.98 As a result,
these communities were not forced to study the figure of Bernard as the
charismatic center of a very acute problem. The absence of fear dulled
Bernard’s impact on the Black Monks, and this was true even of those
monks who had heard him preach in person.99 As we have seen, communities that saw Bernard preach did not necessarily start to collect his works;
and communities that did collect his works had not necessarily seen
Bernard perform. In a way, therefore, Jean Leclercq was right in stating
that the Black Monks from the Empire collected his works because these
treatises and sermons held spiritual meaning for them, and inspired them
on a religious level. Their motivations were certainly not as calculated as
those of their colleagues in the Southern Low Countries.
The situation in Great Britain was rather similar. Bernard supported
the Cistercian abbeys of Rievaulx and Fountains, but did not directly
involve himself in the civil war between King Stephen and Empress
Matilda, and never set foot in the country.100 He did write, of course.
95. Klaus Wollenberg, “Die deutschen Zisterzienserklöster zwischen Rhein und
Elbe,” in Unanimité et diversité Cisterciennes: Filiations, réseaux, relectures du XII e au XVII e
siècle, ed. Nicole Bouter (Saint-Étienne, 2000), 339–40; for the influence of Morimond on the
Empire see Michel Parisse, “Les relations avec l’empire,” 423.
96. For Morimond’s influence on the Bernardine texts in the Empire, see Leclercq,
“Die Verbreitung,” 186 with further references.
97. Parisse, “Les relations avec l’empire,” 416.
98. Some canons of the order of Arrousaise at the border of Champagne did become
Cistercian under the influence of Clairvaux, see Ibid., 405.
99. Ibid., 423.
100. Holdsworth, “St Bernard and England,” 151–52. Bernard did, of course, contribute to
the removal of King Stephen’s nephew William Fitzherbert from his see as Archbishop of York.

TJAMKE SNIJDERS

455

Forty-seven of his letters—almost one-twelfth of his total production—
were devoted to English matters, though contemporaries did not regard
these very highly.101 Few Englishmen left for Clairvaux: only about 4% of
the Clairvaux monks had an English background.102 Just as in the German
territories, he never became much of a threat to the local Black Monks,
who were able to ignore his existence if they wanted. And ignore him they
did. John of Salisbury, who worked in the chancery office of Canterbury’s
Archbishop and was presumably well informed about the contents of the
monastic libraries in the area, was forced to admit that he did not know of
any local copy of Bernard’s works in 1157, a full three years after his death.
He had to write to France to request an anthology.103
Conclusion
Booklists can serve as some indication of Benedictine interest in
Bernard of Clairvaux, which in turn sheds lights upon Benedictine relations
with the Cistercian order, and even more generally, upon their general
strategies of dealing with the rapidly developing religious landscape of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Back in 1954, Jean Leclercq noted that
Bernard was more popular among Black Monks than among Cistercians,
and argued that the Black Monks had been very quick to recognize “the
greatness of Bernard’s message,” which was “not Cistercian, but of the
Church.”104 In contrast, this article has argued that feelings of spiritual closeness were much less important in shaping the Black Monks’ responses than
pragmatic considerations, which varied considerably from region to region.
The most important factors that determined the number and nature of
Bernardine works in the libraries of Cistercians and Black Monks were,
first of all, the initial reluctance among the Cistercians to allow the veneration of Saint Bernard. This placed Bernard in a temporary limbo, which
appears to have dampened the enthusiasm for his writings in Cistercian
communities.
Second, it is almost impossible to determine to what extent the
memory that each community had of the living Bernard influenced the
kind of works they collected. Monks who had known Bernard may have
101. Only 19 of the 47 letters were included in the anthologies of his work that were
made at the end of Bernard’s life. Ibid., 141.
102. Veyssière, “Le personnel,” 17–90.
103. Phillips, “Bernard of Clairvaux,” 48.
104. Leclercq, “Die Verbreitung,” 185.

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THE BLACK CISTERCIANS

been slightly more likely to possess his letters, which portrayed Bernard as
a flesh-and-blood man, or even his Life; whereas Black Monks who had
never come into close contact with him were more likely to stick to his
treatises and sermons.
Third, the Black Monks’ responses were to a large extent determined
by the dynamics of regional networks. In the Southern Low Countries,
close relations with Bernard caused a relatively large number of Black
Monks to abandon their houses and enter Clairvaux so that Bernard came
to personify the threat and opportunities that the Cistercians posed to
them. As a result, Bernard was studied here with scorching intensity, and
for a while, the monks from this region tried to become as close to the Cistercians as they could without relinquishing their identity as Black Monks.
In other regions, where Bernard lured fewer men away to Clairvaux, there
was less reason to be fascinated by him, so that the booklists from these
regions list only a handful of his most important works, and their great
chroniclers only mention him in passing.
The question of how Black Monks reacted to Bernard is part of the
much larger problem of how they responded to the religious landslide that
characterized the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This highly relevant
question is buried under mountains of research into the rise of the Cistercians, mendicant orders, cities, and universities, and this article only illuminates a small part of the Black Monks’ strategies.105 It is clear that the
Black Monks’ reactions to Bernard were not at all homogeneous. It
remains to be seen how they adapted their strategies to face the challenges
there were yet to come.

105. Some recent studies that do delve into this issue are Gert Melville, “Knowledge of
the Origins: Constructing Identity and Ordering Monastic Life in the Middle Ages,” in
Knowledge, Discipline and Power in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of David Luscombe, ed.
Joseph Canning, Edmund King and Martial Staub (Leiden, 2011); Anne Müller, “Lokale
Grenzen universaler Expansion: Fallstudien zu Geltungskämpfen zwischen Franziskanern
und Benediktinern in der mittelalterlichen englischen Stadt,” in Bettelorden in Mitteleuropa:
Geschichte, Kunst, Spiritualität, ed. Heidemarie Specht and Ralph Andraschek-Holzer (St.
Pölten, 2008); Erin Jordan, “Shared Rule, Separate Practice? Assessing Benedictine Economic Activities in Flanders During the Thirteenth Century,” Revue Benedictine 115, no. 1
(2005), 187–204; and Paul Bretel, “Moines et religieux dans les contes de la vie des pères,” in
“De sens rassis”: Essays in Honor of Rupert T. Pickens, ed. Keith Busby, Bernard Guidot and
Logan E. Whalen (Amsterdam, 2005).

Franciscan Missionaries and Their Networks:
The Diffusion of Missionary Concepts
in Eighteenth-Century New Spain
JAY T. HARRISON*
Missionaries of the Franciscan apostolic colleges de Propaganda Fide in
Colonial New Spain (Mexico) operated within networks that connected
the colleges, their missions, and the capital of the colonial kingdom.
Friars traveling through these networks from college to college relayed
known methods and innovations to the friars’ collective understanding
of missiology. To that end, their movement and communications meant
that methods operative in the earliest of the frontier mission fields in
Texas often were used elsewhere, culminating in the application of the
“metodo de Tejas” in the last Spanish frontier in North America, Alta
(or Upper) California. In short, ideas and concepts circulated through
these Franciscan networks in the later colonial era.
Keywords: Franciscans, Propaganda Fide, New Spain, Missions,
Missiology

T

he emergence of late-colonial mission complexes in the northern
reaches of New Spain in the late seventeenth, eighteenth, and early
nineteenth centuries was largely the work of a new type of Franciscan friar,
the collegiate friars who were members of colegios apostólicos de Propaganda
Fide, apostolic college-seminaries chartered by Spanish churchmen under
the aegis of the Roman curia’s missionary commission. The colleges were
founded beginning in 1683 in New Spain and other parts of the Spanish
American colonial empire, and were based on similar institutions in the
*Jay T. Harrison is an associate professor and chair of the department of history at Hood
College in Maryland. The author thanks Ignacio Martínez, Susan M. Deeds, and the other
participants of the inaugural Southwest Seminar on Colonial Latin America held in October
2014 in Flagstaff, Arizona, for their constructive and insightful comments on an earlier version of this paper. His thanks also go to Robert Senkewicz for spurring investigations into the
so-called “Texas method” above and beyond his dissertation research, and to David Rex
Galindo for his generosity in sharing his images of the libros de decretos from the Colegio de
San Fernando de México. Research for this article was supported by the Academy of American Franciscan History, a travel grant from the Fort Lewis College Foundation, and faculty
development funding at Hood College.

457

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FRANCISCAN MISSIONARIES AND THEIR NETWORKS

Spanish kingdoms founded just before those in the Americas. From Texas
and Nuevo Santander in the northeast to Sonora and Alta California in the
northwest, the latter the last frontier mission territory entered by the Franciscans in North America, friars from the colleges worked across a range of
lands and locales, some of which had been the locations of missions
attempted by other missionary religious before them (such as in the Sierra
Gorda), and many which represented new thrusts of Spanish claims to
regions and the peoples therein. Between these territories and the vast distances between them and the missionary colleges that sent the friars to
each, collegiate Franciscans developed networks linking the colleges, their
missions, and the men and ideas of each institution as men passed to and
from all of these locations over the period from 1683 to the early nineteenth century with the realization of independence in Mexico (1821) and
the reduced nature of the missionaries’ labors in the decades that followed
under national governments. As an example of the sharing of ideas across
space and time in the Spanish imperial context, this essay explains such
movements in terms of networks, opportunity, and the expedient use of
available concepts to effect new missionary labors in established and newer
territories, respectively, over the period of the colleges’ evangelization
efforts in the later colonial era in New Spain.
Many of the regions where the collegiate Franciscans built and administered missions to frontier peoples, ministered to unconquered bands of
Natives, and performed missions to the faithful (explained below) have
received ample attention from scholars. The issue with the literature with
which this article engages is not the depth or quality of the scholarship, but
rather that it has, with few exceptions, focused on just one of the missionary regions or, if it sought more expansive historical sights, glossed over
much of what may be known of the missionaries’ interactions with each
other across time and space. Some of the better surveys of the northern sections of New Spain, such as those by David J. Weber and John L. Kessell,
devoted as much space to missions and presidios as they did to Native
interactions with Spaniards, and with the colonial apparatus that supported
frontier regions.1 Others, such as Maria F. Wade, have taken a sampling
1. David J. Weber, The Spanish Frontier in North America (New Haven, 1992) and Bárbaros: Spaniards and their Savages in the Age of Enlightenment (New Haven, 2005); John L.
Kessell, Spain in the Southwest: A Narrative History of Colonial New Mexico, Arizona, Texas,
and California (Norman, OK, 2002). Both Weber and Kessell produced focused studies of
specific regions as well, but these titles represent their attempt to move beyond the school of
Spanish borderlands studies begun by Herbert E. Bolton and his students, among which the
more prominent, John Francis Bannon, produced one of the masterpieces of syntheses of the
frontier regions, The Spanish Borderlands Frontier 1513–1821 (New York, 1970).

JAY T. HARRISON

459

of the missionary approaches across the northern regions, and made comparative notes of the similarities and differences in the missionary
approaches in each, an approach that moves the field closer to a comprehensive understanding of missionary labors and indigenous responses.2
And yet, for the more detailed analyses of one missionary region or
another, monographic studies and scholarly articles have tended, overall, to
focus entirely on one specific mission system, so that scholars of missions
in New Spain’s frontier regions know each other by their areas of study:
one covers Texas, or New Mexico, Alta or Baja California (or both),
Sonora and the Pimería, and so forth.
The missions and presidios built in coastal California from San Diego
to San Francisco Bay drew from the rich experience of missionary experimentation and numerous failures in prior mission fields of the Propaganda Fide colleges, of which the first and longest-surviving was in Texas
and Coahuila both north and south of the Rio Grande (known then as the
Rio Bravo).3 This experience lived on in the minds the collegiate friars, a
group of Franciscans that hewed still to the dominant Spanish Observant
model of Franciscan charisma but which distinguished itself from the
older Observant friaries, custodies, and provinces as being neither friaries
nor custodies of provinces. Collegiate Franciscans came from apostolic
colleges (or seminaries, in some commentaries) de Propaganda Fide that
first were introduced to the Americas with the founding of the Colegio
Apostólico de la Santíssima Cruz de Querétaro in 1683, which soon
launched additional colleges in Guatemala (1701), outside of Zacatecas in
the village of Guadalupe (1707), and just outside, again, the walls of
Mexico City at the hospice named for San Fernando (1733).4 It was by
the San Fernando friars, the Fernandinos, that the push to upper California was executed in 1769 in cooperation with the royal visitor, José de
Galvez. Much came before that movement; years of missionary efforts in
places far and near came to influence missions in Alta California between
1769 and the 1830s. The two colleges with the most influence on San Fernando’s founding were those at Querétaro, Santa Cruz, and Guadalupe de
Zacatecas, and over the years those two colleges sent men to work in

2. Maria F. Wade, Missions, Missionaries, and Native Americans: Long-Term Processes
and Daily Practices (Gainesville, 2008).
3. Though joined into one state under early national governments in Mexico after 1821,
the provinces of Texas and Coahuila were indeed separate provinces under colonial rule. See
Vito Alessio Robles, Coahuila y Texas en la época colonial (Mexico City, 1978).
4. Michael B. McCloskey, The Formative Years of the Missionary College of Santa Cruz de
Querétaro, 1683–1733 (Washington, DC, 1955), preface.

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FRANCISCAN MISSIONARIES AND THEIR NETWORKS

Poirson and Humboldt, Carte du Mexique et pays limitrophes situés au nord et à
l’est: dressée d’après la grande carte de la Nouvelle Espagne de Mr. A. de Humboldt et d’autres matériaux, Courtesy, Special Collections, The University of Texas
at Arlington Libraries, Arlington, Texas.

Mexico City and to interact with the friars in the college that grew from
the former hospice it occupied.
The earliest missions of the collegiate friars attempted to revive the
fervor, as those late seventeenth-century friars saw it, of the eremitic friars
of the sixteenth century who began the earliest mission to central Mexico.
The adherents of fray Juan de Guadalupe, the controversial peninsular
Spanish Franciscan mystic, indeed were among those early missionaries to
the North American mainland, but they were overshadowed in the decades
that followed by many less rigorous Observants from Spain.5 The institutional memory that valued the writings of Motolinía (fray Toribio de
5. Steven E. Turley, Franciscan Spirituality and Mission in New Spain, 1524–1599: Conflict Beneath the Sycamore Tree (Luke 19:1–10) (Surrey and Burlington, VT, 2014), 11–27.
Turley’s assessment of the forced adherence to Observant ways during the reform period of
the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries dispels any myths still circulating that Franciscans were uniform in their attempts to follow the Franciscan rule at the time. See also Delno
C. West, “Medieval Ideas of Apocalyptic Mission and the Early Franciscans in Mexico,” The
Americas 45, no. 3 (1989), 293–313, especially 306–13. Turley and West both write with an
older synthesis in mind, that of John Leddy Phelan, The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans
in the New World, 2nd rev. ed. (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1970).

JAY T. HARRISON

461

Benavente) and fray Juan de Torquemada’s Monarquia Indiana (1615)
inspired the reformers of the late seventeenth century when devising their
missionary actions. Their missiology also sought after the specter of the
ideal missionary of the old world in Spain, and it was in fact the missionary
colleges in Spain that spurred the later colonial movement of apostolic colleges. As New Spain’s Franciscan provinces relented in their fight to hold
doctrinas de indias, the pastoral missionary assignments long attended by
their friars, the New World kingdom’s Franciscan missionary presence
reverted mainly, but not entirely, to these new specialized friars from the
apostolic colleges whose missions on the frontier and among the faithful
became marked by traits that they thought set them apart from the typical
Franciscans then toiling in New Spain.6
The missionary colleges de Propaganda fide were, in their defining
statutes, ordered to pursue a two-pronged ministry. First, they were to take
revivalist missions to already-baptized peoples in the populated, governed
areas of New Spain. The assumption of the authorities directing this missionary activity was that those nominally Christian populations in the hinterlands of New Spain were in need of a strong course in basic Catholic faith
and practice, an assumption that most likely was supported by evidence of
lacking adherence to the Church’s expectations of parishioners. This
endeavor fits well within well-known parameters of Catholic leadership
expectations in an age that was still attempting to address decrees and discipline stipulated by the Council of Trent (1545–1563). As such, New Spain
was no different than Europe itself, where missionary orders, and counting
prominently on the Franciscans, were busy preaching and teaching Catholic
dogma and doctrine to peasants, tradesmen, and landholders alike.7 Numerous novenas and sermon collections in the college libraries provide yet more
proof of the colleges’ dedication to this part of their missionary charge.8

6. Lino Gómez Canedo, “Los colegios apostólicos de Propaganda Fide: Su papel en la
evangelización de América,” in Gómez Canedo, Evangelización, cultura y promoción social:
Ensayos y estudios críticos sobre la contribución Franciscana a los origenes cristianos de México (siglos
XVI–XVIII) (Mexico City, 1993), 553–69; Félix Saiz Diez, Los colegios de Propaganda Fide en
Hispanoamérica, 2nd ed. (Lima, 1992). Not all of the provinces were inclined to give up the
fight against the secular arm of the Church in the secularization of doctrinas de indios in the
eighteenth century. See Matthew D. O’Hara, A Flock Divided: Race, Religion, and Politics in
Mexico, 1749–1857 (Durham, NC, 2009), for discussions of Franciscan intransigence in
Mexico City, the vice regal capital of New Spain, in the latter part of the eighteenth century.
7. Louis Chatellier, The Religion of the Poor: Rural Missions in Europe and the Formation
of Modern Catholicism, c.1500–c.1800, trans. Brian Pearce (New York, 1997).
8. In the collections of Guadalupe college outside Zacatecas, for example, there existed
290 volumes of sermons by noted and lesser-known preachers; another 167 volumes were

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The other part of the two-fold mission of the apostolic colleges was
frontier missionary activity in new places where no Spanish missionary
activity had previously existed, such as in Texas (beginning in 1690) and in
other locations, such as the Sierra Gorda, where prior attempts by other
orders or the provincial Franciscans had failed entirely. Frontier missions,
as David J. Weber noted in his seminal book on Spain’s frontier missions
in North America, were always a place of contested cultures, resulting in
diverse reactions to colonization. Indeed, as Weber noted in a comparative
study of the Americas as a whole, the policies and results obtained from
such were problematic, to say the very least, over the long run of Spanish
colonization.9 Later Franciscan efforts on those frontiers was a major part
of such endeavors, and they came to define the order in the later colonial
era as much as any other part of its presence in the Americas.
That two-fold mission included frontier conversions from very early
in the history of New Spain’s missionary college-seminaries. The routine
life of the missionary colleges aimed to mold missionaries for both missions to the faithful and for frontier efforts.10 That training was invested
with revivalist Franciscan studies, with language preparation where possible, and more than anything, with a focus on pastoral knowledge and
philosophical argumentation that would rival a Jesuit or Dominican
house of studies in terms of the rigorous study required of the friars
admitted. Thus, the colleges were late colonial manifestations of the
recurring drive to establish elite training institutes among the orders for
specific religious purposes. That historical effort dated to the formation
of early reformed colleges in Rome.11 Some have noted that the early
houses of study attached to Spanish universities were the model for such
efforts, and it is interesting to note how well such a model applies to the
seventeenth-century Franciscan colleges founded in the decade or so

classified as místicos, under which one might find libros de novenas not included in the sermon
collections. See the Old Spanish Missions Historical Research Library, Center for Mexican
American Studies, Our Lady of the Lake University, San Antonio, Texas, microfilm vol. 7,
ff. 2501–68. See also David Rex Galindo, To Sin No More: Franciscans and Conversion in the
Hispanic World, 1683–1830 (Stanford and Oceanside, CA, 2017), 149; and Maynard Geiger,
“The Library of the Apostolic College of San Fernando, Mexico, in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” The Americas 7, no. 4 (1951), 425–34.
9. Weber, Spanish Frontier in North America (1992) and Bárbaros: Spaniards and their
Savages in the Age of Enlightenment (2005).
10. Rex Galindo, To Sin No More.
11. On the early college-seminary in Spain, see Richard L. Kagan, Students and Society
in Early Modern Spain (Baltimore, 1974). John W. O’Malley addresses the early Jesuit colleges and their sister institutions in Rome in The First Jesuits (Cambridge, MA, 1993).

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before the one in Querétaro in New Spain. Such was the background of
the colleges in New Spain the Franciscans used to revive two forms of
missionary activity to the faithful of the interior and to peoples on new
frontiers.12
One of the key considerations to understanding the preparation of
missionaries among the Franciscan colleges is to acknowledge the large
amount of discourse between the colleges, especially in a colonial region
such as New Spain, during the Bourbon era of the eighteenth century.
Networks developed between these colleges as the mission of each
expanded and became more defined over time. Most often, historians and
anthropologists study the colleges and their respective missions in isolation
from each other, a situation that limits discovery of the potential influences
exerted on any one group of friars at a time.13 It was the case, in contrast
to scholars’ work on the colleges by themselves that these institutions
engaged in high levels of interaction. The case of San Fernando was unique
with its Mexico City location; I will return to this shortly. First, one may
see that from the very early stages that the first colleges shared governance
in that they sent existing members of one college to found and administer
the next. They also, once this occurred, shared from their archives, coffers,
ritual materials, and libraries to start the new foundation on the right track.
The model for one college became the model for the next, as seen in the
efforts of fray Antonio Margil de Jesús and his companions in the foundation of the colegio de Cristo Crucificado in 1701 and the colegio at
Guadalupe de Zacatecas in 1707. Such was also the case when the college
at Mexico City opened as it, too, was founded by men sent south from
Querétaro to open the new college of San Fernando in the 1730s; that
foundation was a result of a mission to the faithful preached in Mexico
City early in that decade.14 Later foundations at Orizaba and Pachuca
opened in the same manner.15 The pattern of investing a new college with
12. Rose Marie Beebe and Robert M. Senkewicz, Junípero Serra: California, Indians,
and the Transformation of a Missionary (Norman, OK, 2015), 73–85, 88–89; Rex Galindo, To
Sin No More; McCloskey, Formative Years.
13. One notable exception to this pattern is Wade, Missions, Missionaries, and Native
Americans, whose comparative effort brings those threads together, colleges and missions, in
one study.
14. Beebe and Senkewicz, Junípero Serra, 89.
15. One of the recurring themes in the archives for the colleges is that all were subject
to the same operating protocols and canonical requirements. For San Fernando, see comments of the father vistor, fray Romuldo Cartagena, in his visitation summary and exhorations of 1780 in Libro de decretos del Colegio de San Fernando de México, Archivo General de la
Nación (hereafter AGN), vol. 14, f. 88.

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the same missionary praxis and ideology of the existing institutions was
written into canonical governing documents and was evident in the opening years of each of the new foundations.
Multiple sources speak to the shared viewpoints and communication of
methods among the colleges of New Spain. The earliest of these commentaries come from the mission field and concern missionaries’ judgment of
the propriety of Native marriages. These occur in correspondence from the
guardian in Guatemala and Margil’s former companion, fray Antonio de
Andrade, to the friars of Querétaro.16 Constitutional documents and
memorials on various issues show that these sorts of documents were sent
on to each college when it sent such items to its friars for study, encouragement, or reprimand; at some points, one document sent by the council of a
college was transcribed under the rubric of the next college which then forwarded it to its own missionaries both near and far.17 Some jointly-produced documents persist that demonstrate the willingness of the colleges to
collaborate in both interior and frontier missions. One in particular records
the decision early in the eighteenth century to divide the lands in Spanish
Texas among the two colleges working there, the Guadalupan friars of
Zacatecas and the Santa Cruz friars of Querétaro, to create territories of
conversion in that province.18 Furthermore, the college’s records of deliberations in the discretorium, the governing council of the college, show that
the actions of the other apostolic colleges were a topic of conversation year
in and year out.19 In summary, the institutes deliberated much on the
doings of their colleagues and were mindful of the others’ current issues at
most times, often collaborating far from central New Spain as well.
In particular, both the Santa Cruz and the Guadalupe colleges’ leaders
deliberated often on the strategies and methods in frontier missions. Such
16. Consulta que se le hizo al P. Fr. Antonio de Andrade sobre el matrimonio de dos
indios, Guatemala, no date, Archivo Histórico de la Provincia Franciscana de San Pedro y
San Pablo de Michoacán, Archivo del Colegio de la Santa Cruz de Querétaro (hereafter
ACQ), F, legajo 7, no. 3.
17. One that was copied and forwarded was the Patente del discretorio del Colegio [de
la Santa Cruz] a los presidentes y ministros de las misiones en el Rio Grande del Norte, San
Antonio de Valero y de San Xavier, sobre el gobierno de dichas misiones, Querétaro, August
19, 1748, ACQ, K, Legajo 3, no. 51, 2.
18. The 1716 original is in the ramos of the Archivo General de la Nación. An accessible
transcription appears in “Representación hecha a su Excma. por los Rr. Padres Misioneros,”
Boletín del Archivo General de la Nación 29, no. 2 (1958), 299–301.
19. See multiple examples in Benedict Leutenegger, ed. and trans., The Zacatecan Missionaries in Texas, 1716–1834: Excerpts from the Libros de Decretos of the Missionary College
of Zacatecas, 1707–1828 (Austin, 1973).

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deliberations were important because they reflected the knowledge of frontier missionary work that was the subject of talk in meetings at the college
that included also the seminars, for lack of a better word, that were mandated and, as David Rex Galindo has shown, occurred among the friars in
residence at the college in any given week.20 All members of the college
were welcome to attend, but one might expect that such meetings were
most important for novices in their early years of becoming friars and for
those Franciscans who had requested transfer into the missionary college
for work in either category of mission supported by the institute.21 The
seminars addressed many things including moral theology, scripture, and
the right ways of observing the Franciscan rule (according to the apostolic
colleges). They also raised questions of applying those learnings to the
frontier in the administration of the sacraments and how one might interpret the sacraments for that new environment. Most interestingly, in certain times frontier languages might also be presented in the missionary college’s seminars, but the lack of consistent recording of more than a few
indigenous languages from the frontier missions means that this could not
have been as consistent as earlier friaries’ efforts in the earlier conquests of
the core of New Spain.22 Many of the seminars might have been more
helpful to missionaries among the already-Christianized populations
nearer the colleges for their work among the faithful.
With such conversations in mind and understanding that any friar in
good standing would attend them when in residence at a particular college,
it becomes clear that ideas of missionary methodology, or more vaguely,
missiology, would come into conversations in meetings whether among the
discretorium in chambers or in the refectory and library at weekly

20. Rex Galindo, To Sin No More, 144–55. See also David Rex Galindo, “Conferences
on Theology and Indian Languages: A Program to Train Missionaries in New Spain,” in
Timothy J. Johnson and Gert Melville, eds., From La Florida to La California: Franciscan
Evangelization in the Spanish Borderlands (Berkeley, 2013), 251–70.
21. Such transfers were commonplace to the college from a province in New Spain,
Havana, Spain, or other locations in the Spanish American empire, including the Philippines.
Later colonial-era documents show that many provincial friars completed ten or more years
in the colleges’ service in missions to the frontiers and to the faithful, and by this they gained
access to a placid retirement back in their home provinces. As an example, see the decree
accepting the disaffiliation of fray Isidro Barcemilla to return to his mother province after
twelve years’ service at San Fernando’s missions, May 9, 1807, Libro de decretos de San Fernando, AGN, vol. 14, ff. 89.
22. In Texas, only one gloss exists for a language, Pajalat, spoken in the region. See
Gabriel de Vergara, El cuadernillo de la lengua de los indios pajalates (1732), ed. Eugenio del
Hoyo (Monterrey, 1965).

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seminars.23 Also, though these missionaries were Observant Franciscans
and thus remanded to their cells and the choir for silent and vocal prayer,
they also would have chance to talk at other times in the daily routines of
the colleges. Silence in the apostolic college was rare as it most likely was
in many other friaries across New Spain in the later colonial period.24 As
missionaries moved in and out of their own colleges and those of other
friars, they had numerous opportunities to share their views and experiences as they tackled the challenges of frontier missions during the long
eighteenth century.
Now let us return to the unique case of the apostolic college of San
Fernando in central New Spain on the outer periphery of colonial Mexico
City. Its location was a boon to the Propaganda Fide college movement in
New Spain, being as it was in the right location to be close to the vice regal
court but not down in the bustling heart of the capital.25 It became a refuge
eagerly sought for those friars who needed to represent their respective college in Mexico City. Because of its location on the edge of Mexico City, it
was a natural gathering place for friars on a mission to seek funding, gain
permission for new missionary establishments, or manage the financial or
supply needs of the missions on behalf of their guardians back in the colleges (the role of the procurator de misiones). At the same time, it was a fully
functioning apostolic college with missionaries and missions of its own, in
both senses of internal and frontier missions that each of the colleges held
as a common program. And because it was so close to the distribution
point, Mexico City, of new missionaries arriving from Spain, and because
it provided local access to vice regal authorities, archdiocesan officials, and
the ranking Franciscans in the New World all there in the capital, San Fer23. Missiology as defined for this paper includes the study and application of methods
of directing missionary efforts to a specific human audience. Missiology occupies a specific
place in Franciscan life and has since the founding of the order in the thirteenth century. See
Michael F. Cusato’s introduction to early Franciscan missiology, “From the Conversion of
the Heart to the Conversion of Souls: Franciscan Mission and Missiology in the early Thirteenth Century,” in Johnson and Melville, eds., From La Florida to La California, 1–22.
24. Rex Galindo, To Sin No More, 125–26. Later visitors also noted the need for decorum and observance of the right order in the convent, per the rules of the institute. For example, see the visitation records of fray Antonio Crespo at San Fernando college, July 15, 1806,
Libro de decretos. Colegio de San Fernando, book II, ff. 82r–84r, Colección de Documentos
para la Historia de México, 187846, AGN, volume 14, 2nd series, tomo 9.
25. Beebe and Senkewicz, Junípero Serra, 89, which notes that not all friars who agreed
to serve in the San Fernando college were interested in laboring in the frontier missions. See
also Beebe and Senkewicz, “Uncertainty on the Mission Frontier: Missionary Recruitment
and Institutional Stability in Alta California in the 1780s,” in Schwaller, ed., Francis in the
Americas, 305–08.

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nando was quickly a leading place in the world of the Propaganda Fide
friars this side of the Atlantic.26
For all that energy centering on San Fernando in Mexico City, it was
still a place that observed the norms of an apostolic college. Thus, visiting
friars from the other colegios were welcomed into the daily life there. And
because of this, those ample opportunities within the weekly schedules
became times of sharing causes, deliberating on ways to erect and sustain
missions, and for the purpose of bettering relations between the governing
councils of the colleges. It was also a place where an apostolic missionary
friar might find time to pray, relax, eat, re-supply, and write. The latter is
what survives mostly from friars’ visits to San Fernando—written records of
the causes they were there to champion or tasks they were sent to Mexico
City to undertake. Among the latter, we may note mid-eighteenth-century
visits for the reason of collecting testimonies for informaciones de legitimidad,
limpieza de sangre y buenas costumbres, those background investigations necessary under the Spanish Empire to pledge oneself to a religious order under
the royal patrimony of the Church. Before the existence of San Fernando
college, the religious of other apostolic colleges required residence when
conducting these tasks at the primary seat of Franciscan presence in
Mexico, the convento of San Francisco el Grande in the heart of the capital
city. That location was no break from the busy life in Mexico City, and its
role in Franciscan life meant that it was often crowded with competing,
though legitimate, interests and personages. After the establishment of San
Fernando, all new informaciones conducted in which Mexico City residents
were named as testators were performed at the new college rather than at
San Francisco el Grande, and for good reason.27 San Fernando was safe,
friendly turf for traveling apostolic friars.

26. San Fernando’s location was indeed unique as new friars often used it as a way station before going on to their destination. As an example of the arrival of new friars for colleges
such as those at Guadalupe and Querétaro, see “Diligencias practicadas en la havilitación de
la mission de Religiosos para el Colegio de la Santa Cruz de Querétaro venida de Cadíz en el
Navio Matamoros,” AGN, Misiones, vol. 9, exp. 3, ff. 1–33v. The records of the Mexican
national archives indicate that all of the missionary colleges extant during the eighteenth century, save that at Guadalupe de Zacatecas, sent for new missionaries from Spain as Franciscan
vocations dwindled in New Spain.
27. Información de Francisco Xavier de Bozeta, Colegio Apostólico de San Fernando,
Mexico City, February 14–18 and February 25, 1757, in Archivo Histórico Franciscano de
Zapopan (AHFZ), Informaciones del Colegio de Nra. Sra. de Guadalupe, I, no. 147 (1758).
Sometimes friars tapped from other friaries and colleges labored on the background investigations on behalf of the requesting college. In this case, we also see the collaboration and
sharing of responsibilities between houses. See, for example, the información conducted by

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Informaciones were one thing friars addressed in the capital, but often
there were more pressing needs. Beginning in the 1740s, extended stays at
San Fernando occurred for more than one friar from the established colleges in the north. One of the most notable of these stays was the visit
authorized from the highest levels for fray Ignacio Ciprían, the representative and native son of the Colegio Apostólico de Nuestra Señora de
Guadalupe de Zacatecas. Ciprían, who entered the Order of Friars Minor
at Guadalupe college in 1712, reported first to the father commissary in
Spain and then, later during his stay, to the king in council on the status
and exertions of the college he called home. The reason was simple: influential individuals at court slandered the work of the Franciscans in general
and the Guadalupan friars in particular before the Council of the Indies,
and the father commissary in Spain was perplexed by this and wished for a
strong rebuttal. Ciprían, noted elsewhere for his studies at the college and
experience in the missions, was a natural choice to prepare the response.
From the perspective of the twenty-first century, it would appear that if
Ciprían was to write a letter and a report, he might do so from his own college far to the north of Mexico City. And yet that was not the case. One
of the first hints in the record that he had been sent down to the capital for
this task came in July 1749 when he wrote to the commissary general from
the college at Querétaro, as he was by then on his way to San Fernando.
His request concerned his replacement’s travel with an official who worked
in Texas, who both headed back to the frontier as he continued south.28
Fray Ciprían found himself at the college of San Fernando for some
time. His first task was to write a detailed report to the father commissary
general, fray Juan Antonio Abasolo, which would relate the entire fortytwo-year history of the college as succinctly as he could. This exercise was
a practice round for the report to the king in council, which followed in
1750.29 The entire time, fray Ciprían, an experienced missionary absent
Fernandino friars for fray Bartolomé García y Quevedo’s admittance in 1759 to the college in
Querétaro in Auto de información de Bartolomé García de Quevedo, ACQ, P, legajo 8, no. 111.
28. Fr. Ignacio Ciprían to the father commissary, Querétaro, July 3, 1749, Biblioteca
Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Fondo Franciscano (BNFF), roll 37, volume 112, ff.
340–340v. On Ciprían’s taking of the Franciscan habit at the college of Guadalupe, see Jay
T. Harrison, “Franciscan Missionary Theory and Practice in Eighteenth-Century New Spain:
The Propaganda Fide Friars in the Texas Missions, 1690–1821” (PhD diss., Catholic University of America, 2012), 274. The información conducted on Ciprián’s admittance to the college is in Archivo Histórico Franciscano de Zapopan (hereafter AHFZ), Informaciones del
Colegio de Nra. Sra. de Guadalupe, I, no. 14 (1712).
29. “Report to the Franciscan Commissary General of New Spain, fray Juan Antonio
Abasolo, by fray Ignacio Antonio Ciprián of the Apostolic College of Our Lady of

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from his post, spent his time in Mexico City at San Fernando college.
While a friar notary sent down to Mexico City to take notes of testators for
informaciones might spend at most two to three weeks at the colegio, fray
Ciprían and friars in similar situations spent months at San Fernando.
Recurring chances certainly presented themselves within that timeframe
for dialogue about a host of topics, not the least of which would be the
reports the friar wrote during that period.
Writing such memorials as these took time that did not exist in abundance in the normal routine of the college’s life. Any visiting friar was
expected to become part of the fellowship, even if he came with the dispensations from choir and prayers that belonged to the colleges’ chroniclers.30
Presence in the refectory and in consultations or seminars was common, and
it was not outside the norm for visitors to make reports to the host college’s
governing council and guardian as needed. Since other global concerns to
Franciscan missions were held in common by all the colleges, any action by
one college’s friar before the commissary general and the government held
intense interest for the other colleges, especially so for the one in Mexico City.
What ideas and documents, then, were shared between missionaries
staying for a period in San Fernando’s walls? Experience would rank as the
greatest of these personal insights one might carry, and experiences of colleges would be shared via the crónicas, memorials, letters between leaders
and missionaries of differing colleges, and either brief conversations or
longer talks. Placing a friar at another’s college resulted in new relations
between friars or renewed conversations between men who had known
each other before. For those like Father Ciprían whose own time in service
included frontier missionary efforts, this meant that old acquaintances and
new friends were in store for personal stories of what worked and what did
not when ministering to indigenous neophytes. Embedded in later arguments over the management of the missions’ fabric and expenses was
shared knowledge of other mission regions outside of the one in question.
Guadalupe de Zacatecas, written at the College of San Fernando, Mexico City, October 27,
1749,” in Benedict Leutenegger, trans. and ed., The Texas Missions of the College of Zacatecas
in 1749–1750: Report of Fr. Ignacio Antonio Ciprián, 1749, and Memorial of the College to the
King, 1750 (San Antonio, 1979), 18–29.
30. Dispensations from the routine of the common life in the college went to men
working on the histories of the colleges, as also to the professors of theology and philosophy,
and to the master of novices. As an example of this exemption, see the numerous mentions
made in volumes I, II, and III of the Guadalupe libros de decretos in the Archivo Histórico
Franciscano de Zapopan (AHFZ), and the volumes available for the Santa Cruz discretorium
in the Archivo Histórico de la Provincia de San Pedro y San Pablo de Michoacán (ACQ).

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This occurred frequently but was most plain in the contributions of fray
José Rafael de Oliva when he urged the abandonment of the temporalities
of the Texas missions in 1788.31 He lost that battle, and yet that controversy among the Guadalupan friars at that moment informed later comments on the appropriateness of California missionaries managing the
affairs of the San Fernando college’s missions in the north. Those discussions came up in additional arguments between Santa Cruz superiors and
their men in Sonora (the Pimería Alta), based on direct conversations with
Fernandino friars.32 And so it went, that among one topic of interest the
experiences flowed through the colleges and their missionaries’ networks in
and out of the missions. At the heart of the missionaries’ networks were
places like San Fernando in Mexico City, a locus for discussions on right
approaches to missionary labors.
In the case of Alta California and its Texas roots in terms of methodology, the arguments from direct evidence come from that incident noted
just now between a Santa Cruz friar, fray Pedro Font, and his superior, fray
Diego Ximenez, guardian of the college at Querétaro. Font, an active
member of missions to the faithful in earlier years, was thrust into the frontier ministry and away from his contributions to the college and its choir in
the few years prior to and including 1777, during which time he had chance
to witness missionary labors in Alta California during the missions’ formative decade between 1769 and 1780. His writing shows that he was exceedingly familiar with what he called “the method of Texas” in his letter of January 1777 in which he attacks his brother missionary and superior for
favoring the methods the Fernandino friars used in the region of San Diego
and Monterrey which were, he claimed, directly tied to the ones used in the
San Antonio River missions in Texas. The argument is tied not just to the
Alta California efforts, but also to methods recommended to Font by his
superior and others at San Fernando college as that college, with Font
included, sent its men north from the recently released Pimería Baja missions to more remote locations in the Pimería Alta. Admittedly this is a
document that argues not for what may best be done in California but
rather against implementing what Font saw as the wrong model for any part

31. Fray José Rafael Oliva, Management of the Missions in Texas: Fray José Rafael Oliva’s
Views concerning the Problem of the Temporalities in 1788, ed. Marion Habig, trans. Benedict
Leutenegger (San Antonio, 1977).
32. See also Dan S. Matson, ed. and trans., “The Letters of Fray Pedro Font,” Ethnohistory 22, no. 3 (1975), 262–93; and Wade, Missions, Missionaries, and Native Americans, 115.
Matson’s is the earlier publication of the letter, which should still exist in Font’s hand in the
Archivo Histórico Franciscano de Zapopan, according to the inventory updated there in 2013.

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The Franciscan missions in Texas in the eighteenth century. Map by Mary Lee
Eggart.

of Sonora (the lower or upper Pimería) at that particular time one decade
after the expulsion of Jesuits from those regions. For that reason, it shows
that the “method of Texas” was commonly understood in the idiom of the
Fernandino friars in California, the Santa Cruz friars working in Sonora,
and lastly, the Guadalupan friars in Texas who continued its use in situ.33
The evidence that fray Font’s letter provides is a useful addition to
knowledge that the Texas missions were themselves a product of trial and
error. Certain scholars, Wade included, divide periods to the long century
of Texas missions into early attempts among the Caddo peoples of the
Hasinai Confederacy (a grand failure) beginning in the 1690s, the early
33. Matson, “Letters of Font,” 285–92. In this section, Font compares the ‘Sonora
method’ that allowed Native villages to remain as they were while building a mission either
within or nearby the towns, versus the ‘method of Texas’ in which the missions themselves
were to be towns with associated agricultural and pastoral estates attached to them for sustenance of the mission’s population. Native peoples were to be routinely gathered (‘reduced’) to
come to the new towns that the missions anchored. See also Font’s description of conditions
on the ground in California on January 5, 1776, in Alan K. Brown, ed. and trans., With Anza
to California, 1775–1776: The Journal of Pedro Font, O.F.M. (Norman, OK, 2011), 178–81.
See my analysis of the Texas experience in Jay T. Harrison, “Franciscan Concepts of the Congregated Mission and the Apostolic Ministry in Eighteenth Century Texas,” in Johnson and
Melville, eds., La Florida to La California, 323–39.

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eighteenth century approaches to the hunters and gatherers around the Rio
de San Antonio and its tributaries, and the later attempts at missions in the
1750s among peoples on the upper river drainages north of colonial San
Antonio de Bexar. The latter includes missions to the Apaches, namely the
eastern Lipan, whose refusal to settle permanently led to trauma at San
Sabá mission and other brief missions south and west of that one.34 Of all
the missions begun in the region (some thirty-seven or so), only the San
Antonio River missions survived at all, and of these, only seven operated
by 1776. And yet this was not the end of experimentation. In the 1790s
additional missions opened for the coastal tribes not already residing in
Espiritu Santo mission near modern-day Goliad, Texas. Refugio and
Rosario missions catered to semi-nomadic peoples, to the consternation of
some friars manning those missions.35 These missions experienced additional traumas and were, at best, sparsely populated on a continuous basis.
That troubled history of missionary activities, and failures, in Spanish
Texas meant that there was to be debate as to the wisdom of continuing
activities there as the nineteenth century loomed, let alone to move the
resulting hacienda-like missionary approach of that province to new pasture far from Texas territory. Quoting fray Juan Bautista Larrondo, serving
at the time as guardian of the college in Querétaro, after “almost a century
passed in which that land was trafficked by missionaries and only a few
missions, composed of the most docile Gentile Indians, had taken root” he
did not see that one might “await a prosperous result with the erection of
new missions” in Texas.36 While we might note that fray Larrondo oversaw no missions there at the time he wrote, he was privy to much evidence
of the struggles his brothers at Guadalupe college experienced while maintaining the remaining Texas missions, and he no doubt knew of the long
history of failure of his own college there. Texas was no shining example
of missionary prowess to Larrondo or his colleagues, which throws into
relief the earlier arguments among the friars as to the way of proceeding in
both Sonora and Alta California. Why then, did the so-called “method of
Texas” come to be the model used in Alta California?

34. On this periodization, see Wade, Missions, Missionaries, and Native Americans, 107–
8. On San Sabá and its miseries, see Robert Weddle, The San Saba Mission: Spanish Pivot in
Texas (Austin, 1964); and Beebe and Senkewicz, Junípero Serra, 97–8, 102.
35. Fray Antonio de Jesús Garavito to Theniente Comandante Don Joseph Miguel del
Moral, Refugio mission, October 13, 1798, Bexar Archives (BA), Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas, roll 28, frames 0503–04.
36. Fray Juan Bautista Larrondo to the dean and cabildo of the cathedral, sede vacante,
in Mexico City, Querétaro, August 22, 1800, BNFF, roll 21, volume 67, f. 155.

JAY T. HARRISON

473

Missions sites in Alta California, early nineteenth century. Map by Mary Lee
Eggart.

The answer to that question is less easy to discern from direct evidence,
though scholars have attempted in the isolated context of California mission history to understand the method deployed there. Two options prevail, and both point to the deeper history going back to Texas during the
middle of the century and even prior to that time. The first argument is
derivative of the leadership quotient leading to the founding of Alta California under fray Junípero Serra, that ultimate Mallorcan whose personage
causes so much conflict in present debates on early California. Regarding
Serra, some scholars note that his training in missionary labors was but
very brief before he was assigned to the Sierra Gorda missions, an assignment the Fernandino friars undertook in the late 1740s after many failures
by missionary religious in the prior two centuries in that region (it nestled
in the regions between Mexico City and the silver mining regions farther
north). Serra received but six months exposure to the college of San Fernando upon his arrival from Spain before departing again for missions at

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FRANCISCAN MISSIONARIES AND THEIR NETWORKS

the internal frontier in the Sierra.37 While not as much is known of that
period of his work, scholars have discerned that the experience was formative for what followed later in California in his last missionary assignment
beginning in 1769.38 The suggestion is that while in the Sierra Gorda missions with fellow Fernandino friars following standard expectations of settled missions like those in Texas, Serra absorbed and accepted as normative
the ideal of the congregated mission. The logic extends to the conclusion
that the communications via representatives of the Texas-serving missions
shared such methods with their newly-founded college in Mexico City, an
assertion validated by the record of correspondence between San Fernando
and Guadalupe colleges in 1744. Brief though that record might be, there
was clear communication regarding friars’ invited participation in the missions and anticipation of that efforts’ intentions.39
The other option ignores Serra and his influence in regards to missionary experience in the Sierra Gorda, and instead assumes that that presence
of known hunting and gathering peoples along the southerly California
coasts led the friars to attach themselves to a notion that the missions
would need to be self-sustaining towns in order to thrive. Some clues exist
that bolster confidence in this bypass around the personality of Serra. First,
Baja California was known already by the Franciscans for just a year or
more when they were asked to take up the Alta California project.40 Abandoning Baja to the Dominicans, Fernandino friars followed their calling to
Alta California with knowledge of the relative simplicity of the life ways of
the peoples of Lower California. First contacts with Natives in the area
that would become San Diego also showed that there was no settlement,
at least to the European eyes the friars used, to become the basis for the
missions. Instead, the age-old attempts dating to early Franciscan efforts in
37. Rose Marie Beebe and Robert M. Senkewicz, “Junípero Serra: From Mallorcan
Preacher and Teacher to California Missionary,” in Johnson and Melville, eds., From La
Florida to La California, 341–42.
38. Conclusions differ as to what influence that missionary experience had. See Beebe
and Senkewicz, “Junípero Serra,” 352, where they argue that during his years in Mallorca, not
the Sierra Gorda, he matured for the missions. Others take stock in Serra’s Sierra Gorda
years; see Steven W. Hackel, “Junípero Serra’s California Sacramental Community,” in Rose
Marie Beebe and Robert M. Senkewicz, eds., “To Toil in that Vineyard of the Lord”: Contemporary Scholarship on Junípero Serra (Berkeley, 2010), 79–82; and Lino Gómez Canedo, “Fray
Junípero Serra y su noviciado misional en América (1750–1758),” in Gómez Canedo, Evangelización, cultura y promoción social, 577–99.
39. Fray José Antonio Alcocer, Bosquejo de la Historia del Colegio de Guadalupe y sus
Misiones, ed. Rafael Cervantes (Mexico City, 1958), 132.
40. Harry W. Crosby, Antigua California: Mission and Colony on the Peninsular Frontier,
1697–1768 (Albuquerque, 1994), 387–93.

JAY T. HARRISON

475

the New World to reduce the populations to Spanish-style towns would be
expected for each new mission in the province. Once established, this
became the norm in Alta California.41 In modeling the reduction method
while expecting self-sufficiency of each mission, the Texas method
emerged as the dominant form, over and against what Font referred to as
the ‘Sonora method’ which essentially left Native towns and agriculture
intact.42 Thus, both options lead back to the same conditions and model,
as that which emerged by experimentation in early Spanish Texas, and
which continued to be attempted there late in the eighteenth century.
One additional piece of evidence is most telling of the movement of
friars and their ideas throughout greater New Spain in the long century of
apostolic colleges’ frontier missions. The libros de decretos for the colleges
spell out in detail, sometimes exasperatingly dull in their accounts, the
daily comings and goings of friars and why they did so. Most often men
were approved for missions or tasks within the hierarchy of the college, but
often enough they petitioned or were commissioned for travel to Mexico
City’s apostolic college or some other location important for spreading
ideas and gaining support. In particular, the longest serving college for the
Texas missions, the Guadalupe college, possessed within its libros de decretos a number of references to the actions undertaken in Mexico City, in
concert with San Fernando, and in regards to causes larger than its own
membership in partnership with the other colleges in aggregate. Some
examples will show these additional connections between the colleges, that
there was a consistent level of contact over the decades of the eighteenth
century strong enough to transfer ideas and conditions for the application
of the missiology and practical approaches learned in Texas.
Aside from the presence of fray Ciprían in late 1749 and 1750, many
others ventured south to San Fernando in the same period, though we have
41. Robert H. Jackson, “Eighteenth-Century Supply System in Texas and California:
The Development of Mission Economics,” in John F. Schwaller, ed., Francis in the Americas:
Essays on the Franciscan Family in North and South America (Berkeley, 2005), 277–94. Jackson
notes that the Alta California missions were far more self-sustaining than those in Texas, a
fact that is uncontested according to the records for each region.
42. This understanding is critical to Cynthia Radding’s observations in Wandering Peoples, and correlates with José Refugio de la Torre Curiel’s arguments as to the difficultly Franciscans had in continuing the Jesuit’s models of missions in Sonora, where the mission-asestate model similar to that of Texas worked best only in outlying areas and in the north of
the Pimería Alta. See Radding, Wandering Peoples: Colonialism, Ethnic Spaces, and Ecological
Frontiers in Northwestern Mexico, 1700–1850 (Durham, NC, 1997), and De la Torre, Twilight of the Mission Frontier: Shifting Interethnic Alliances and Social Organization in Sonora,
1768–1855 (Stanford and Berkeley, 2012).

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FRANCISCAN MISSIONARIES AND THEIR NETWORKS

explicit and recorded examples of just a few. Procurators for the more
northerly colleges and missions no doubt spent time at San Fernando, but
the evidence is sparse for that. The evidence, found in San Fernando college’s libro de decretos shows that lay brothers, the journeymen supporters of
each college’s missions to the faithful and to the frontier, moved between
the colleges, including two who left San Fernando and affiliated officially
with Santa Cruz college in Querétaro in 1739 and 1747.43 Other records
communicate the cooperation of San Fernando and Guadalupe colleges
mentioned before in the 1740s missions in the Sierra Gorda; also, it was
not uncommon, according to a later chronicler of the Guadalupe college,
for choristers and other friars to study in the others’ colleges when convenient for lessons in moral philosophy or theology.44
Later decades show more movement and communication between the
colleges. Santa Cruz college leaders were regularly appointed as visitors to
San Fernando for its canonically-mandated chapter meetings. In 1780, fray
Romuldo Cartagena presided and required renewed observance of norms
that appear much as those of the same period in Querétaro. In the same
year, the “religiosity” of fray Juan Ocon led the governing council of San
Fernando to receive him to membership there as he disaffiliated from
Santa Cruz college.45 Documentation from the 1770s shows movement
from Guadalupe college to Mexico City, and the same holds for the 1780s.
Fray Joseph Pinilla of the Querétaro college was the visitor for San Fernando’s chapter meeting in 1786. In 1789, fray Romuldo appears in the
record again as the father visitor for San Fernando college’s required chapter meeting, just a short time before a lay brother, fray Thomas Diaz de la
Vega, returned to Guadalupe college from San Fernando under conditions
not specified but clearly understood by the council.46 Looking forward to
the 1790s and early 1800s, friars moved between San Fernando and the
colleges in Guatemala, Querétaro, Pachuca, Popayán, and Guadalupe de

43. Decrees signed July 14, 1739, and January 18, 1747, Libro de decretos, Colegio de
San Fernando, I:11r, 19r.
44. Alcocer, Bosquejo de la historia, 132-33.
45. Visitation records, June 2, 1780, and decree of September 30, 1780, Libro de decretos
de San Fernando, I:83v–90v, 91v.
46. Libro de decretos, II: 6v, 78v, 80v, Colegio apostólico de Nra. Sra. de Guadalupe de
Zacatecas, AHFZ. Accessible translations that relate to Texas appear in Leutenegger and
Habig, eds., The Zacatecan Missionaries in Texas, 1716–1834: Excerpts from the Libros de los
Decretos of the Missionary College at Zacatecas, 1707–182, Office of the State Archeologist
Reports, No. 23 (Austin, 1973). Cartagena’s 1789 visitation is recorded on folios II:, 29r-33v,
and the October 9, 1789 decree regarding fray De la Vega is found in Libro de decretos de San
Fernando, II:34v.

JAY T. HARRISON

477

The College of San Fernando de México, Mexico City. Vol. 51, Edith Buckland
Webb Collection, photo by Maynard Geiger, Santa Bárbara Mission ArchiveLibrary.

Zacatecas. One even hailed from an apostolic college in Spain, that of
Arcos de la Frontera; he petitioned for recognition of his work, even at an
advanced age, as he had labored for San Fernando college for five years in
New Spain without being properly incorporated there.47
Other reasons to move towards San Fernando college persist in the
record. Late in the century and during the hotter months of 1794, fray
Joseph María Garcia petitioned to venture to one of the sister colleges,
preferably that of San Fernando, for health and peace of mind; his petition
was denied based on noted medical issues, and he was confined to a local
convent.48 Such movement for reasons of health were common. Regular
communication with the local, Mexico City-based procurators ensued for
the Margil beatification cause, a discourse that runs through the middle of
47. Decree concerning fray José de Navas, May 27, 1816, Libro de decretos de San Fernando, II: 135r.
48. Libro de decretos, II: 151v, AHFZ, Colegio apostólico de Nra. Sra. de Guadalupe de
Zacatecas.

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FRANCISCAN MISSIONARIES AND THEIR NETWORKS

the century and up to the end of colonial rule in Mexico.49 Interestingly,
mandated periods of seclusion of friars from other colleges at San Fernando for both positive spiritual reasons and negative issues of discipline
appear in the record of the discretorium as well. Between such reasons to
be stay in the capital and those involving background investigations, visits
to relatives, and general missions for the leadership of the colleges, the
amount of contact with the brethren at San Fernando was noteworthy.50
One final indication of the level of visitation of other friars at the college of San Fernando appeared in the governing council’s decrees rather
late in the period. Perhaps overwhelmed by friars not of its own college,
the discretes and guardian of San Fernando recorded a simple but clear
entry on June 12, 1793, in the official record of the discretorium. Titled
simply as “huespedes” (guests) in the margin, the council dictated four
rules under which visiting friars might temporarily join the community
there. First, the visiting friar was to participate immediately in the mental
prayer with the rest of the community on the first morning after arrival;
after this, he might provide for his animal if he arrived on one. The discretes required that visitors adhere to their business while visiting. Also,
they wished that any who arrived ill inform the leadership of their infirmity
so as to best accommodate them and, perhaps, avoid contamination of the
rest of the community. Such rules seem simple, but it may be observed that
the presence of such a record indicates that the college’s leadership met the
end of its patience with the steady stream of visitors. It took much aberrant
behavior and trespassing on the perceived perquisites of the community to
force such a statement from the college’s leaders.51
While only some pieces of evidence spell out what most likely was an
assumption of common knowledge, it is clear that the amount of continuing conversation between the Texas-serving colleges and that of San Fernando de México was significant enough to have enabled the knowledge
sharing evident in the historical documents utilized in this essay. Friars
throughout the colleges of the Propaganda Fide in New Spain knew of the
experiments, failures, and qualified successes in Texas, as they knew about

49. The cause of fray Antonio Margil de Jesús reappears in the decrees and correspondence for the college at Querétaro and that of Guadalupe de Zacatecas. After Margil passed
away in 1726, the colleges began the collection of evidence of his spiritual interventions in
order to promote his cause for eventual canonization.
50. Libros de decretos, Volumes I–III, Colegio apostólico de Nra. Sra. de Guadalupe de
Zacatecas, AHFZ.
51. Libro de decretos de San Fernando, AGN, June 12, 1793.

JAY T. HARRISON

479

problems at mission stations in Nayarit or the Pimería. This is consistent
with Franciscan practice in Iberia and the Portuguese empire, as Federico
Palomo has addressed in numerous essays.52 One aspect of collegiate Franciscan life only briefly touched upon in this essay was the requirement that
colleges maintain histories of their works and personnel. The cronistas who
worked on the college’s histories did so with the expectation that they first
use resources in the multiple college archives that grew over the long century, and second, that they share the products of their labors when possible.
A simple perusal of their library holdings show that this did indeed occur,
and the writings of those friars in the missions and college leadership positions indicate that the ideas contained in those histories influenced the
friars’ decisions across time and in different locations.53 And so it is not farfetched to assert than the model of the most intensive, provocative, and
dynamic of frontier missions prior to the take-over of the Sonora missions
and the establishment of Alta California, Texas and its large number of
missionary endeavors, would influence the choice of missiology and practical approach to missions that followed. In Alta California, the ‘metodo
de Tejas’ prevailed with all of its known shortcomings; friars opposed to
such lost the fight for something different due to learned and shared concepts about missions in the later colonial era. For that, we have to thank
the networks developed and maintained by collegiate Franciscans working
in the last, long century of colonial Spanish rule of northern New Spain.

52. Federico Palomo, “Ascetic tropics: Franciscans, missionary knowledge and visions
of Empire in the Portuguese Atlantic at the turn of the eighteenth century,” Culture & History
Digital Journal 5, no. 2 (2016), 1–14; Palomo, “Written empires: Franciscans, texts, and the
making of Early Modern Iberian Empires,” Culture & History Digital Journal 5, no. 2 (2016),
1–8. Palomo’s analyses support arguments that the Franciscan order produced a functioning
culture that shared ideas and missiology across boundaries of kingdoms and colonies.
53. For the Guadalupe college, see the Photostats on microfilm in the OSMHRL collection, Our Lady of the Lake University, Austin, Texas, roll 7, images 2501–2776, beginning
with the inventory of 1735. Inventories of the Santa Cruz college in Querétaro are extant in
ACQ, R, legajo 1, for 1766, 1803, and 1815.

‘No Fair Claim to the Character of Christians’:
Mathew Carey’s Path to Benevolence
for Philadelphia’s White Female Working Poor
KAREN KAUFFMAN*
In his last years, Mathew Carey (1760–1839), the disabled Irish
Catholic immigrant who rose from anonymous poverty to become early
America’s most prominent publisher and a significant commentator on
political economy, began a charitable crusade for the nation’s white
female working poor. Admonishing Christian republicans to love them
with non-judgmental compassion, Carey’s benevolence provides a
nuanced view of how the Gospel’s commission to care for abused and
neglected outsiders was enacted in early nineteenth-century America
and broadens our understanding of the religious fervor of the Second
Great Awakening as being more than a movement defined solely by
Protestant revivalists.
Keywords: Mathew Carey, female working poor, Philadelphia
philanthropy, social justice

O

n Easter Sunday, 1822, a riot erupted at St. Mary’s Church, Philadelphia’s most affluent Roman Catholic congregation. Ignoring pleas
from Mathew Carey, early America’s most prominent publisher, who
urged his fellow congregants to “suspend discord and angry passion,” two
evenly divided groups of parishioners began to bicker and press against a
six-foot, cast-iron railing so that it soon swayed like “a reed shaken by the
wind.” The fierce brawl which followed, however, did not spontaneously
ignite; for tensions within the church had been simmering for more than a
decade. Over the years successive bishops had asserted a variety of strict
policies, based upon ecclesiastical prerogative, which angered many parishioners and their elected trustees. Refusing to bow in “blind submission” to
*After teaching the history of the early American republic and American women for
seventeen years at Villanova University, Karen Kauffman is an independent scholar focusing
on religious culture. She thanks The Louisville Institute for a research fellowship to pursue
her study of Mathew Carey and Richard D. Brown, Jay P. Dolan, Edward Frear, Harry
Stout, and Thomas Tweed, who read earlier drafts of this essay. Her email address is
abra2@verizon.net.

480

KAREN KAUFFMAN

481

the hierarchy, they boldly declared that they “didn’t expect . . . within the
United States, to hear [Bishops] seriously insisting on the establishment of
such a [dictatorial] system here.” In 1820 the democratic element within
St. Mary’s became even more incensed when their beloved charismatic
priest, William Hogan, was recalled by Bishop Henry Conwell for insubordination and later excommunicated. While those who supported Hogan
and those who defended Conwell edged toward physical confrontation,
many dissenters came to believe rumors that during his preparation for the
1822 Easter service, the bishop had blessed cudgels to force them to heel.
When the wrangling between the two sides intensified on that early April
morning and the iron railing dividing them finally fell with a crash, opposing members rushed forward and slugged it out so furiously that even after
injured combatants received medical attention in nearby houses and a
drugstore, they eagerly reentered the fray as soon as they could be patched
up. Only when Philadelphia’s mayor and police arrived to suppress the violence did they relent, but not before the frenzy left more than two hundred
parishioners wounded and produced considerable damage to the church
grounds. While nearly one thousand members fought with clubs, bricks,
and their fists on that Easter Sunday, it is doubtful whether many considered the irony of their paschal rage during Christendom’s most holy celebration of the Prince of Peace. For disputes over the laity’s proper role in
governing their Irish American congregation had so bitterly alienated
parishioners that they regarded neither the dictates of Christian love nor
Enlightenment reason.1
While the contention at St. Mary’s was part of a larger democratic trend
among early American Christians, Irish Catholics particularly struggled to
establish their republican identity. On one hand, upwardly mobile parishioners like Mathew Carey (see Figure 1), who emigrated from Dublin in
1. For critiques of the riot: James F. Connelly, ed., History of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia (Wynnewood, PA, 1976), 90–98; Dale B. Light, Rome and the New Republic: Conflict and
Community in Philadelphia Catholicism between the Revolution and the Civil War (Notre Dame,
1996), 144–46; Francis E. Tourscher, The Hogan Schism and Trustee Troubles in St. Mary’s
Church, Philadelphia, 1820–1829 (Philadelphia, 1930), 83–89. A Catholic Layman [Mathew
Carey], To the Members of St. Mary’s Congregation (Philadelphia, April 19, 1814. One-page
pamphlet). Enlightenment writers cautioned against the breakdown of human reason and the
surrender to destructive “passion” (any extreme emotion), which could lead to physical violence and impede the orderly progression of republican society. A summation of the trustees’
disputes with church hierarchy: Address of The Trustees of St. Mary’s Church (Philadelphia,
1823), 18. For issues surrounding early republican lay trusteeism: Patrick W. Carey, “Republicanism within American Catholicism, 1785–1860,” Journal of the Early Republic (Winter
1983), 413–37.

482

‘NO FAIR CLAIM TO THE CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANS’

FIGURE 1. Mathew Carey, Painting by John Neagle, 1825, Permission to publish
granted by The Library Company, Philadelphia, PA, where the portrait is housed.

1784, confronted Protestant accusations that they witlessly served an autocratic, anti-American authority in Rome by refusing to accede entirely to
church hierarchy. Content to leave spiritual matters to the clergy, socially
savvy immigrants, who arrived during the 1780s and 1790s, were especially
clever in claiming a sibling relationship with Anglo-American Christian
republicans by virtue of their common political heritage and sought democratic reforms within their church, such as petitioning for the use of vernacular liturgy and the right of laity to appoint and dismiss their priests.
On the other hand, Carey correctly feared, in light of the 1822 Easter riot,
that the majority of Philadelphia’s Catholic clergy and their conservative
followers might attempt to thwart such audacious demands with violence.
Therefore, for more than a decade before the upheaval at St. Mary’s, he
admonished that any push for democratic change within the church be
tempered with a “combination of reason, common sense, and religion.”2
2. Friederike Baer explores similar divisions within Philadelphia’s Lutheran community: The Trial of Frederick Eberle (New York, 2008). Accounts of challenges to Irish assimilation: Maurice J. Bric, “The Irish Immigrant and the Broadening of the Polity in Philadel-

KAREN KAUFFMAN

483

Like America’s first bishop and archbishop, John Carroll, who was
hopeful that because of the Revolution, Catholics “had acquired equal
rights and privileges with that of other Christians,” Carey viewed constitutional guarantees of increased equality as opportunities to end the type of
religious tyranny he had experienced in Ireland. Also like Carroll, he promoted the compatibility of Catholic culture with republican values. But
Carey equally sensed that the world was watching how the “wild” Irish
were faring in the American political experiment. Desperate to erase English portrayals of his countrymen as superstitious barbarians, he frequently
elevated their image to Protestants by touting vigorous Irish Catholic commitment to Enlightenment ideals and urged fellow immigrants to appear
as refined Americans, even going so far as to wish that the Irish-born
Bishop, John England, would learn to speak without “the most offensive
brogue” he ever heard. Counseling members at St. Mary’s through a series
of published pamphlets to end their feuding, Carey defied the assumption
that Catholics knew little scripture by frequently interweaving Old and
New Testament verses into his literary pieces to remind parishioners that
“every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every
city or house divided against itself, shall not stand” (Matthew 12:25).
Unfortunately, his attempts to cultivate peace within his own parish as well
as greater esteem between Catholics and other Christians failed with the
1822 Easter free-for-all. And many Philadelphians came to agree with one
Protestant’s denunciation that “when the Catholics turned their temple . . .
into a place of tumult, riot, and bloodshed,” they proved a “disgrace to the
name and cause of religion,” and provided evidence that members of this
“sect, who professed to be governed by a powerful and infallible head,”
were not only barbaric, but anti-republican as well.3

phia, 1790–1800,” in Eliga H. Gould and Peter S. Onuf, eds., Empire and Nation (Baltimore,
2005), 159–77; Jay P. Dolan, The Irish Americans: A History (New York, 2008); Kerby A.
Miller, Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America (New York, 1985).
[Carey], To the Members of St. Mary’s (1814).
3. Thomas O’Brien Hanley, S.J., ed., The John Carroll Papers (Notre Dame, 1976),
1:156–57. Dolores Liptak, R.S.M., Immigrants and Their Church (New York, 1989), 3–12.
For English opinions of Irish “backwardness”: Nicholas P. Canny, “The Marginal Kingdom:
Ireland as a Problem in the First British Empire,” in Bernard Bailyn and Philip D. Morgan,
Strangers within the Realm: Cultural Margins of the First British Empire (Chapel Hill, 1991),
35–66. Carey emended British accounts of Irish history in his book, Vindiciae Hibernicae
(Philadelphia, 1819). Carey Diary, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, (hereafter, HSP), July
14, 1830. A Catholic Layman [Mathew Carey], Address to the Right Reverend Bishop of Pennsylvania and the Members of St. Mary’s Congregation (Philadelphia, December 21, 1820) in
Library Company of Philadelphia’s, Mathew Carey’s, Miscellanies, 37. Connelly, ed., History
of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, 96.

484

‘NO FAIR CLAIM TO THE CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANS’

Because of such criticism Carey lamented not only the typical condemnation of his countrymen but also the failure of his Christian “brethren
to dwell together in unity.” Fearing that a breakdown of sentimental connections among not only his fellow parishioners at St. Mary’s but all white
Christians would diminish the nation, Carey urged citizens to embrace
eighteenth-century sensibility or shared sympathy in his publications to
eliminate denominational divisions. But by the late 1820s, as more Protestants came to view Catholics as aliens to the political ideals of the republic,
Carey found spiritual unity based upon mutual respect and compassion
greatly diminished. And yet, within the increasingly strident anti-Catholicism of the period, he dared to exalt empathic emotion even further by
demanding the rescue of certain outcasts with whom he viscerally identified. This Catholic outsider’s public appeals on behalf of some of America’s
most vulnerable citizens, especially marginalized white women and their
children, attempted to contribute to the notable reform efforts of the
Second Great Awakening. Intertwining the dictates of eighteenth-century
literary sentimentality with elements of nineteenth-century, biblically
based evangelical Christianity, Carey offers an example that the religious
fervor of the era was more than a movement fueled solely by Protestant
revivalists. In addition, by utilizing his extensive literary platform, his pleas
on behalf of the oppressed show how one who had emerged from the religious periphery of American society pushed for the rights of other outsiders by challenging aspects of Protestant-dominated benevolence.4
From 1828 until his death in 1839, Carey remained particularly appalled
by the trials of white seamstresses; through dozens of pamphlets which he
widely distributed throughout the northeast, his moral exhortations to assist
them stood in stark contrast with certain Philadelphia Protestants’ demands
that those suffering prove their worthiness before charity would be granted.
Carey proposed that even if poor women did require spiritual refinement,
they first needed to be delivered from their physical desperation and offered
viable opportunities to improve their lives. Otherwise, he admonished, those
who sought to reform them would be as “miserable comforters!! As Job found
4. A Catholic Layman [Mathew Carey], To the Members of St. Mary’s: On the Banks of
the Rubicon (Philadelphia, May 10, 1821). Library Company of Philadelphia’s, Carey’s, Miscellanies, 43. Here, Carey encouraged fellow parishioners to “negotiate for peace” by employing Christian compassion. For varying views on how sensibility influenced early American
culture: G. J. Barker-Benfield, Abigail and John Adams: The Americanization of Sensibility
(Chicago, 2010); Andrew Burstein, Sentimental Democracy: The Evolution of America’s Romantic Self-Image (New York, 1999); Sarah Knott, Sensibility and the American Revolution (Chapel
Hill, 2009); David Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American
Nationalism, 1776–1820 (Chapel Hill, 1997).

KAREN KAUFFMAN

485

in Eliphaz, the Temanite, and Bildad, the Shuhite.” His pleas for “boundless”
Christian empathy, which he extended to Protestants and Catholics alike,
embodied a departure from judgment-based benevolence. Asking all Americans to view their own humanity through the lives of the suffering, Carey’s
appeals were important attempts to employ religious sensibility to redeem
the assurances of equality inspired by the American Revolution.5
Believing that Christ belongs to all people, Carey interpreted the
Gospel’s commission to care for the abused and neglected by trying to reach
those suffering on the margins of society with non-conditional charity. Like
many of his Protestant contemporaries, who also were “self-conscious outsiders,” Carey challenged (but did not seek to overturn) religious hierarchies
which remained indifferent to the challenges of common people, especially
the poor. But his democratic pleas of sympathetic compassion differed profoundly from important evangelicals of the era like Lyman Beecher who
tended to focus censure on the “Sabbath-breakers, rum-selling tippling folk,
infidels, and ruff-scuff generally.” Within the contentious religious climate
against Catholics, Carey, in contrast, not only advocated a Christian egalitarianism that encompassed those judged harshly by many Protestants, he
also preached that the sins of some of society’s most important men and
women, who were guilty of “grinding the faces of the poor,” were the ones
chiefly responsible for tarnishing America’s promises of justice. As increasing numbers of citizens came to believe that America was an exceptional
Christian nation and, at times, violently debated whether Protestantism was
the “true” religion of Christ, Carey condemned all Christians, regardless of
denomination, who failed to extend biblical concern for the oppressed.
Repeatedly he proclaimed that the truest definition of a Christian is “[o]ne
who not only makes a profession of, but carries into practice, the rules
promulgated by . . . Jesus Christ, who as strongly anathemized a want of
charity, as theft, adultery, or murder.” This Irish Catholic declared that the
true nature of a Christian and the character of a Christian nation lay not in
the intricacies of denominational distinction but in the disinterested performance of good works as a manifestation of righteousness.6

5. Mathew Carey, Reflections on the System of the Union Benevolent Association (Philadelphia, October 12, 1837), 12, Carey’s italics, 13.
6. Nathan O. Hatch describes the religious populism of the early nineteenth century as
led by “young [Protestant] men of relentless energy who [were] self-conscious outsiders.” The
Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven, 1989), 4. Lyman Beecher, Autobiography of Lyman Beecher, ed. Barbara M. Cross (Cambridge, 1961), 1:251. For an overview of the
contentious relations between Protestants and Catholics in the early republic: Jon Gjerde,
Catholicism and the Shaping of Nineteenth-Century America, ed. S. Deborah Kang (Cambridge,

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‘NO FAIR CLAIM TO THE CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANS’

Even though he worked throughout his career to convince fellow citizens of that claim, Carey always deeply felt marginalized as a Catholic. A
permanent, debilitating limp, which he acquired in early childhood, made
him feel set apart as well. As he penned his Autography in his 70s, he clearly
was able to recall being teased by his playmates about his disability. Memories of their “taunts, jeers, and nicknames” reminded him of “a misfortune of
which [he] felt the disadvantage almost every day of [his] life.” A self-professed victim of circumstance, Carey also never forgot the loneliness of arriving in Philadelphia in 1784 as a twenty-four-year-old fugitive from Irish law
“without relation, or friend, or even without an acquaintance” and with only
“about a dozen guineas in [his] pocket.” But he prevailed by investing hope
in Thomas Paine’s claim that “the cause of America is in a great measure the
cause of all mankind” and he eagerly sought a sanctuary of kindred spirits
whose sympathetic humanity would enfold disadvantaged foreigners like
him within their infant republic. As he joined with other upwardly mobile
parishioners at St. Mary’s he began to make important business and social
connections, which soon included many prominent Protestants as well.7
Since Carey cared little for doctrinal differences, he easily forged Protestant associations and even joined with them in certain communal projects.
But he also believed that to be Irish was to be Catholic, and he proudly
accepted his maligned religion as an inextricable part of his identity as a
disadvantaged foreigner. Yet, despite his public worship at St. Mary’s, the
young Irishman left scant evidence in his struggles to gain national prominence that he relied on Christ, the Virgin Mary, or any of the saints to
direct his steps. Placing his most ardent faith in the creed of civic humanism, he believed that biblical “heroes” merely provided admirable examples
of disinterested self-sacrifice. And in his ascent to acclaim and prosperity
he never missed an opportunity to convince others, and perhaps even to
assure himself, that as a religious outsider he possessed extraordinary
republican virtue, proclaiming that “others may have exceeded me in abilities—but none did [more] to promote the public good.”8
2012). Mathew Carey, “What is a Christian?” in A Solemn Address to the Citizens of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1835). Mathew Carey, Address to the Wealthy of the Land (Philadelphia,
April 20, 1831), Title page. Early American republicans prized “disinterestedness” as self-sacrifice and the sublimation of one’s own interests for the good of the whole.
7. Mathew Carey, Autobiography (repr., New York, 1942), 3, 10. Carey had been convicted of seditious libel for condemning English abuse of Irish Catholics. Thomas Paine,
Common Sense (repr., New York, 1986), 63.
8. Mathew Carey, Diary, University of Pennsylvania Rare Book Room, November 4,
1825. Here, Carey described admiration for the biblical “hero” Joseph, who forgave his brothers’ cruelty. While most Carey diaries (1787–1830) are housed at HSP, lacunae exist. The

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Remaining indifferent to Catholic dogma he did, in his later years,
come to view Christ as an ally in his benevolence and develop strong spiritual ties with many church leaders. But he remained easily offended, especially by those in power, and could petulantly lash out at God’s supposed
representatives within Catholicism as caustically as any Protestant detractor. Criticizing the intellectual shallowness of certain priests within his
diary by mocking their homilies as dull and railing at their obsession with
the sexual purity of the saints, Carey equally found fault with the hierarchy.
When he managed not to doze during their sermons, he recorded how
Bishop John England’s delivery was “tedious and fraught with repetitions,”
and criticized the manner in which Bishop Henry Conwell (the one who
allegedly intended to club rebellious parishioners into submission) “murdered the Latin.”9
While he privately condemned certain members of “the pulpit” for
lack of sensitivity and republican vision, the young publisher began to
develop strong emotional connections with many of the nation’s political
leaders. And not a few acclaimed architects of American liberty facilitated
his odyssey from poverty to prosperity and social distinction. After seeking
refuge in Paris in 1781 with American minister, Benjamin Franklin, who
helped him hone his printing skills, Carey found that shortly after he
arrived in Philadelphia, the Marquis de Lafayette, who had learned of his
flight from Ireland, had forwarded an unsolicited gift of $400 to enable
him to launch his first publishing venture. While his newspaper, The Pennsylvania Evening Herald, quickly failed and he abandoned work on the
Columbian Magazine, his next magazine, the American Museum (1787–
1792), earned national praise from such regionally diverse, distinguished
citizens as John Dickinson, Dr. Benjamin Rush, Reverend Timothy
Dwight, and President George Washington, who claimed that “a more
useful literary plan had never been undertaken in America.” These founders
endorsed Carey’s Museum not only because the magazine “disseminated
political, agricultural, philosophical, and other valuable information,” but
also because it emotionally united citizens through commemoration of
nationally shared experiences, providing what one scholar describes as a
“model and means to sensibility.”10

diary at the University of Pennsylvania covers, December 1822–September 1826. Mathew
Carey, An Address of M. Carey to the Public (Philadelphia, 1794), 3.
9. Carey, Diary, HSP, December 28, 1828; July 14, 1830; April 29, 1821.
10. Carey used “the pulpit” to describe Protestant as well as Catholic clergy. Carey,
Autobiography, 23. Knott, Sensibility and the American Revolution, 217.

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‘NO FAIR CLAIM TO THE CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANS’

Despite elite patronage, however, Carey wrestled with deep feelings of
inadequacy. Particularly sensitive to any slight against his fellow Irish
Catholics, he joined with other recent immigrants to form The Hibernian
Society (1790) to elevate his indigent countrymen. Often divided into disparate ethnic groups, early republican Catholics struggled to unite in their
philanthropy. Since most benevolent societies formed before 1840 were
parish-based enterprises, Carey’s initial charitable contributions reflected the
parochialism of the time. While he eventually expanded his efforts by
attempting to form the universal Society for Bettering the Condition of
Indigent Catholics in 1830, he ultimately sought to elevate all white marginalized Christians, regardless of denomination. But before he could construct
such an ecumenical platform, he first needed to assimilate into dominant
Protestant culture. As a man on the rise, Carey was aware that he lacked
appropriate polish and strove to overcome a deficient formal education by
reading voraciously on a wide range of subjects and developing a working
facility in Latin, Spanish, Italian, and French. But early in his career he
learned that some Americans could reject individuals who tried to climb the
social ladder without the correct pedigrees. In reaction, the young printer
occasionally allowed his carefully crafted façade of urbanity to slip, revealing
a mercurial temper which flared when others ridiculed his ethnicity.11
The most dramatic instance occurred two years after he arrived in
Philadelphia and was endeavoring to establish his magazines. When rival
publisher, Colonel Eleazer Oswald abused Carey and other recent immigrants with the religiously defamatory label, “foreign renegadoes,” and
poked fun at Carey’s deformed leg, the young printer demanded that
Oswald give him satisfaction. Never mind that duels in this era were traditionally between social equals and that the Colonel was a Revolutionary
War veteran, while Carey had no experience whatsoever with firearms.
Even when Oswald offered “an overture for an accommodation,” he
refused to back down. Believing that he would be an easy target like a
“crow standing alone in a field,” Carey more deeply feared that “the world”
11. Aaron Sullivan illustrates that private groups like the Hibernian Society administered assistance with non-judgmental compassion: “‘That Charity which begins at Home’:
Ethnic Societies and Benevolence in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (October 2010), 305–37. Carey remained committed to that
practice. Mary J. Oates, The Catholic Philanthropic Tradition in America (Indianapolis, 1995),
8. Carey, Diary, HSP, June 18, 1830. Study of foreign languages tended to elevate one’s
public image. For example, Jefferson was admired at the Continental Congress when others
realized that the Virginian had learned French, Italian, Spanish, and intended to learn
German. Robert M.S. McDonald, Confounding Father: Thomas Jefferson’s Image in His Own
Time (Charlottesville, 2016), 14.

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would judge him a coward for failing to prove his manhood. As expected,
the inexperienced Irishman missed his mark entirely; the Colonel’s bullet,
however, lodged in Carey’s crippled leg, causing a wound so severe that he
nearly lost his limb. As he slowly recuperated over 16 months, he labored
to maintain his fledgling publishing career. At one point in his recovery
Carey contemplated ending his life. After recording in his diary, “Reflect
on Suicide. Horrible thought,” he attempted “to procure a case of pistols”;
but finding himself so ashamed of that grim intention, he left the store
after buying only a pair of black socks.12
While young Carey’s reactions to distressing events were occasionally
overblown, his flirtation with death seemed to temper his volatility with a
desire to forge sympathetic connections even with those who mistreated
him. Hoping ultimately to inspire empathy for other outcasts who suffered,
he realized he must refine himself as well as establish affectionate ties with
influential men—despite religious, political, or regional differences. And
he quickly began that process by seeking reconciliation with—of all
people—the man who shot him. To the horror of his Irish Catholic supporters, Carey publicly absolved Oswald of all wrongdoing. From then on,
he generally employed print culture to encourage all white citizens to seek
sentimental common ground.13
In keeping with the founding generation’s commitment to disinterested self-sacrifice, Carey counseled Americans how to set aside personal
animus when it ran counter to the public good. In the mid-1790s he
embarked upon a collaboration with legendary biographer of the founders,
“Parson” Mason Weems to strengthen patriotic ties as well as to make a
profit. As his firm published and disseminated Weems’ inflated examples
of the founding fathers’ disinterested virtue, Carey especially hoped that
12. Carey, Autobiography, 12–16. As the editor of Philadelphia’s, Independent Gazetteer,
Oswald equated Catholics with dreaded Muslims. Christine Leigh Heyrman explains that
“[renegadoes] was what Western Christians called those who deserted their faith for Islam.”
American Apostles: When Evangelicals Entered the World of Islam (New York, 2015), 150. Joanne
B. Freeman examines dueling within the new American political world. Affairs of Honor: National
Politics in the New Republic (New Haven, 2001). Carey, Diary, HSP, January 1–17, 1787.
13. Pennsylvania Packet, January 20, 1786. Carey’s struggles to prove his manhood
resembled those of other eighteenth-century Philadelphia merchants: Toby L. Ditz, “Shipwrecked: or, Masculinity Imperiled; Mercantile Representations of Failure and the Gendered
Self in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia,” Journal of American History (June 1994), 51–80.
One glaring lapse in Carey’s commitment to rational discourse occurred when William Cobbett implicated Carey and other Irishmen in political conspiracy. His vituperative, A Plumb
Pudding for . . . Peter Porcupine (Philadelphia, January 16, 1799) and The Porcupinard: A Hudibrastic Poem (Philadelphia, March 2, 1799) attempted to silence Cobbett.

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‘NO FAIR CLAIM TO THE CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANS’

when white Americans imitated their lofty characteristics, outsiders like
him could more easily achieve full acceptance into republican society.
Always striving to encourage sentimental connections among citizens, his
fame increased as he worked to restore sectional unity at the height of the
War of 1812 and earned national acclaim for one of his most commercially
successful publications: The Olive Branch: Or . . . A Serious Appeal on the
Necessity of Forgiveness and Harmony.14
In his desire for sympathy and mutual respect among citizens, Carey
began early in his literary career to promote the basic tenets of Christianity
as essential emotional adhesives to create a more inclusive republic. Believing that biblical truths would instill “moral duties [to the nation] as well as
religious principles,” he urged “liberal-minded” Protestants in 1790 to connect sentimentally with Catholics in daring them to prove that “they are
superior to wretched . . . contemptible prejudice” by purchasing his publication of the first Douai Bible (an English version of the Latin vulgate for
Roman Catholics) in the United States. Within two decades Carey became
the leading publisher of all Bibles printed in predominantly Protestant
America. Hoping to realize the cohesive benefits of universal Christian
education for disadvantaged children, he also linked with a group of twelve
prominent Protestant men, including Reverend William White and Dr.
Benjamin Rush, to form the Philadelphia Sunday School Society, which
inspired similar groups throughout the United States.15

14. Steven Watts, “Masks, Morals, and the Market: American Literature and Early
Capitalistic Culture, 1790–1820,” Journal of the Early Republic (Summer 1986), 127–49.
Watts describes Weems as “an amiable moralist,” who sought a fortune from his didactic
works, 137. Weems advised Carey to present religion as “dulcified as possible” for increased
sales as well as to encourage disinterested virtue. R. Laurence Moore, Selling God: American
Religion in the Marketplace of Culture (Oxford, 1994), 21. Carey always believed that “laudable
actions should be brought forward as conspicuously . . . as possible to arouse and perpetuate
a noble emulation . . . of virtue.” Annals of Liberality, Generosity, Public Spirit, &c. (Philadelphia, May 1, 1834), 4. Carey’s Olive Branch was “the most widely read political book since
Common Sense.” James Green, Mathew Carey: Publisher and Patriot (32-page booklet,
Philadelphia, 1985), 28.
15. Mathew Carey to Dr. [John] Carroll, March 27, 1791. HSP. Mathew Carey, An
Address to the Subscribers for the Doway Translation of the Vulgate Bible (Philadelphia, 1790).
Detailed examination of Carey’s publication of this Bible: Michael S. Carter, “‘Under the
Benign Sun of Toleration’: Mathew Carey, the Douai Bible, and Catholic Print Culture,
1789–1791,” Journal of the Early Republic (2007), 437–69. David Paul Nord, Faith in Reading:
Religion, Publishing and the Birth of Mass Media in America (Oxford, 2004), 45. Carey assumed
a leadership role in a virtually exclusive Protestant enterprise. For the rise of the institution:
Anne M. Boylan, Sunday School: The Formation of an American Institution, 1790-1880 (New
Haven, 1988).

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But Carey always insisted that sentimental identification among citizens be anchored in the conviction that white outsiders possessed the intelligence, moral probity, and tenacity to overcome their afflictions. In one of
his earliest publications he illustrated his point by celebrating the life of the
famed Revolutionary War general, Nathanael Greene. A Protestant,
Greene nonetheless was, like Carey, socially disadvantaged, lacking the
formal education to propel him into prominence. And Greene also shared
with Carey the misfortune of a physical disability that left him hobbled for
life. Yet, the general became a venerated war hero and an example to
Americans in similar situations that they could contribute to the new
republic if offered opportunities to prove their worth.16
With the turn of the nineteenth century, as Americans inclined
toward competitive market capitalism and aggressive political rivalries,
Carey continued to proffer examples of how tender emotion could prevail
over prejudice. And he was not shy to exhibit himself as a model of sympathy. For example, while he despised the English in general, the Irish
publisher described his commiseration with John Fullerton an English
actor “of decent deportment and deep sensibility,” who drowned himself in
the Delaware River after “ferocious critics” ridiculed him in the papers.
Acknowledging that “professional talents” were fair game for analysis in
the public arena, he cried shame on those who “delight to torture the feelings of the performers . . . and wickedly assail their private character” and
emphasized that “even when censure is really necessary, it ought to be
delivered with delicacy.” Given his own contemplation of suicide, Carey
empathized with the desperation that drove Fullerton to “self-murder” and
implored the actor’s critics to imagine their “own sensations” if they were
publicly “dragged forward and abused.”17
Reflecting his generation’s ideals, Carey especially relied on white feminine virtue to promote the shared sympathy he desired among citizens. While
16. Carey remembered in his Autobiography, 21, that he celebrated Greene in his first
essay of the Columbian Magazine (Philadelphia, October 1786).
17. Mathew Carey, Desultory Reflections, Excited by the Recent Calamitous Fate of John
Fullerton (Philadelphia, February 8, 1802), 1–24. For incompatibility between nineteenthcentury masculinity and eighteenth-century sympathetic feeling: Bruce Dorsey, Reforming
Men and Women: Gender in the Antebellum City (Ithaca, 2002); E. Anthony Rotundo, American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity from the Revolution to the Modern Era (New
York, 1993). Amy S. Greenberg describes characteristics of nineteenth-century “restrained
manhood” as “successful, morally upright, reliable, and brave.” Manifest Manhood and the
Antebellum American Empire (Cambridge, 2005), 12. While Carey exhibited those qualities,
he also retained the emotionalism of sensibility.

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‘NO FAIR CLAIM TO THE CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANS’

silent on female political and property rights, Carey declared in his American
Museum that women retained “superior sensibility in their souls,” and his
praise of their exquisitely compassionate feelings was sufficiently compelling
that editors of other respected periodicals reprinted his writings. While
instrumental in touting the broadly accepted conviction that feminine emotional influence was essential for American refinement, Carey, unlike most of
his male peers, suggested that women’s vigorous reason also could contribute
to the nation’s virtue. And he credited strong-willed, intelligent women as
those who most profoundly enhanced his own personal development.18
Carey remembered his mother as “the most important person to
inspire [his] public spirit,” but he also greatly admired his wife of nearly
forty years, Bridget Flahavan, for her extraordinary compassion. Others
shared his opinion, such as noted editor and publisher Hezekiah Niles,
who remembered the mother of Carey’s nine children as “a ministering
angel to the sick and the poor.” But Carey equally celebrated Bridget as a
wisely perceptive political ally and praised her “prudent counsel” as he fashioned his public career. His sister, the twice-widowed, Margaret Carey
Murphey Burke provided him an example of a woman’s resiliency and a
model of virtuous self-sufficiency in a precarious world. While the siblings
frequently quarreled over family issues, Carey supported his sister immediately after the deaths of her two husbands. Margaret later taught in and
administered several Catholic schools, earning the reputation as a competent and respected single woman, who required no further financial assistance from her famous brother.19
Carey understood, however, that not all Irish widows were as fortunate as his sister. In 1796 he wrote his first call to compassion for them,

18. Ruth H. Bloch found Carey’s, “Comparison of the Sexes,” American Museum (January 1789) reprinted in the Christian Scholar’s and Farmer’s Magazine (April and May, 1789)
and Lady’s Magazine (August, 1792). “The Gendered Meanings of Virtue in Revolutionary
America,” Signs (1987), 25. Carey’s influence was extensive. “Of all the hundreds of . . . late
eighteenth-century American publishers only Carey’s firm survived into the nineteenth century.” Cathy N. Davidson, Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America (New
York, 1986), 77. Sarah Knott, “Benjamin Rush’s Ferment: Enlightenment Medicine and
Female Citizenship in Revolutionary America,” in Sarah Knott and Barbara Taylor, eds.,
Women, Gender and Enlightenment, (New York, 2005), 649–66, for how Carey’s associate
accorded women superior sensibility but also poorer reason than men.
19. Carey, Diary, HSP, August 13, 1831. Carey, Autobiography, 24. Hezekiah Niles,
Niles’ Weekly Register (Baltimore, 1829), vol. 37, Whole Number 944, 120–21, October 17,
1829. Six of Carey’s children lived to adulthood. Kerby A. Miller, et al., eds., Irish Immigrants
in the Land of Canaan: Letters and Memoirs from Colonial and Revolutionary America, 1675–
1815 (Oxford, 2003), 349–62.

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telling the tale of his visit to the dilapidated cottage of a “sober, honest, and
exemplarily industrious,” gardener, Timothy Cavenough, who broke his
neck while picking cherries for his employer. Employing literary sentimentalism, Carey implored, “the Sons and Daughters of Humanity to check
not your tears, tender readers—Let them flow freely,” at the condition of
Timothy’s poor widow, Elizabeth, and their children, one of whom was
physically disabled. Praising her resolve to prevail honorably, Carey
emphasized that, far from requiring any self-righteous piety, Elizabeth
Cavenough already had achieved spiritual salvation and “possessed her own
Christian marks of refinement.” By portraying that she and members of the
Irish working class were as morally virtuous as what their social betters
believed themselves to be, he urged all citizens to identify with one another
so that the character of those who administered charity, as well as those
who received it, would be refined.20
But Carey never advocated such religiously sentimental connections
with African Americans. While he rarely mentioned blacks privately, his
infamous portrayals of African Americans during the nation’s worst yellow
fever epidemic displayed why he believed that blacks never would develop
into equal partners in forging a compassionate republic. In his best-selling,
A Short Account of the Malignant Fever (1793), Carey praised the “brave
self-sacrifice” of non-English immigrants like him and the disabled
Frenchman, Stephen Girard, who became one of the early republic’s most
noted philanthropists. Telling how he had been called away on business at
the onset of the fever, Carey explained that he later returned to Philadelphia at the height of the crisis to join “a band of brothers,” who endangered
their own lives to care for the victims. And yet, at the end of his life the
entrepreneur recalled that “the most tranquil and happy hours of [his] existence were passed during the prevalence of this pestilence . . . [for he was]
wholly free from the cares of business—had no money to borrow—no
notes to pay.” Proffering himself as an example of compassion within this
medical emergency, he displayed how sympathy for the disadvantaged
could mitigate the callousness of the evolving national marketplace.21

20. [Mathew Carey] Fragment: Addressed to the Sons and Daughters of Humanity. By a
Citizen of the World (Philadelphia, July 20, 1796), 3–8. Emphasis added. Throughout his
career Carey worked to debunk the stereotype of “drunken Irishmen.”
21. Carey’s narrative, which established his fortune, rapidly went through four editions:
A Short Account of the Malignant Fever, Lately Prevalent in Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1793–
94). Gary Nash claims that Carey initially fled in fear for his life. Forging Freedom: The Formation of Philadelphia’s Black Community, 1720–1840 (Cambridge, 1988), 125. Carey, Autobiography, 27.

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But his narrative also illustrated how he believed that blacks could not
or would not perform similarly. Utilizing discussion of female virtue to support his point, he highlighted how a “courageous [probably, Irish] servant
girl,” helped to “bury a corpse, crawling with maggots,” because no one else
would touch the body. Marveling at the magnitude of the young white
woman’s disinterested service, Carey, on the other hand, accused African
American nurses, whom he labeled “some of the vilest blacks,” of stealing
from the sick and dying and demanding exorbitant prices for their care. Portraying black women as cruelly avaricious, he cast doubt whether free blacks
could contribute to the emotional and spiritual refinement of America.22
When noted African American clergymen, Absalom Jones and
Richard Allen, condemned Carey’s charges, he replied that he had mentioned good deeds by individuals. But his opinion of the entire African
American community never changed. Believing that blacks lacked inherent
emotional sensitivity to unite with whites, he eventually viewed colonization as the answer to “the great increase of a caste which is by custom cut
off from all chance of amalgamation with fellow beings of a different
colour.” Near the end of his life Carey advocated the removal of free
African Americans from the nation, fearing that the expanding black population would corrupt America’s moral character.23
By the early 1820s, however, Carey became increasingly challenged to
convince Protestants that Irish Catholics would not similarly debase the
republic. In the afterglow of his generally well-received 1819, Vindiciae
Hibernicae, in which he emended English derogatory portrayals of the Irish,
Carey labored to contend with the fallout from the 1822 Easter riot at St.
Mary’s. In the wake of allegations of Irish barbarism, he exposed a “wanton
case of cruel oppression” against his maligned countrymen. In 1825, when
men from some of America’s “finest [Protestant] families” refused to join in
22. Carey, A Short Account, 25, 68.
23. Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People
during the late Awful Calamity . . . (Philadelphia, 1794). Carey, An Address of M. Carey, 5. Any
chance for “real sensibility” between the two races appeared slim after this pamphlet exchange.
Richard S. Newman, Freedom’s Prophet: Bishop Richard Allen, the AME Church, and the Black
Founding Fathers (New York, 2009), 78–127. Philip Gould discusses how the epidemic negatively affected the “economics of citizenship” for blacks: Barbaric Tra
slavery in the 18th-Century Atlantic World (Cambridge, 2003), 152–89. Mathew Carey, Letters
on the Colonization Society (Philadelphia, April 26, 1832), Letter IV, “Increase of the Coloured
Population.” Jay Fliegelman discusses Jefferson’s similar belief that blacks felt fewer empathic
emotions than whites: Declaring Independence: Jefferson, Natural Language, & the Culture of
Performance (Stanford, 1993), 192–93.

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his condemnation of the managers of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal
for not paying their contractor and his 700, mostly Irish men, Carey exhibited righteous indignation in a pamphlet denouncing such “unfeeling and
inhuman” indifference. Indicting elites for their lack of sensibility, Carey
sought to inspire public sympathy for the oppressed laborers “in the name
and presence of the Living God of justice and mercy.”24
By the end of the decade Carey’s idealistic vision of a compassionately
interconnected Christian nation dimmed significantly. Roman Catholic
peasants, who were becoming a stream of Irish immigrants unaccustomed to
urban life, struggled just to survive within a Philadelphia economy that had
never fully recovered from the Panic of 1819. Hard pressed to know how to
ease their assimilation, Carey was challenged more than ever in his pleas for
mutual respect and understanding. In 1828 armed hostilities between nativeborn Americans and poor laborers in the Irish neighborhood of Kensington
may have been the catalyst that frightened him into believing that many citizens had grown away from the republic’s founding principles. And he feared
that religion, which he earlier viewed as an essential adhesive to bind the
nation, now served as a wedge which violently divided its people.
While most Americans in this period agreed with noted Protestant
clergymen such as Carey’s associate, Ezra Stiles Ely, who proclaimed
America an exceptional Christian nation, they held increasingly distinct
Protestant and Catholic visions of American providence. As influential
ministers like Lyman Beecher and Alexander Campbell portrayed the
“popish religion as utterly incompatible with American freedom,” Catholic
priests felt compelled to respond. By the early 1830s, well-known Protestant and Catholic clergy began to engage in a series of debates, which
examined whether each religion was “Inimical to Civil and Religious Liberty.” Drawing sometimes riotous crowds throughout the northeast and
mid-west, these exchanges eventually were published in 1836 by Carey’s
son, who managed the firm after Mathew retired in 1822.25
Yet, the elder Carey hoped to allay the bitter doctrinal wrangling of
the era and instead called Americans to focus their religious energies in
recapturing the Revolution’s spirit of disinterested virtue and sensibility
within the Gospel’s demands for social justice. Not willing to conciliate
anyone, regardless of denomination, who disregarded the plight of the
24. Mathew Carey, Exhibit of the Shocking Oppression and Injustice Suffered for Sixteen
Months by John Randel, Esq., (Philadelphia, October 12, 1825), 4–5.
25. Gjerde, Catholicism and the Shaping of Nineteenth-Century America, 45–49; 61–63.

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‘NO FAIR CLAIM TO THE CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANS’

oppressed, this elder Roman Catholic, who once casually intertwined his
faith with civic humanism, now embraced the evangelical fervor of the
Protestants’ Second Great Awakening. While it is unclear whether he
experienced a spiritual conversion, Carey did travel extensively during the
1820s throughout the “Burned-Over-District” of New York, where evangelicalism flourished. And by the end of the decade he began to utilize his
extensive literary network as effectively as any zealot to preach to citizens
that their personal and national salvation would be decided by imitating
Christ’s own compassionate care of the unfortunate.26
The Protestant revivals of the 1820s and 30s, inspired by the belief in
the perfectibility of mankind, launched a wide array of reform movements,
which came to be known collectively as the benevolent empire. Catholics,
while disapproving of the excessive emotion of the revivals themselves,
labeling them “heathenish” assemblies, and fearing that Protestant benevolent groups would attempt to convert them, nonetheless also eagerly sought
to help the disadvantaged. Yet, the nascent American Catholic Church, still
hampered by the lack of ethnic cohesion and that fact that many congregants were themselves poor, had no overarching agency to assist the downtrodden before the 1840s. Understanding those limitations, Carey asked
individual priests to preach on the need for benevolence to their respective
parishes. But as he became more familiar with the devastation of poverty,
he launched a national charitable crusade which transcended denominational boundaries, appealing to Protestants and Catholics alike.27
While serving as one of Philadelphia’s Guardians of the Poor in 1828,
Carey discovered thousands of female garment workers suffering because
they could not provide for their basic needs. Seeking to understand how
these hard-working women slipped into dependence, he found that while
some were forced to become their families’ sole breadwinners due to their
26. Carey exhibited four basic characteristics of an evangelical: biblicism, crucicentrism,
conversionism, activism. David W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: History
from 1730s–1980s (London, 1989), 2–3. Carey’s exhortations resembled Charles G. Finney’s.
For the religious fervor of the era and Finney’s style: Donald G. Mathews, “The Second Great
Awakening as an Organizing Process,” American Quarterly (1969), 23–43; William G.
McLoughlin, Modern Revivalism: Charles Grandison Finney to Billy Graham (New York,
1959). Carey initially commingled secular references from Shakespeare, Aesop’s Fables, and
Greek and Roman civilizations with scripture, but less so as his crusade progressed.
27. Jay P. Dolan, Catholic Revivalism: The American Experience, 1830–1900 (Notre
Dame, 1978), 11. Oates, The Catholic Philanthropic Tradition, 7–8. Carey financially
attempted to lure priests to address the evils of poverty, offering to be “one of ten individuals
to raise $200 for the purpose of paying for four or five sermons” on the subject. Carey, Diary,
HSP, April 16, 1830.

KAREN KAUFFMAN

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husbands’ long-term unemployment, the overwhelming number was comprised of widows with young children. Finding many of the most destitute
workers, those who did piece work as seamstresses, spoolers, spinners, and
laundresses, residing in Philadelphia’s Irish neighborhoods, Carey
announced that single women and their families also suffered in other sections of the city. Indeed, it appears that the widespread economic devastation of the era respected neither ethnicity nor religion, striking vulnerable
women from a variety of backgrounds. Even when they labored 17-hour
days, they found their wages so low that after paying for rent and fuel they
could barely clothe and feed their families. No wonder many perished
during the winter. Public relief was too paltry to save them, susceptible as
they were to contagious diseases in their slums or the almshouse. Crying
out that their desperation was “revolting to every honourable and humane
feeling,” Carey intended to show through dozens of self-published pamphlets, broadsides, and letters to editors of major northeastern newspapers
that the female laborers deserved Christian compassion. And if citizens
permitted such worthy women to suffer and die, their American republic
would not endure. In that claim, he met firm opposition.28
Since the late eighteenth century, Americans increasingly blurred the
distinction between the deserving poor: widows, orphans, the sick, and
aged with the underserving: paupers with disreputable habits. Carey was
forced, therefore, to go to great lengths to prove that the seamstresses suffered only because of circumstances, not vice. Portraying them as “widows
of men once in opulence” or those “who formerly lived in ease and affluence,” he emphasized that the female workers fell into poverty only because
of economic calamity and that previously they had epitomized the ideal of
domesticity within stable and prosperous families. Now, he claimed, these
worthy women “fainted from exhaustion over their children’s cradles with
no food or fuel to sustain them.”29

28. Guardians of the Poor determined the worthiness of the indigent. An overview of
early public assistance: Priscilla F. Clement, Welfare and the Poor in the Nineteenth-Century
City: Philadelphia, 1800–1854 (Rutherford, NJ, 1985). About 10% of Philadelphia women
were widows. Miller, et al., Irish Immigrants, 352. That number increased with episodes of disease and economic calamity. Mathew Carey, Report of Female Wages (Philadelphia, March 24,
1829), 268; To the Humane and Charitable (Philadelphia, 1833), 1; Wages of Female Labour
(Philadelphia, 1829), 1. Mari Jo Buhle also does not define the female workers as exclusively
Irish. “Needlewomen and the Vicissitudes of Modern Life . . .” in Nancy Hewitt and Suzanne
Lebsock, eds., Visible Women: New Essays on American Activism (Urbana, IL, 1993), 145–65.
29. For treatment of the poor: John K. Alexander, Render Them Submissive: Responses to
Poverty in Philadelphia, 1760–1800 (Amherst, 1980); Michael B. Katz, In the Shadow of the
Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America (New York, 1986); Gary B. Nash, “Poverty

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‘NO FAIR CLAIM TO THE CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANS’

Graphically demonstrating how private and government employers
exploited women to sew army pantaloons and shirts at such a “sorry pittance,” he claimed that by the early 1830s over two thousand full-time
workers found it necessary to request public relief or, in many cases, turn
to prostitution just to survive. Emphasizing that Philadelphia’s “foul stain”
rested on all who neglected the female laborers’ plight, not on the character
of the workers themselves, he denied allegations that the workers were
inherently “fallen” women who deserved no mercy. Citing their low wages,
Carey showed that the seamstresses were not viewed by “prudent young
men of the labouring classes” as acceptable marriage partners and were,
therefore, often forced to choose “starvation or pollution.” Repeatedly
pointing out that the fluctuations of the economy and the outbreak of disease left all Americans vulnerable to poverty, he asked Christian citizens to
view their own humanity through the dependency of the workers’ condition, writing: “Let those who pass a heavy censure on them and are ready
exultingly to cry out, with the Pharisee in the gospel, ‘Thank God, we are
not like one of these,’ ponder well what might have been their conduct in
similar circumstances.”30
Yet, Carey pushed for more than just religiously sentimental identification between his readers and impoverished women. He intended to
create a more equitable economic environment in which female laborers
could thrive. Describing how a woman faced particularly vicious competition because she is “excluded from paths in which coarser man may make
a livelihood; and, by the custom of society is obliged to accept less than
HALF OF WHAT THE MOST STUPID OF THE OTHER SEX
CAN EARN,” Carey preached, “We ought never to forget that in alleviating the immediate sufferings of the poor women we are only palliating,
not eradicating, the evils of poverty.” After investigating the working conditions of thousands of poor women in Philadelphia, Carey expanded his
appeals for compassion to the nation’s three other largest cities. He
charged citizens in New York, Boston, and Baltimore never to forget:
“THE LOW RATE OF WAGES IS THE ROOT OF THE MIS-

and Politics in Early American History,” in Billy G. Smith, ed., Down and Out in Early America (University Park, PA, 2004), 1–37. Carey, Wages of Female Labour, 1. Mathew Carey, A
Plea for the Poor (Philadelphia, December 20, 1837), 1–4; A Plea for the Poor (Philadelphia,
January 24, 1832), 1–4.
30. Carey, Wages of Female Labour, 1. Mathew Carey, Essays on the Public Charities,
(Philadelphia, 1828), 14. Mathew Carey, Essays on the Public Charities (Philadelphia, 1830),
51, 9. Mathew Carey, Letters on the Condition of the Poor (Philadelphia, February 15, 1836),
8. Carey, Address to the Wealthy, 13.

KAREN KAUFFMAN

499

CHIEF.” Demanding increased compensation for the seamstresses, Carey
also advocated that they receive broader vocational scope within the garment trades as well as professional training to become teachers like their
middle-class counterparts or owners and operators of small retail shops.31
In addition, Carey proclaimed that domestic ideals should not impede
the public potential of women’s labor. He even endorsed a form of subsidized
day-care so that mothers could work outside the home. Devising strategies
to facilitate female employment, he was instrumental in funding Infant
Schools where children from two to six years could receive the “elements of
a plain education, the seeds of good morals, with the first principles of religion.” Never accusing working mothers of negligence, Carey understood
that due to their extremely long days, many mothers had little time to
instruct their children. Out of respect for parents, he collaborated with them,
hoping that the schools would be a “relief” to women who worried that their
children were growing up unsupervised in the violent city streets.32
By the early 1830s, however, most American Christians seemed little
concerned about the religious instruction of the seamstresses’ children
compared to missionary efforts abroad. Not a few Protestant evangelicals
questioned the wisdom of administering assistance to disadvantaged
women at the expense of spreading the faith. As one scholar noted, “If the
choice was now between charity [and] the gospel, evangelicals emphatically
chose the gospel.” And Carey realized as much. While struggling to raise
funds for his crusade he lashed out in his diary at the widow of his friend
Benjamin Rush, who, as an erstwhile associate, “shrank from any [further]
interference” in helping the poor seamstresses. Carey noted sarcastically,
“Had it been a Bible Society . . . that claimed her attention, she wd have
. . . moved heaven & earth to aid them.” Angered when Christians refused
to answer his call, Carey repeatedly urged readers to put their faith into
action by reminding them that the poor “are as dear to the Almighty as the
proudest of His creatures.” Believing that the seamstresses, whom he
31. Carey, Letters on the Condition of the Poor, 1–4. Carey’s capitalization. In addition to
Philadelphia’s most popular newspaper: the Philadelphia Public Ledger, Carey’s appeals also
appeared in the Delaware Free Press, The New York Sentinel, The Boston Workingman’s Advocate,
and the Baltimore Republican and Commercial Advertiser. Carey, A Plea for the Poor, (1832).
Carey, Address to the Wealthy, title page. Carey’s capitalization. Mathew Carey, Essays to the
Impartial Humane Society of Baltimore and the Female Hospitable Society of Philadelphia
(Philadelphia, June 24, 1833), essay iii.
32. Mathew Carey, The Infant School (Philadelphia, December 28, 1827), 1–3. Carey
advocated that the Society of Friends create “a separate school for the coloured population.”
Mathew Carey, Infant Schools (Philadelphia, April 3, 1829), 2.

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‘NO FAIR CLAIM TO THE CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANS’

equated with the long-suffering Old Testament character of Job, already
possessed “Christian refinement,” he challenged the assessment that they
were sinners who deserved no mercy unless they repented.33
Encouraging America’s compassionate character, Carey used biblical
passages to persuade those who oppressed the disadvantaged women to
turn from their sins of cruelty and neglect: “Thus spake the Lord of hosts,
saying Execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassion every man to
his brother” (Zechariah 7:9), or Christ’s admonition, “Whatsoever you did
for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).
But when his pleas for commiseration failed, he reminded Protestants as
well as Catholics that the “Lord God of Hosts” forbade anyone to “grind
the faces of the poor” (Isaiah 3:15), preaching: “He that oppressive the poor, to
increase his riches, shall surely come to want” (Proverbs 22:16). And in
response to those who justified their abuse of the seamstresses by portraying marginalized women as sinners, Carey turned the tables on callous citizens, casting them as the unrighteous ones, claiming: “If you see your
fellow-beings suffering with cold, or hunger, or destitute of covering, and
do not relieve them, you have no fair claim to the character of Christians,
even ‘if you have faith to move mountains’” (James 2:14–17; 1 Corinthians
13:2). Certain that all privileged citizens—Protestant and Catholic alike—
who neglected his call to action would be divinely punished, Carey confided to his diary an ancient Greek proverb with a Christian twist: “When
God wills to destroy, he first infatuates.”34
But most of the distinguished men with whom he formerly collaborated in civic and commercial business responded tepidly to his threats.
Only after much cajoling did he manage to persuade some of Philadelphia’s
“citizens of the first respectability” to sign a petition to the Secretary of War
to raise the women’s wages. When the Secretary claimed that he could not
tamper with the “manufacturing process” in Philadelphia, and private
33. Dorsey, Reforming Men and Women, 79. Carey, Diary, HSP, November 5, 1832.
Carey, A Plea for the Poor, (1832), 4. Trisha Posey, “’Alive to the Cry of Distress’: Joseph and
Jane Sill and Poor Relief in Antebellum Philadelphia,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History
and Biography (July 2008), 215–43. Posey shows that the Sills, whose work followed Carey’s,
also did not believe that poverty was a result of sin.
34. Carey, Essays on the Public Charities, (1830), 43. Carey’s italics. Carey, Letters on the
Condition of the Poor, Title page. Carey, Address to the Wealthy, Title page. Carey’s italics.
Carey, Essays on the Public Charities, (1830), 38. Carey’s italics. Carey, Diary, HSP, April 16,
1830. [Mathew Carey], A Solemn Address to Mothers, Wives, Sisters, and Daughters of Citizens
of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, February 9, 1837). Carey’s italics. Carey, Diary, HSP, January
18, 1830. Proverb attributed possibly to Sophocles.

KAREN KAUFFMAN

501

employers rejected Carey’s proposal because it was “incompatible with business,” several prominent Philadelphia politicians and Protestant clergy flatly
refused to sign further petitions. When he launched a national appeal in the
early 1830s for funds merely to meet the seamstresses’ immediate needs,
Carey was dismayed that many men ignored him. Even well-known
activists on behalf of slaves and free blacks such as Lewis Tappan and Gerrit
Smith each donated only a token $5.00 to his crusade. Making nettled complaints to a few remaining male allies about “men’s indifference,” he
declared that “the ladies are not far different from the gentlemen.”35
Hoping that men and women would collaborate equally in his crusade,
Carey initially defined his female allies, many of whom were the wives, sisters, and daughters of some of the most distinguished men in Philadelphia
and New York, as “ministering angels in human form” and a “radiant
galaxy,” whose benevolent work he hoped would “stimulate others to follow
their bright example.” In addition, Philadelphia’s Female Hospitable Society, an interdenominational Protestant group of middle-class women, also
proved reliable associates. Initially sharing his view of the strong moral
character of the seamstresses, the members of the Female Hospitable Society, however, eventually went the way of most other women’s groups of the
period. By the mid-1830s, virtually all Protestant female charitable organizations began to embrace popular religious judgments about the sinful
nature of the poor. For example, the Indigent Widows’ and Single
Women’s Society refused to assist those who failed to “bring satisfactory
testimonials to the propriety of their conduct, and the respectability of their
character.” Acknowledging that while they were willing to “pity, mourn,
and weep” with unfortunate women, Society members stressed that unregenerate laborers, as they defined them, would have to repent and reform
since “sympathy alone cannot administer peace to the troubled mind.”36
Viewing such religious assumptions as what one scholar describes as
the promotion of the “interests of the powerful at the expense of the weak,”

35. Prominent men like Nicholas Biddle, Thomas Pym Cope, Alexander Henry,
Robert Ralston, Reverends Ezra Stiles Ely and William White signed Carey’s early appeals.
Carey, Essays on Public Charities, (1828), 14. Carey, Wages of Female Labour, 2. Carey, To the
Humane and Charitable, 2. Carey, Diary, June 5, 1830.
36. Women from distinguished families: Chew, Colden, Laurence, Livingston, Peters,
Rush, and Wistar initially supported Carey. Carey, Essays on the Public Charities (1828), 18.
Constitution of Indigent Widows’ and Single Women’s Society (Philadelphia, 1828). Annual
Report of the Managers of the Indigent Widows’ and Single Women’s Society (Philadelphia, 1832).
Mathew Carey, To the Ladies . . . in New York (Philadelphia, May 11, 1830). Mathew Carey,
Address Submitted for Consideration (Philadelphia, May 15, 1830).

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‘NO FAIR CLAIM TO THE CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANS’

Carey responded by rejecting his earlier belief in universal female “superior
sensibility.” Regarding unfeeling women as harshly as their male counterparts, he pronounced divine judgment on them by utilizing Christ’s condemnation of sinners who neglected “the least” of these brothers and sisters: “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the
devil and his angels” (Matthew 25: 40–41). Employing scripture to condemn privileged women who recoiled from his “holy cause,” he warned
them that no American was immune from the “vicissitudes of life and that
someday the perils of these poor [female laborers] could fall on you.”37
Within the emergence of an oppressive market economy and violent
debates over how “true” republican Christians should respond, Mathew
Carey urged all white citizens—Protestants and Catholics—to acknowledge common humanity with “the least” of their fellows. Preaching that
since “the interests of the poorer classes are so interwoven with those of
every part of the community,” he asked Americans to identify emotionally
with desperate persons who suffered and, in emulation of Christ’s compassion, remedy their plight. When certain Protestant organizations utilized
the trappings of formal religion to skirt what Carey deemed their ecumenical Christian duty, he employed print culture to proclaim a gospel of mercy
for the oppressed and damnation for those who abused or neglected them.
Yet, despite his frustration with men and women who pursued material
self-interest at the expense of the marginalized, early America’s most
prominent Irish Catholic retained hope that his fellow citizens would
develop religiously sentimental feelings for disadvantaged outsiders. That
indefatigable hope compelled him to exhaust most of his own fortune to
elevate the lives of the poor. While most of Philadelphia’s “finest” families
rejected his mission, thousands of the common people whom he championed turned out to pay their respects at his funeral in September 1839,
which was the second largest the city had ever seen. Until his death
Mathew Carey never ceased urging all white Americans to commiserate
with one another so that those who extended compassion, as well as those
who received it, could save the nation as well as their souls.38

37. Anne M. Boylan, The Origins of Women’s Activism: New York and Boston, 1797–1840
(Chapel Hill, 2002), 9. Lori Ginzberg, Women and the Work of Benevolence: Morality, Politics,
and Class in the Nineteenth-Century United States (New Haven, 1990) and Stansell, City of
Women, for how issues of class could influence female benevolence. Carey, To the Ladies.
38. Carey, A Plea for the Poor, 2. David Kaser, “The Retirement Income of Mathew
Carey,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (October, 1956), 410–15. Carey’s
friend, Stephen Girard’s, was larger. Green, Mathew Carey, 31.

Vatican II and the American Press:
Conflict to Transparency
RICHARD GRIBBLE, C.S.C.*
Vatican II was a milestone in providing access to the world press of the
day-to-day activities of the Council Fathers. During the first period
(1962) journalists were generally frustrated in their ability to report
the Council’s daily events, but this improved greatly in the three
remaining periods, due in large measure to a more open style of Pope
Paul VI, a vastly improved Vatican Press Office, and the work of the
United States Catholic Bishops Press Panel. While some frustration
remained, the world press experienced a more transparent Church.
Key words: Vatican II, press, journalism, Pope Paul VI, Pope John
XXIII

T

ransparency has become an operative word in the landscape of
twenty-first-century American life. Politicians especially, but others
as well, are called upon to be more transparent with respect to policies,
decisions, and even their private lives. The lack of transparency has been
problematic on many fronts. Political scandals such as Watergate and the
Iran-Contra Affair, as two examples, called into question the moral sense
of individuals and the integrity of the system. The Church sex-abuse
crisis, coming to light in 2003, terrible in its original actions, was greatly
exacerbated by the failure of bishops and other significant officials to be
more transparent.
Efforts to advance transparency in the Church made a significant leap
forward at Vatican II. During the past few years, as the Council’s fiftieth
anniversary has been commemorated, numerous monographs, other books,
and scholarly articles have addressed various changes and advances in liturgy,
ecclesiology, ecumenism and inter-faith dialogue, and religious liberty, to
name only a few major areas. One topic, however, that has not been fully
appreciated is the advance in the Church’s understanding and openness to
the press and other media. While many today would argue that the Church

*The Reverend Richard Gribble, C.S.C., is a Professor of Religious Studies at Stonehill
College in North Easton, Massachusetts.

503

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VATICAN II AND THE AMERICAN PRESS

has a long way to go in its quest to be more transparent, the forward achievements in this area as a result of Vatican II must certainly be acknowledged.
This essay describes the relationship and cooperation between the
Holy See and the press during the Council with concentration on the
American bishops and journalists. Unaccustomed to transparency and lack
of familiarity with a worldwide press, the Holy See nonetheless moved
from a position of viewing the press as a hostile force to a respected and
valued institution, culminating in the formal establishment of the Pontifical Commission for Social Communications.
Vatican II Background
On January 25, 1959, Pope John XXIII, who had been elected only
three months prior, shocked the Catholic world in a speech made at the
Basilica of St. Paul outside the Walls. While calling for a revision of the
Code of Canon Law and a local synod, his major proclamation was summoning an ecumenical council. In his comments the Pontiff gave three
specific reasons for calling the Council: promotion of ecumenism, giving a
pastoral face to the Council (and by extension the Church), and aggiornamento, or an updating of the Church. Pope John’s message was shocking
for a few reasons. First, historically ecumenical councils had been called
when a significant issue, internal or external to the Church, was causing
problems for the faithful and needed to be rectified. In the post-World
War II era of 1959 neither of these situations existed. Yes, the Cold War
between East and West was ongoing, Communism was seen in the West
as a great international threat, and the Middle East remained tense in the
wake of the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. However, from
the perspective of the Church, at least from empirical data, its interior life
was in excellent condition. Participation in the sacraments, especially
Sunday Mass, was high; enrollments at Catholic schools were never
greater; the number of priests and religious was high with formation programs continuing to grow. Dissent in the Church was minimal and not
vocal; Catholics appeared unified. Thus, John XXIII, whom many considered to be an “interim Pope” due to his advanced age, created quite a stir,
especially among more traditional Catholics who lived by the adage, “If it
ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Pope John’s faith-driven call for Vatican II put into motion the initial
steps, collectively called the ante-preparatory period that eventually led to
the Council’s opening in the fall of 1962. On May 17, 1959, the Pontiff
appointed his Secretary of State, Cardinal Domenico Tardini, to coordi-

RICHARD GRIBBLE, C.S.C.

505

nate the preparatory events. On June 18, Tardini invited bishops, nuncios,
vicars, prefects apostolic, and superiors general to submit their suggestions
and recommendations for issues to be discussed at the future Council. By
May 30, 1960, some 2000 responses had been received. These, added to the
reports of the Roman Curia and Catholic universities, formed the base of
data, the Acta used in the creation of working documents. With this collection of data completed, the ante-preparatory phase of the Council
ended. Buoyed by the response and calls for change by so many individuals
and institutions, Pope John commented, “The Church will bring itself into
step with modern times.”1 Six days later on June 5, Pentecost Sunday, Pope
John issued a constitution establishing ten preparatory commissions, two
secretariats, and a Central Commission with its purpose to coordinate the
work of the other groups. Their task was to study the pre-conciliar Acta and
to prepare schema for the Holy Father and ultimately the Council Fathers.
This preparatory phase officially opened on November 13 when the
Pope held an audience with members of the preparatory commissions.
These commissions were initially composed of twenty-five members
appointed by the Pope. Eventually the membership grew to thirty with each
commission assigned certain periti (experts). Each commission received a
list of questions and comments for discussion, with the Central Commission serving as the focal point to which questions might be addressed.
Between June 1961 and June 1962 the preparatory commissions met generating seventy-three schemata.2 The Reverend Edward Heston, C.S.C.,
who would play a central role at the Council as the English-language press
officer for the Vatican Press Office during sessions II, III, and IV, commented on the importance of the commissions: “The work of the commissions was indispensable, since it would have been impossible to work out
and revise documents in a general assembly of over 2000 vocal members.3

1. Bureau of Information, n.d. [September 1962], Bureau of Information in Advance
of the Council Folder, Archives United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (hereafter
AUSCCB), Washington, DC.
2. Aram Berard, S.J., trans., Preparatory Reports Second Vatican Council (Philadelphia,
1965), 21–22; in: Printed Material from the Congregation of Holy Cross Brothers Collection
(hereafter cited as PSCB), v. 33, Edward Heston Notes on Vatican II, 8–9, Archives University of Notre Dame (hereafter AUND), Notre Dame, Indiana. The ten special commissions
were: (1) Theological Problems, (2) Bishops and Government of Dioceses, (3) The Discipline
of the Clergy and Christian People, (4) Religious, (5) Sacraments, (6) Liturgy, (7) Studies
and Seminaries, (8) Oriental Churches, (9) Mission Activity, and (10) Apostolate of the
Laity. The two Secretariats set up were: (1) Christian Unity and (2) Press, Radio and Television. The latter was not intended as a publicity or press office for Council activities.
3. Edward Heston Notes on Vatican II, p.16, PSCB v. 33, AUND.

506

VATICAN II AND THE AMERICAN PRESS

FIGURE 1. Meeting of the Conciliar Secretariat of the Press and Public Performance, Father Heston is seated in the lower right corner, ca. 1963–65, Archives of
the Holy Cross Fathers, US Province, Archives University of Notre Dame.

As the work of the preparatory commissions concluded, other necessary preliminary tasks were also coming to their conclusions. On December
25, 1961 Pope John officially convoked the Council in his apostolic constitution, Humanae Salutis. The Pontiff appointed Pericle Felici, then auditor
(Associate Justice) of the Roman Rota, later (1960) archbishop of
Samosata in Syria, as General Secretary of the Council. In this position
Felici, aided by five secretaries, each of whom was charged with a particular
sector of the overall business of the Council, was responsible for the conduct of the daily sessions.4
Vatican II’s preparatory commission for the press manifested possibly
the greatest participation by American churchmen in this pre-Council
period.5 Established June 15, 1960, the Preparatory Secretariat for the
4. Ibid., 8, 13–14, 17–18, 20–21.
5. Representative literature associated with The Holy See and the press is found in
Mario Marazziti, I Papa de Carta: Nascita e Scvolta dell’ Informaziones Religiosa da Pio XII a

RICHARD GRIBBLE, C.S.C.

507

Press and Public Performance was charged with preparing a schema on the
media of social communication. Completed in eighteen months, the document was delivered in two volumes to the Central Preparatory Commission of the Council in April 1962. A portion of Part I was actually discussed at the Council, briefly in period I, when changes were requested,
and again in late November 1963 during period II. It was eventually issued
as Inter mirifica, on December 4, 1963.6
This secretariat was significant not only because of the schema and
eventual documents the Council Fathers produced, but possibly more
through its introduction of Archbishop Martin O’Connor, the body’s
President, to Vatican II. O’Connor, an American and the former auxiliary
bishop of Scranton, Pennsylvania, was then rector of the North American
College in Rome. The only American prelate to head one of the preparatory commissions, and the only non-cardinal to hold such rank, O’Connor
was informed in June 1960 that Pope John XXIII had appointed him as
President of the Secretariat.7 Many lauded his selection. One priest noted,
“The Holy Father’s adroit perception of competence is again evident in this
appointment.”8 Frank Hall, director of the National Catholic Welfare
Conference (NCWC) Press Department, was exuberant:
We shall all have pride in the appointment. It is not as if we would expect
extra attention from the Secretariat, but we rejoice that an American
prelate who is deeply interested in communications media and in the
Catholic press specifically has been named as the chief of this very important body. . . . Your eminent service in this field was, of course, the basis
for the selection.9

Giovanni XXIII (Genoa, 1990) and Federico Ruozzi, Il Concilio in Diretta: Il Vaticaoi II e la
Televisione tra Partecipazione e Informazione (Bologna, 2012). Additionally, the work of Massimo Faggioli through his literature reviews presents various works associated with Vatican II
and the press. See Massimo Faggioli, “Il Concilio Vaticano II: bollettino bibliografico (2000–
2002),” Cristianesimo nella Storia, 24 (2003), 335–60; 26 (2005), 743–67; 29 (2008), 567–610;
32 (2011), 755–91; 34 (2013), 927–55.
6. Pastoral Instruction, “Communio et Progressio,” found in Acta Apostolicae Sedis 63
(1971), 593–656. This document was generated as a result of the Vatican II document Inter
mirifica.
7. Martin O’Connor to Frank Folsom, July 2, 1960, Box 34, Folder 17; “The Catholic
Light,” July 19, 1962, p. 3, clipping, found in Box 20, Folder 35, Martin O’Connor Papers
45, American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives (hereafter
ACHRC), Washington, DC.
8. Monsignor Frank Flynn to Martin O’Connor, June 24, 1960, Box 34, Folder 17,
Martin O’Connor Papers, ACHRC.
9. Frank Hall to Martin O’Connor, June 22, 1960. Box 34, Folder 17, Martin O’Connor Papers 45, ACHRC.

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VATICAN II AND THE AMERICAN PRESS

O’Connor told Hall in reply, “I am sure that you know that anything I can
do here for you or the Press Department would always be a pleasure.”10
O’Connor’s work with the Secretariat was indeed significant in the
technologically sophisticated world present at the dawn of Vatican II. He
acknowledged this reality: “Implicit in this [the creation of a schema on the
social communications] is the recognition of the tremendous increase in
the power of means of diffusing information and thereby influencing
public opinion.”11 O’Connor also understood that his selection and the
work of the Secretariat raised the profile of the American hierarchy at the
Council. He wrote to Paul Tanner, General Secretary of the NCWC, “I
felt that the American episcopate was honored in having one of their own
number the president of the secretariat.”12
On October 11, 1962, with the work of the preparatory commissions
completed, and while the world trembled with fear over the ongoing standoff
between the United States and the Soviet Union due to the Cuban missile
crisis, the Second Vatican Council opened. In a scene as dramatic as one
choreographed by the famous Hollywood director, Cecil B. DeMille, some
2700 bishops from across the globe,13 both Latin and Eastern churches, filed
into St. Peter’s Basilica to hear the opening address by Pope John. In a
manner almost as dramatic as the procession, the Pontiff presented a positive
message on his desire for an open Council. He characterized some naysayers
as “prophets of doom” who see “only prevarication and decay.” In a more
hopeful vein he affirmed that “at the present moment in history, Providence
is leading us towards a new order in human relations.” In order to meet the
needs of modern society, John suggested the Church should show “the validity of her teachings rather than by [issuing] condemnations.”14

10. Martin O’Connor to Frank Hall, July 2, 1960, Box 34, Folder 17, Martin O’Connor Papers 45, ACHRC.
11. Bureau of Information, n.d. [September 1962], Bureau of Information in Advance
of the Council Folder, AUSCCB.
12. Martin O’Connor to Paul Tanner, July 11, 1962, Box 20, Folder 35, Martin
O’Connor Papers 45, ACHRC.
13. Various accounts give the number of bishops in attendance at the outset of the
Council between 2300 and 2700. Edward Heston, C.S.C., claimed that on the first day 2396
bishops were present, representing 132 nations and 16 different rites. He further stated that
the daily average for the periods was 2150. See Edward Heston, C.S.C., “Vatican II—Session
I-A Balance Sheet,” n.d., found in CSCG 267.6 Press Representative, AUND.
14. Pope John XXIII Opening Address to Vatican II, October 11, 1962, Print Version
http://web.archive.org/web/20070808180613/http:/www.rc.net/rcchurch/vatican2/j23open.
txt; Timothy G. McCarthy, The Catholic Tradition: The Church in the Twentieth Century
(Chicago, 1998), 60.

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509

The opening-day session on October 13, would, as a review of the
Council and its history clearly shows, be a foreshadowing of Vatican II’s
general direction. The session agenda was to elect the members of the ten
commissions (sixteen bishops for each commission) of the Council that
would be responsible for the preparation, presentation, and ultimate revision of the major documents to be reviewed. These commissions corresponded exactly to the Preparatory Commissions at work since 1960. It
was thought, especially since the bishops knew only a few of their other
members, that they would simply elect those who had already served on the
committees. However, Cardinal Achille Liénart of Lille, France rose in the
assembly and asked that the elections be postponed, allowing the bishops
to meet each other, interact, and have each national episcopal group
develop their own list of candidates. The motion was seconded and
received with great applause from the assembly. Thus, the session was
adjourned. The Vatican II historian, John O’Malley, S.J., has commented
on the significance of this event: “Liénart’s intervention was practical, but
it was seen as more than that. It was taken as an indication that the Council would run its business in its own way and not meekly assent to what was
handed to it.”15 Thus, at the very outset, a dramatic shift to a more progressive Council, one that could be “owned” by the world’s bishops themselves
had been achieved.
The Holy See and the American Press—Period I
Historically the Holy See’s general attitude toward journalists and
those collectively grouped under the umbrella of the “Fourth Estate” was
at best a cautious distance. In 1832, Pope Gregory XVI in the encyclical
Mirari Vos voiced a common theme:
Here We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people,
which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor. We are
horrified to see what monstrous doctrines and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books, pamphlets, and other writings
which, though small in weight, are very great in malice. We are in tears at
the abuse which proceeds from them over the face of the earth.16

Some thirty-five years later at Vatican I, Louis Veuillot, one of the curial
secretaries of the Council, voiced a similar disdain for the press: “What dif15. John O’Malley, S.J., What Happened at Vatican II (Cambridge, MA, 2008), 97–98.
16. Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832, Section 15 in Claudia Carlen,
IHM, The Papal Encyclicals 1740–1878 (Wilmington, NC, 1981).

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ference does it make to the Council what the journalists write about it?
Journalists are the waves and the winds. They are not the captain, not the
crew, not the bark. Well, their bark and their crew and their captain are
used to these tempests and have seen more ugly seas than this.”17
The historically unique nature of Vatican II was manifested in ways
that directly affected the mass media. It was the truly first worldwide
Council, with bishops from every habitable continent present, but this was
only the beginning. The presence of non-Catholic observers and women
added to the Council’s precedent. As the first Ecumenical Council that
could be covered worldwide by the press, radio, and even television, the
interest of the news media in the conciliar events “reached an unprecedented intensity.”18 Just prior to the opening of the Council, Commonweal
editorialized, “In the past, it may have been that the deliberations of a
Council were of little interest to the majority of Catholics. But this is surely
not the case today. Never before has there been so much intelligent interest
and concern among Catholics and non-Catholics alike.”19 In a similar vein,
John O’Malley has written “The media took an aggressive interest in the
Council. . . . The mere spectacle of Vatican II made it newsworthy even
apart from anything else that happened.” He goes so far as to claim, “There
is no doubt that the attempt to satisfy some of the expectations, objections,
and problems raised by the media affected the direction of the Council and
gave encouragement to its progressive wing.”20
In the period of vigil before the Council opened, notes of optimism
toward a more open perspective of the Holy See toward the press were
voiced. On October 30, 1960 Cardinal Tardini, called a press conference
assuring correspondents that news of the Council’s preparations and sessions would be available to them. One month later on December 3, Archbishop Felici told a group of Italian reporters that there would be a Vatican
Press Office at the Council. The next summer he elaborated, stating, “The
world’s newsmen will get help from the Vatican in covering the coming
17. Quoted in Robert Blair Kaiser, Pope, Council and World: The Story of Vatican II (New
York, 1963), 189. It is important to note that Veuillot had been editor of L’Univers, the stridently ultramontane newspaper in mid-nineteenth century France. Thus, his wariness of the
press was understandable.
18. Hilari Raguer, “An Initial Profile of the Assembly,” in Giuseppe Albeigo and
Joseph Komonchak, eds. History of Vatican II. Volume II (Formation of the Council’s Identity)
(Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2000), 222.
19. “Press Coverage at the Council: An Unhappy Portent,” Commonweal 76 (September 21, 1962), 509.
20. O’Malley, What Happened at Vatican II, 33–34.

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511

Second Vatican Council.”21 On October 10, Monsignor Fausto Vallainc,
an Italian priest and journalist, was appointed a staff member of L’Osservatore Romano by Pope John XXIII in order to organize the press office.22
Pope John expressed significant optimism toward the press and its
work at the future Council. On October 25, 1961 the Pontiff received the
press corps in a special audience, informing them that the Council press
office was taking shape. He encouraged the correspondents, telling them
that they can make a great contribution to the Council by publicizing it
and presenting the truth: ‘We desire, gentlemen, that above all you may be
good craftsmen of this great ideal of truth and human brotherhood, and
We ask God to enlighten you and guide you always in carrying out your
beautiful and noble mission.”23 In February 1962 the Pope was still hopeful, continuing to emphasize the need for truth while differentiating
between the Catholic and secular press: “A liberalized press policy at the
Vatican Council is not a right extended to the Catholic press but an opportunity for it to serve the Church. To the secular press as well, it is an opportunity to demonstrate the high ideals professed by the “Fourth Estate,”
including the duty to serve the truth for itself.”24
In May 1962, after meeting with the Central Commission, the Pontiff
announced that a more substantial organization of the press office would
be worked out “to assure that public opinion would be properly
informed.”25 Vallainc fleshed out the Pope’s comment stating, “A large
press office headquarters equipped with all the necessary services for journalists” will be made ready.26 One month later Pope John continued his
optimistic tone: “It is in fact our great wish that journalists may not be
21. National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC) News Service, June 26, 1961,
Ecumenical Council Press and Radio Through 1965 Folder, AUSCCB.
22. Ibid., October 9, 1961, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio Through 1965 Folder,
AUSCCB.
23. Ibid., October 30, 1961, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio Through 1965
Folder, AUSCCB. It should be noted that Pope John XXIII worked as a journalist for a
diocesan weekly as a young man and was an avid consumer of news during his life as a diplomat for The Holy See.
24. “Catholic Press at the Council,” America 106 (February 1962), 76.
25. Edward Heston, C.S.C., The Press and Vatican II (Notre Dame, 1967), 25–27.
26. NCWC News Service, May 14, 1962, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio
Through 1965 Folder, AUSCCB. Vallainc also stated, “Bulletins will be issued in several languages—probably French, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and a Slav language—by experienced journalists selected from these national groups. The Bulletins will contain all the news about the work of the Council which will have been authorized for
publication.”

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VATICAN II AND THE AMERICAN PRESS

obliged, because of a lack of sufficient information, to make guesses which
are more or less true and to publish ideas, opinions, and hopes which later
may prove unfounded or erroneous.”27
Despite the optimistic tone, more moderate and at times pessimistic
voices were also heard. Martin O’Connor reminded journalists, “It should
be remembered also that both the Bulletins and the elaboration by the
Press Office are not concerned with gossip, but with facts.”28
Cardinal Leo Suenens, Archbishop of Malines-Brussels, Belgium,
echoed some of the same concerns of O’Connor at the dawn of period I:
Your [journalists’] task is very delicate. You have to satisfy the readers’
curiosity and at the same time enlighten their faith. Whenever possible,
seek the advice of an able theologian so you can distinguish probable
from improbable rumors. Always stress the capital distinction between
the Church’s unchangeable dogma and moral teaching and its adaptable
discipline.29

William Sandoval of United Press International warned: “Aside from the
communiqués to be issued by the press department of the Council,
reporters will have to try and get fuller explanations of the exact points of
view of the different sides involved in each argument.”30 Possibly the best
foreshadowing of the conflict between the Holy See and the press that
would ensue at period I was raised in one editorial:
At this moment, with the Council a month away, there is considerable
doubt whether legitimate news gathering methods of the daily press, as
well as the pressures from a reading public, are clearly understood at the
Rome press office. To put it briefly, there is concern that the necessary
secrecy of the Council will be extended to the point where newsmen will
be expected to rely entirely on handouts. This the American press does
not do on major stories, and will not do so in Rome.31

Still, Msgr. James Tucek, Director of the NCWC News Service in Rome,
presented a more nuanced understanding: “Only those will be disappointed
27. Quoted in Kaiser, Pope, Council, World, 189.
28. Martin O’Connor Press Conference, n.d. [September 1962], Box 34, Folder 19,
Martin O’Connor Papers 45, ACHRC.
29. NCWC News Service, October 1, 1962, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio
Through 1965 Folder, AUSCCB.
30. “How the General Press Will Cover the Council,” Catholic Messenger 80 (October
11, 1962), 7.
31. “Council and the Press,” Catholic Messenger 80 (September 6, 1962), 10.

RICHARD GRIBBLE, C.S.C.

513

who either do not understand the nature of an ecumenical Council or do
not appreciate the limitations which must be imposed for the sake of good
order.”32
The Vatican Press office, located at via dei Serristori 12, near St.
Peter’s, opened on October 2, 1962 with Cardinal Amleto Cicognani presiding over the ceremonies. An estimated 300 members of the international press corps were present. Speaking French, Cicognani told the
assembled journalists,
You will render to the forthcoming Council an inestimable and historical
service by the practice of your professions in the countries you came from.
. . . Your readers and listeners will be informed largely through you. It is
your duty, therefore, to transmit the message of the Council in all its
purity. . . . You will serve the truth through the accuracy of your reports.
You will also certainly handle with great respect the information which
touches so closely the life of the Church itself, remembering that souls
will be either opened or closed to the good news of the Gospel by reading
your news.33

The original press officers served seven of the world’s major languages—
German, English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Polish—with
a central director. The English-language officer was Msgr. James Tucek.34
The press officers were not Council Fathers and thus had no access to the
daily meetings of the bishops “even though their role was to inform the
entire world about the meetings.”35 The only source of information was an
Italian language bulletin, prepared by the Council Secretariat, and translated into the basic seven languages of the panel members.
Shortly after Vatican II opened, significant aid came to United States’
journalists (and by extension any who spoke English) through the establishment of the United States Bishops’ Press Panel. This body was created
by the NCWC during the first week of period I “in an effort to help news32. NCWC News Service, September 17, 1962, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio
Through 1965, AUSCCB.
33. Ibid., October 8, 1962, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio Through 1965,
AUSCCB.
34. Heston, The Press and Vatican II, 25; Marjorie Weeke, “Vatican Council Press Relations,” The Catholic School Editor 35, no. 3 (March 1966), 7–9, here 7. The other six press officers, all priests were: French—François Bernard, S.A., German—Gerhard Fittkau, Italian—
Fr Francesco Farusi, S.J. Polish—Fr. Stefan Wesoly, Portuguese—Fr. Paolo Almeida, S, J.,
Spanish—Fr. Cipriano Calderon.
35. Raguer, “An Initial Profile,” 224.

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men develop their stories on the Council.”36 Organized under the chairmanship of Bishop Albert Zuroweste (Belleville, Illinois), Episcopal
Chairman of the NCWC Press Department and consulter to the Council’s
Secretariat of the Press and Public Performance, the panel, originally composed of nine academic experts in various theological disciplines, provided
a daily one hour session (initially beginning at 3 p.m., but changed to 2:30
to allow reporters sufficient time to meet deadlines and file their stories) for
journalists to supplement briefings received from the aforementioned Vatican Press Office.37 During the first meeting on October 20, in the quarters
of the United Services Organization (USO) on via della Conciliazione, the
panel experts answered questions and gave extended explanations to
reporters, especially in areas where the journalists’ knowledge of theological terms or concepts was inadequate to understand the issues and various
debates raised in the daily Council sessions.38
As period I of the Council continued, the press settled into a daily
routine through their coverage of day-to-day events. Some 1100 journalists
from across the globe were issued a tessera, the proper credentials to report
the events, but their access was basically limited to the various press offices.
In fact, the tessera served basically for this purpose alone. In the instructions given to reporters, one idea was especially interesting: “Entry into
various offices and to other places in the Vatican is forbidden to journalists
without the special permission of the Secretary-General. . . . It is also forbidden to approach and consult persons who are residents, employees or
visitors in Vatican City.”39 Additional restrictions were also in evidence.
Monsignor Robert Trisco, who served on the U.S. Bishops’ Panel,
recalled: “The rules of secrecy, promulgated by John XXIII, were restrictive: the Fathers and periti could disclose the topics discussed, opinions
expressed, and which Fathers spoke, but to reveal who said what was for-

36. NCWC News Service, August 6, 1964, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio
Through 1965 Folder, AUSCCB.
37. Heston,  
     , 39–40; Robert Trisco, “The U.S. Bishops’ Press
Panel at the Second Vatican Council,” U.S. Catholic Historian 30, no. 3 (Summer 2012), 5.
The original members of the press panel were all priest; Edward Heston, C.S.C. (Chair—
Canon Law); John P. McCormick, S.S.—Dogmatics; Francis Connell, C.Ss.R.—Moral Theology; Francis McCool, S.J. and Eugene Maly—Scripture; William Keeler—Canon Law;
Frederick McManus—Liturgy; Robert Trisco—Church History; John Sheerin, C.S.P.—
Ecumenism.
38. Elmer Von Feldt, “The Press and the Second Session of Vatican II,” Catholic Press
Annual 5 (1964), 6–7, 26–31, here 6, 27; Kaiser, Pope, Council and World, 201.
39. NCWC News Service, September 17, 1962, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio
Through 1965, AUSCCB.

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515

bidden.”40 Thus, journalists attended the briefing of their specific language
press officer and then many of those who spoke English attended the U.S.
Bishops’ Panel.41 Still, since the press officers did not attend the general
congregations they, and by extension the press, were forced to rely almost
totally on the Italian language bulletins, translated into the vernacular, to
learn of the Council’s activities.
Although the Vatican Press Office and the U.S. Bishops’ Panel were
functioning as planned, Pope John’s earlier message of invitation to the
press became increasingly more suspicious as the Council progressed. The
Pope raised his fears in a challenging address to the press: “You are at the
service of truth, and you come up to man’s expectations in so far as you
serve it faithfully.” Because the press reaches far and wide he continued,
“For this reason, the distortion of truth by the organs of information can
have incalculable consequences.”42 The Pope emphasized that Vatican II
was a religious event, a reality which should color the stories journalists
write. He told the press, “This will show you what tact and discretion, what
care for understanding accuracy, one may rightly expect here of a reporter
with the honor of his noble profession at heart.”43 In a similar light he further cautioned the journalists:
Prejudices [of the press] rest most often on inaccurate or incomplete
information. People attribute to the Church doctrines which she does
not profess; people blame her for attitudes which she has taken in definite
historical circumstances and they unjustifiably generalize those attitudes
without taking into account their accidental and particular character.44

The Council Secretary General, Archbishop Felici, reinforced the Pope’s
comments in a sermon delivered at a Mass celebrated for the press: “The
Council is a work of peace because it proclaims truth and establishes the
foundations of justice and enunciates the conditions of unity. The journalist performs a work of peace if he remains faithful to truth and justice and
if he favors unity.”45 Still, in the end the Pope was hopeful: “We look for40. Trisco, “U.S. Bishops’ Panel,” 2.
41. NCWC News Service, October 22, 1962, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio
Through 1965, AUSCCB.
42. Pope John XXIII Speech to Press, October 5, 1962, Ecumenical Council Press and
Radio Through 1965, AUSCCB.
43. Ibid.
44. Quoted in Heston, The Press and Vatican II, 131–32.
45. NCWC News Service, October 15, 1962, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio
Through 1965, AUSCCB.

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ward, gentlemen [as a result of your reporting], to many happy results as
regards the attitude of world opinion towards the Catholic Church in general, her institutions and her teachings.”46
While a basic sense of the Holy See’s goodwill toward the press was
evident, the frustration of the press was an almost universal experience
during period I of the Council. Things got off to a rather rocky start with
problems associated with basic equipment. Typewriters were not set up in
the press office until day four of the Council; tables rather than desks with
drawers needed for storing paperwork were created. At the outset there
was only one mimeograph machine which broke down after only two days.
Additionally, the time and manner in which information was made available to reporters was not regular, creating problems for the journalists in
meeting deadlines when filing their stories.47
While these initial logistic problems were soon rectified, the more
deep-seated concern that the press had insufficient access to information
was more difficult to resolve. Msgr. Raymond Bosler, editor of Indianapolis’ archdiocesan paper, Criterion, criticized the U.S. Bishops’ Press Panel
for taking “no chances on reporting what was going on in the Council and
the significance of it. Instead it did little more than rehash the official communiqués of the Council’s news office. And these were short, daily essays
cleverly designed to conceal rather than to reveal what the Council was
doing, and sometimes they were downright misleading.”
He concluded, “The English-speaking . . . world was at a decided disadvantage during the first session of Vatican Council II.”48 America criticized the press releases of the Vatican Press Office as “being brief to the
point of obscurity and—at least in one or two instances—of creating a false
impression of what actually happened in a debate or vote of the Council.”49
The Reverend Edward Heston, C.S.C., who chaired the U.S. Bishops’
Panel in period I, admitted that “the press coverage was not at all what
people would have liked or we can even say what it should have been.”50
46. Pope John XXIII Speech to Press, October 5, 1962, Ecumenical Council Press and
Radio Through 1965, AUSCCB.
47. NCWC News Service, October 29, 1962, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio
Through 1965, AUSCCB.
48. News Coverage of Vatican Council II,” Critic 21 (March 1963), 53–58, here 53.
49. “Press and the Council: Improving the Council News Service,” America 108 (February 23, 1963), 252.
50. Audio Tape, in: Audio-Visual Material from the Eugene C. Best Radio Interviews
(hereafter cited as AECB), 45145–46, AUND.

RICHARD GRIBBLE, C.S.C.

517

He worried that “unless there were radical changes in the following session, the Council could not fail to lose prestige before world opinion.”51
Dwindling numbers of reporters with the progress of the Council period
also spoke to the general frustration.52
Similar frustrations were also experienced by the foreign Catholic
press. The Guardian, a national daily published in Manchester, England,
complained about the lack of assistance for the press: “At a time when the
eyes of the whole world have been turned to the Roman Catholic Church,
so little is being done to help the journalists gathered in Rome to report
proceedings accurately and interestingly. . . . The only information to be
gleaned from the large and elaborate press office was the daily communiqué which for the first few days at least contained only a few sparse
facts.”53 Another British paper, the Catholic Herald, complained about the
dearth of information: “The fact is that the press relations side of the
Council is being handled in a manner which is most unsatisfactory from
the journalistic point of view. . . . What is required is fuller briefings from
officials who know the true significance of events and at the same time
understand the workings of newspapers and broadcasting media.”54 Even
an Anglican weekly, The Church of England Newspaper, commented that for
“an assembly whose authorities profess that journalists should report the
facts accurately, this end of things has been blatantly mismanaged.”55
Secular journalists too pulled no punches in their strong critique of the
press coverage of period I. The international press devoted significant
resources of personnel to cover the Council, yet felt shortchanged.56
51. Heston, The Press and Vatican II, 54.
52. NCWC News Service, November 5, 1962, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio
Through 1965, AUSCCB.
53. Quoted in NCWC News Service, October 29, 1962, Ecumenical Council Press
and Radio Through 1965, AUSCCB.
54. Quoted in Ibid., October 29, 1962, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio Through
1965, AUSCCB.
55. Ibid.
56. For examples, United Press International (UPI) with 9000 newspapers as subscribers added five additional correspondents from London and Paris to its regular staff in
Rome. The Associated Press (AP), serving 3500 newspapers, brought to Rome additional
personnel from New York, England, and Germany for a total of six full-time and five parttime reporters assigned to the Council. Agence France Presse and Reuters also increased their
staffs. ANSA, the Italian news agency, assigned four full-time people to cover the Council.
The news magazines Time and Newsweek had full-time reporters covering Council. See
NCWC News Service, October 1, 1962, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio Through 1965,
AUSCCB.

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VATICAN II AND THE AMERICAN PRESS

William F. Sunderland, United Press International (UPI) bureau chief in
Rome, while suggesting that the Council will be the “greatest religious
event of our time or possibly even the century,” suggested that news coverage was inadequate: “Aside from the communiqués to be issued by the
press Department of the Council [Vatican Press Office], reporters will
have to try to get fuller explanations of the exact points of view of the different sides involved in each argument.”57 Robert Kaiser, the correspondent for Time, did not hold back in his critique:
The anomaly of this Council’s first session was that the delegateobservers officially attending the Council and the communities to whom
they reported, knew what the Council issues were and the tentative
answers offered. But the Catholic peoples of the world—their parish
priests included—could only guess. If the second session goes as the first,
the separated brethren will understand when the Council’s answers are
handed down in solemn brevity. But the Catholics will not. Maybe they
do not mind being treated like the elder brother of the prodigal son.58

More realistically, Winston Burdett, reporting for Columbia Broadcasting
System (CBS) Rome, said he did not expect the coverage of Vatican II to
be like a political convention: “There were sources available . . . and the best
sources of information were the delegates themselves. It would depend on
the ingenuity of the reporter to find bishops who were willing to speak.”59
Historians of Vatican II have expounded on the failures of the press
coverage in the first period. The Belgian journalist Jan Grootaers opined,
“The Press Office was pinned between the ‘hammer’ of the world press and
the ‘anvil’ of conciliar secrecy imposed by the conservative forces in the
Curia.”60 Historians of Vatican II have expounded on the failures of the
press coverage in period I. Joseph Famerée described “the deplorable state
of conciliar information during the first session.” On a more positive note,
however, he did see the United States Press Panel as the “one source of
useful information.”61 John O’Malley characterized the Vatican Press Office

57. NCWC News Service, October 1, 1962, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio
Through 1965, AUSCCB.
58. Kaiser, Pope, Council and World, 209.
59. NCWC News Service, January 7, 1963, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio Through
1965, AUSCCB.
60. Raguer, “An Initial Profile,” 224.
61. Joseph Fameree, “Bishops and Diocese and the Communications Media (November 5–25, 1963),” in Alberigo and Komonchak, eds., History of Vatican II, Volume III (Maryknoll, NY, 2000), 176.

RICHARD GRIBBLE, C.S.C.

519

as “in crisis,” stating, “The official bulletins issued managed to be at the same
time uninformative and blatantly favorable to the conservatives.”62
While the prevailing response of the press, both at the time and historically was negative with respect to the coverage of period I, a more positive face was also presented. Pope John, while acknowledging “the voice of
the press is critical to get the story correct,” suggested that coverage of an
event such as Vatican II required fresh methods:
It is natural that to perform its task the Catholic press must express itself
in a way substantially different from the methods which are imposed by
transitory interests or by purely human cleverness resisting any inference[s] that intensify polemics useful to no one and which are not a good
example of charity and do not serve the Catholic community in general.

Presuming it seems that Catholic journalists must hold to Church traditions of maintaining allegiance to the Holy See, the Pope continued that
Catholic newsmen:
must testify through deeds and through an ever more widespread presence that the press cooperates in the mission of the Church—not so
much in the measure with which it advances and spreads news, through
publishing good and encouraging religious news stories—but even more,
in that it is faithful to sacred doctrine and draws inspiration from it to be
able to form readers’ minds.63

While applauding the Vatican Press Office, some Church officials
were at times critical of the reporting by certain members of the press.
These officials did not seem to understand the need the secular press had
for daily and accurate information from the Council in order to meet their
professional obligations. Speaking rather generically, the Holy Cross
priest, Edward Heston, described period I as “an impressive spectacle of
unity and breathtaking universality.64 Bishop Zuroweste commented that
“In spite of the fact that the Vatican Council Press Office was understaffed
and labored under ‘wraps’ imposed by the secrecy of the Council, the news
coverage was excellent.”65 Msgr. Tucek ridiculed those reporters who suggested that communiqués were written prior to the sessions. He stated,
62. O’Malley, What Happened at Vatican II, 152.
63. Quoted in NCWC News Service, January 28 1963, Ecumenical Council Press and
Radio Through 1965, AUSCCB.
64. Edward Heston, C.S.C., “Vatican II, Session I—A Balance Sheet,” CSCG 267.6,
Vatican II Press Representative File, AUND.
65. “News Coverage of Vatican II,” Critic, 56.

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VATICAN II AND THE AMERICAN PRESS
This writer was directly engaged in composing the communiqués. No
news was ever written in advance. The various language desks had nothing in advance but the roster of speakers, and invariably that had to be
revised at the last minute. Sometimes it was known what schema would
be taken up the following day. There was nothing sinister about this, and
the press corps was always informed when it was known.66

The Holy See and the American Press—Period II
The transition period between periods I and II of Vatican II allowed for
a review of press policies and procedures with several English-speaking bishops seeking more openness and at least one desiring a change in the secrecy
rules. Bishop Emmett Carter of London, Ontario commented, “Many of us
were not satisfied with the Council news service. We felt the secrecy
observed at previous councils was no longer necessary and that newspapermen should be allowed in the sessions.”67 One secular journalist opined:
The effect of the press bureau’s [Vatican Press Office’s] inconsistencies
and shortcomings in the first session was to minimize the importance of
the Council. The proceedings were made to seem vague though pleasant,
as if it were a kind of debating club. It will be a scandal if, during the
second session, cautious concern still hides the fact that vital issues are at
stake.68

On March 29, 1963, with similar calls for reform coming from many
venues, the Vatican Press Office submitted a report to the Central Coordinating Commission which dealt with three subjects: (1) the work done
by the Press Office during the preparatory period and period I, (2) the
question of Council secrecy, and (3) possible solutions of the press problems for future periods.69
The effort to revamp and enhance press coverage for the Council was
placed on the shelf temporarily when Pope John, who had been suffering
with cancer for some time, died on June 3. Since councils technically end
with the death of the Holy Father, the future of Vatican II was initially
uncertain. However, his successor, Cardinal Giovanni Montini, the Arch66. James Tucek, Editorial Information, NCWC News Service, March 21, 1963, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio Through 1965, AUSCCB.
67. NCWC News Service, January 4, 1963, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio
Through 1965 Folder, AUSCCB.
68. Desmond O’Grady, “Council Press Office: Some Changes Desired,” View 27 (September 1963), 1.
69. Heston, The Press and Vatican II, 55–56.

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521

bishop of Milan (elected on June 21), who took the name Paul VI, immediately decided that the Council should continue. Thus, the ongoing plan
to develop a new policy toward the press continued.
Almost immediately Pope Paul provided signs that positive changes in
press relations would be forthcoming for period II. Only eight days after
his election, he addressed the press, telling the reporters about his father,
who was a journalist. He commented,
We refer simply to this fact not to give praise to that most worthy man
who was so dear to Us, but to tell you gentlemen of the press how Our
mind has a bent for sympathy, esteem and confidence for what you are
and what you do. We can almost say that Our family education makes Us
one of you! That it makes you colleagues and friends!70

Like his predecessor, the new pontiff challenged the journalists to “take
into account what really shapes the life of the Church, that is, its religious
and moral aims and its characteristic spiritual qualities.” Still, it was obvious that Pope Paul sought a new direction. He told the journalists,
It will be Our concern to offer you, as during the first session, every good
service in order that your work may be made easier. And We will do
everything possible that you may know, at the right time and in appropriate ways, the things that pertain to your thirst for news and your facilities of rapid transmission, always confident that your integrity and
understanding will make Us happy and never regretful that We have
given you a friendly welcome and attentive help.71

He concluded,
All this, gentlemen will tell you how much We wish that the relations
between Our ministry and your profession, between the Holy See and the
national and international press, between Our person and you, may be
friendly and loyal, a mutual understanding and consideration, and be
reciprocally beneficial and satisfactory.72

On July 4, 1963, following its initial March 29 report, the Vatican
Press Office, outlined an improved plan for the press during period II. The
plan called for a new organization or special commission to determine the
scope of the character of news to be made available to the press. These

70. NCWC News Service, July 12, 1963, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio
Through 1965, AUSCCB.
71. Ibid., July 1, 1963, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio Through 1965, AUSCCB.
72. Ibid.

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VATICAN II AND THE AMERICAN PRESS

thoughts were shared with the Coordinating Commission and approved on
August 31. The result was the creation of a special Episcopal Committee for
the Press whose function was “to supervise the official press releases and
press conferences and to provide doctrinal assistance to the various Centers
for Documentation,”73 and a reconstituted Vatican Press Office headed by
Archbishop Martin O’Connor who, as noted, had been the President of the
Preparatory Secretariat for the Press and Public Performance.74
O’Connor immediately placed his stamp on the improved Vatican
Press Office by introducing more open policies. Most significantly, the
seven-language press officers were given access to the daily general congregations in St. Peter’s. They were also given copies of all schemata and other
Council documents and when available speeches by the Fathers. Secrecy
was restricted to actual texts of documents under discussion and deliberations in various commissions. Under the new arrangement the press officers were assigned a special table behind the Council Secretariat. Each officer was given full autonomy to include what he wanted in daily bulletins;
there was no need simply to translate the Italian language bulletin as done
in period I.75 Speaking of the significance of O’Connor’s new position, the
Times-Leader of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, commented, “it will be
through his eyes, figuratively speaking, that the world will be permitted to
see what is expected to be one of the most momentous gatherings in Christendom in modern times.”76
The U.S. Bishops’ Press Panel, which in many ways had acted as a
supplement to the Vatican Press Office during period I, was reconstituted
with a few personnel changes.77 One week before period II began, Bishop
73. Jan Grootaers, “Ebb and Flow Between Two Seasons,” in Alberigo and Komonchak, eds., History of Vatican II, Volume II, 554–55.
74. Trisco, “U. S. Bishops’ Panel,” 4–5; Marjorie Weeke, ”Vatican Council Press Relations,”     35, no. 3 (March 1966), 7; Heston,     ,
57. The original members of the Episcopal committee for the Press were: Archbishops Rene
Stourm, Andrea Pangrazio, Engere D’Souza, Owen McCann, Hyacinthe Thiandoum; Bishops Joseph Khourg, Albert Zuroweste, Helmut Wittler; Jose Girardo, Mark McGrath,
C.S.C., Joao Rexen de Costa, Gerhard De V, Luigi Baccini and Henri Routhven. OMI. See
Heston,      , 57.
75. Heston,     , 33, 56–57.
76. Times-Leader n.d. Clipping Box 34, Folder 17, Martin O’Connor Papers 45,
ACHRC.
77. One of the more significant changes was the movement of Edward Heston, C.S.C.,
from the Bishops’ Panel to serve as the English-speaking press officer for the Vatican Press
Office, upon the Resignation of James Tucek. Another significant addition was Father
Bernard Häring, C.Ss.R. who replaced George Tavard. See Trisco, “U.S. Bishops’ Panel,” 9.

RICHARD GRIBBLE, C.S.C.

523

FIGURE 2. The Reverend Edward Heston, C.S.C, in the midst of reporters, ca.
1963–65, Archives of the Holy Cross Fathers, US Province, Archives University of
Notre Dame.

Zuroweste petitioned the Central Coordinating Committee in two areas.
First, in an initial salvo with the ultimate goal of having reporters attend
the general congregations, it was requested that a limited number of
reporters be allowed to attend the Mass and enthronement of the Gospels
at the beginning of each day’s activities. Secondly, it was requested that
photographers be given permission to take photos before 9 a.m. Neither of
these requests was ultimately granted.78 Still, the Bishops’ Press Panel
“achieved great popularity during the second period as a forum for frank
question-and-answer exchange between newsmen from all parts of the
world and experts on various phases of Church life.”79 Indeed, Msgr.
Trisco, who served on the panel for all four periods, described the sometimes “testy” repartee between panel members, often providing personal
reflections when responding to reporters’ questions.80
78. Trisco, “U.S. Bishops’ Panel,” 6.
79. NCWC News Service, August 6, 1964, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio
Through 1965 Folder, AUSCCB.
80. See Trisco, “U.S. Bishops’ Panel,” 7–15.

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VATICAN II AND THE AMERICAN PRESS

Anticipation and expectation for better press relations during period II
ran high. Indeed, on the second working day of the period, which opened
on September 29, Pope Paul addressed the press corps. Reiterating his
esteem for their profession and the important role they play “in the world
today, with their tremendous power over public opinion,” the Pontiff
voiced a note of caution, suggesting that they would be distorting the truth
“if their reports dealt exclusively with apparent differences in divisions
among the Council Fathers.”81 More importantly, however, he promised
greater cooperation:
Rest assured in any case that the ones responsible for the organization of
the Council will do their best to satisfy your desires. And you know that
you will always find the warmest welcome and a full desire to be of service
on the part of the Press Bureau of the Council, which We have wished
to entrust to an Archbishop, our venerable brother, Martin O’Connor.82

The positive message of the Pope was seen when the English-speaking
press praised the U.S. Bishops’ Press Panel. Rome representatives of various English-speaking newspapers and magazines wrote to Zuroweste,
O’Connor, and Felici:
We, reporters and correspondents representing the English-language
press at the Second Vatican Council, wish to express our delight over the
new arrangement during the second session. The daily communiqué is
excellent [and] the daily briefing by the American Bishops’ panel is
informative. . . . For our part we will endeavor to continue reporting as
responsibly as we know how.83

The Panel also became a model for similar groups. Period II saw news centers established for German, Latin American, Brazilian, Canadian (French
and English sections), Spanish, French, Dutch, Italian, and Pan-African
communities. Additionally, three religious orders, the Society of Missionaries of Africa, Oblates of Mary Immaculate, and Society of the Divine
Word, also inaugurated press centers.84
81. Pope Paul VI, “Allocution to Reporters,” October 1, 1963, Box 19, Folder 34,
Martin O’Connor Papers 45, ACHRC.
82. Ibid.
83. Letter from Various Reporters to Pericle Felici, October 7, 1963, Box 653, Folder
6, Vatican II Papers, Archivo Secreto Vaticano (hereafter, ASV), Vatican City; NCWC News
Service, October 12, 1963, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio Through 1965 Folder,
AUSCCB.
84. Ibid., October 7, 1963, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio Through 1965 Folder,
AUSCCB.

RICHARD GRIBBLE, C.S.C.

525

The positive response by the press as seen in the letter to Felici, et al,
was echoed almost universally by reporters and Church officials like. A
group of secular United States journalists informed O’Connor:
As representatives of the American press, we wish to thank you and
through you His Holiness the Pope, and all other officials responsible for
the policy changes which have facilitated greatly our efforts to report
accurately and intelligently on the second session of the Vatican Council.
We are particularly grateful for the ruling that has removed the frustrating blanket of secrecy for the proceedings of the general meetings.85

Heston, serving as the English-speaking press officer for the Vatican Press
Office, commented “This new policy is hoping to present the authentic
image of the Council and of the Church itself to the press of the world and
consequently before the public.”86 Cardinal James McIntyre of Los Angeles described the press coverage during period II as “phenomenal.” He suggested that reporters “have given a presentation of the Council that could
not be given by any official Church agency.”87 An historian of Vatican II,
Jan Grootaers, concurs in his positive assessment: “Starting with the
second period of Vatican II, the quality and reliability of news about the
Council did greatly improve.”88
The almost universally positive experience by both the press and
Church officials during the second period did not totally eliminate concerns about inaccurate reporting. Bishop Zuroweste was strident in a letter
sent to the editor of Time concerning the work of its correspondent, Robert
Kaiser, whose December 6, 1963 column “What Went Wrong?” was filled
with inaccuracies. Seeking to correct errors in Kaiser’s essay, Zuroweste
wrote, “It is normal for a writer to color facts with his own views, but it is
abnormal for a writer to ignore or misrepresent facts in order to convey his
views. Your Council reporter seems to approach his task with the attitude,
“Please, my mind is made up—don’t confuse me with facts.” Zuroweste
proceeded to present a litany of what he professed to be accurate details
concerning period II. He then continued his polemic: “These facts may
take some of the steam out of your reporter’s campaign against his favorite
“bad guys,” but they will also correct the distorted picture of the Council
85. Quoted in Von Feldt, “The Press and Vatican II,” 27.
86. Audio Tape AECB 45145, AUND.
87. Quoted in George Higgins, “Yardstick,” March 9, 1964, found in Ecumenical
Council Press and Radio Through 1965 Folder, AUSCCB.
88. Jan Grootaers, “The Drama Continues Between Acts The ‘Second Preparation’ and
its Opponents,” in Alberigo and Komonchak, eds., Vatican II, Volume II, 382.

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VATICAN II AND THE AMERICAN PRESS

FIGURE 3. Edward Louis Heston, C.S.C. (1907–73), titular Archbishop of
Numida (1972–73), Archives of the Holy Cross Fathers, US Province, Archives
University of Notre Dame.

he gave to your readers. Time readers deserve better than they received
from your Council reporter.”89
The Holy See and the American Press—Periods III and IV
The important and significant advances in the press coverage of Vatican II’s second period provided a much more stable and amicable relationship between journalists and Church officials during period III. The efficacy of the Vatican Press Office, from the perspective of the
English-speaking section, was greatly enhanced when Marjorie Weeke was
hired to assist Edward Heston. As a trained journalist and native-English
speaker, Weeke was able to produce more detailed and, therefore, more
helpful daily bulletins for the use of the English-speaking reporters.90
89. NCWC News Service, January 11, 1964, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio
Through 1965, AUSCCB. One example in Kaiser’s essay which irritated Zuroweste was :
“Last week the Council railroaded through without discussion a schema on communications
that tolerates state censorship of mass media, suggesting civil authorities prevent ‘harm to the
morals and progress of society through the bad use of these instruments.’” See Robert Kaiser,
“What Went Wrong?” Time 82, no. 23 (December 6, 1963), 74–75.
90. Weeke, Interview.

RICHARD GRIBBLE, C.S.C.

527

Striving to create “the best possible team,” the NCWC panel added
four new members while continuing its important function of providing and
amplifying information to that given by Heston’s office. The NCWC News
Service stated that the U.S. Press Panel is “to make available to newsmen
the professional help of specialists who can provide factual theological and
background information and clarification. . . . The Panel is not designed to
provide a forum to promote the personal opinions or projects of individuals,
whether panel members or journalists.”91 In an effort to avoid disagreements
among panel members, some new rules for the operation of the body were
introduced: (1) Asking personal opinions of the panel members was
excluded (2) Panel members may be quoted, but what they could not be
attributed to the universities they represent; (3) Reporters were free to ask
any question on the subject currently under discussion by the Council
Fathers. (4) All reporters must identify themselves and the publications they
represent. While some reporters were concerned that such restrictions
would impede their ability to report the Council’s events, others suggested
there was nothing new, only greater emphasis in certain areas. Additionally,
the NCWC News Service reported, “As for restrictions on lobbying and
expressing personal opinions, there did not seem to be much hope among
the panel that this would be observed too strictly.”92
As in period II, Holy See officials raised some concern about inaccurate
reporting. In a statement issued on October 21, 1964, O’Connor stated,
The Council press commission examined carefully recent stories of news
and certain controversies which appeared in the press of different nations
relative to certain activities of individuals and directive offices of the
Council. The commission regrets having to declare that, on the basis of
deplorable and unusually one-sided indiscretions, certain press organs
have indulged in a series of conclusions deprived of all basis, in fact on
non-existent measures aimed at preventing the proper progress of the
Council’s work. The commission condemns this method of providing
information, a method which is in conflict with truth and is an injustice
toward individuals and organisms connected with the Council.93

Archbishop Felici, lashed out at “untrue, inexact, and incomplete” press
reports. Without naming names, he also criticized “certain parasites” who
express ideas which are “far from serving truth, foster confusion and insub91. NCWC News Service, September 15, 1964, Ecumenical Council Press and Radio
Through 1965, AUSCCB.
92. Ibid.
93. Ibid., October 22, 1964.

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VATICAN II AND THE AMERICAN PRESS

ordination.”94 Pope Paul as well was disappointed with the press coverage
of period III, stating: “Instead of stressing the great light of the Council
debates and conclusions, it [the press] devoted itself to secondary aspects
and sometimes issued absolutely fantastic reports that had nothing in
common with reality.” He challenged Catholic journalists to “work in the
most convincing way to dissuade colleagues who would rather stress exterior aspects than try to capture the nature of the supreme truths which
attract and occupy the human mind.”95 Despite specific problems in
reporting, a sense of overall accomplishment was evident. The NCWC
News Service reported, “The tribulations of the world press concerning the
Second Vatican Council have been no secret, but each session brings
improvement. As one reporter put it, ‘During the first session I was on
page 10 of my newspaper back home. Since the second session, I have been
front-page almost every day.’”96
The Council’s fourth and final period saw the Vatican Press Office and
U.S. Bishops’ Press Panel continue their coordinated work, but the period
was highlighted by an overall evaluation by Pope Paul of the press. At the
outset of the period, the Pontiff addressed the press at a Mass. In an
encouraging tone he commented, “We are sure that you will strive with all
your energies to foster the lively ideals of Catholic journalism, always
remembering that you must be heralds of truth, justice, and peace.”97 On
November 26, 1965 the Pope once again addressed the press corps in a
congratulatory voice:
One cannot but be impressed by the tremendous efforts which you have
made and the work you had to do, often in circumstances which demand
that action be taken very quickly because of modern laws of communication. One is struck too by the considerable importance of the role you
have played since the beginning of the Second Vatican Ecumenical
Council.98

The Pope went on to inform the press that it was his desire “to continue,
within the limits of its possibilities, this same service in such a way that
information will be transmitted to you with all speed and detail demanded

94. Ibid., November 28, 1964.
95. Ibid., January 19, 1965. It is interesting to note that the tensions between The Holy
See and the press that arose during Period III came at the same time when high tensions were
present in the daily Council sessions, especially over the proposed document on religious liberty.
96. Ibid.
97. Ibid., September 18, 1965.
98. Ibid., December 23, 1965.

RICHARD GRIBBLE, C.S.C.

529

by present day needs and the importance of news.”99 Msgr. George Higgins, who served on the U.S. Bishops’ Press Panel, appropriately summarized the positive impact of the press on Vatican II:
Perhaps the greatest service to the Church was their dogged insistence
from the very outset that they be permitted to cover the Council openly
and above board instead of being forced to rely on secondhand rumors or
backstairs gossip. By sticking to their guns on this point, they [journalists] managed, in the end to win the day.100

Conclusion
Vatican II’s conclusion in 1965 did not end comments about the press
and its relationship with the Council. Indeed, even Pope Benedict XVI in
February 2103, in a talk to the clergy in Rome, spoke of the contrast
between the “real Council” and “the Council of the media.” He suggested
that because the Council of the media “was not conducted within the faith,
but within the categories of today’s media, namely apart from faith,” many
people received a false understanding of the Council, leading to various
problems. He urged his listeners to promote the true Council.101
Pope Benedict’s words provide a good example that the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) has received the attention of theologians and
Church historians for over 50 years. Whether one ascribes to the position
that Vatican II was a rupture from the past and clear new direction or
reform with continuity, all agree that it was one of the most significant
Church events of the second millennium and clearly the most important of
the twentieth century. The theological and historical implications of Vatican II’s sixteen documents have been addressed in abundance, especially
with the Council’s recent Golden Jubilee. However, one area that has
received sparse attention is the relationship of the press to the Council and
its participants. This is a regrettable reality, especially when one considers
that the press and its ability to present the day-to-day activities of the
Council Fathers to the world was unique; none of the previous twenty ecumenical councils of the Church was covered so widely by the press and
99. Quoted in Heston, The Press and Vatican II, 91–92. The development of the Pontifical Commission on Social Communications is evidence of the veracity of Pope Paul’s comment.
100. George Higgins, “The Yardstick,” November 15, 1965, Ecumenical Council Press
and Radio 1965 Forward Folder, AUSCCB.
101. Pope Benedict XVI, “Meeting with the Parish Priests and Clergy of Rome,” February 14, 2013, http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedictxvi/en/speeches/2013/february/
documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20130214_clero-roma.html

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VATICAN II AND THE AMERICAN PRESS

through the advent of the technological revolution, the media of radio and
television as well. Thus, to investigate the evolving role of the press at Vatican II, moving from a position of suspicion to one of general acceptance,
on behalf of both Church officials and the world press, is indeed a significant story. Starting basically from ground zero, a rudimentary, but increasingly more formal press structure was established at the Council, allowing
Catholics and non-Catholics alike throughout the world to be informed
concerning the significant discussions and ultimate decisions made by the
Catholic hierarchy at the Council. While the relationship of the press to
the Holy See got off to a rather rocky start, by the time the Council ended
in December 1965 Pope Paul VI was making plans for a more permanent,
open, and transparent relationship between the press and the Church, two
of society’s greatest institutions. Today a more formal relationship exists
through the Pontifical Commission for Social Communications. The story
of the achievement of greater transparency within Catholicism and its relationship to the world can inspire similar forward thinking in the future.

Review Article
Recent Scholarship on Vatican Council II
JARED WICKS, S.J.*
Konzilstagebuch Sebastian Tromp SJ, mit Erlauterungen und Akten aus der
Arbeit der Kommission für Glauben und Sitten, II. Vatikanischen Konzil.
Edited and annotated by Alexandra von Teuffebach. Vol. III, pts. 1
and 2 (1963-64). (Nordhausen: Verlag Traugott Baltz, 2014. Pp.
1194. € 150. ISBN 978-3-88309-929-3.)
Cesare Antonelli, Il dibattito su Maria nel Concilio Vaticano II. Percorso redazionale sulla base di nuovi documenti di archivio. By Cesare Antonelli.
[Bibliotheca Berica, 14] (Padua: Edizioni Messagero Padova, 2009.
Pp. 593. € 35.00. ISBN 978-250-2207-0.)

T

his review continues a series of presentations of scholarly publications on
Vatican II.1 I present here, first, the third volume of the office diary (covering September 29, 1963, to September 13, 1964) of Sebastian Tromp, secretary of the council’s Doctrinal Commission; and, second, an archive-based
account of the itinerary through developments to the final formulation of the
council’s Marian teaching in Lumen gentium, Chapter VIII, nos. 52–69.
Sebastian Tromp’s Record of Another Year’s Work by the
Doctrinal Commission, 1963–64
An earlier article of this series reported on the 2011 publication of the
office diary kept by Tromp during Vatican II’s first period and intersession
*Father Wicks, professor emeritus at John Carroll University, University Heights, Ohio,
resides at Colombiere Center, 9075 Big Lake Road, Clarkston, MI, 48346; email:
jwicks@jcu.edu.
1. Jared Wicks, “New Light on Vatican Council II,” Catholic Historical Review, 92
(2006), 609–28; “More Light on Vatican Council II,” Catholic Historical Review, 94 (2008), 75–
101; “Further Light on Vatican Council II,” The Catholic Historical Review, 95 (2009), 546–69;
“Still More Light on Vatican Council II,” Catholic Historical Review, 98 (2012), 476–502;
“Light from Germany on Vatican Council II,” Catholic Historical Review, 99 (2013), 727–48;
“Yet More Light on Vatican Council II,” The Catholic Historical Review, 102 (2016), 97–117;
and “More Scholarship on Vatican Council II,” Catholic Historical Review, 104 (2018), 322–47.

531

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of 1962–63.2 Now we present his record of the Commission’s ongoing
work during Period II in autumn 1963 and continuing in the intersession
to mid-September 1964.3
In autumn 1963 the council members treated in St. Peter’s three draft
texts: on the Church, September 30 to October 31; on bishops’ pastoral
governance of their dioceses, November 5 to 15; and on ecumenism,
November 18 to December 2. One month into the Period, October 30 was
a day of decision on the De ecclesia schema, when the members indicated
by votes their preferences on four doctrinal points about the episcopate and
one point on restoring the permanent diaconate.4
Tromp’s diary informs on how mid-way through Period II, the Doctrinal Commission divided itself into sub-commissions to begin rewriting
the De ecclesia schema of 1963 in the light of hundreds of proposed revisions
offered by the council members—a task that extended into the following
intersession until a revised schema was completed in June 1964 and mailed
to the council members in July. In addition, during the early 1964 intersession, the Commission revised the 1963 schema De revelatione, and in joint
work with the Commission on the Lay Apostolate it completed the first
draft of Schema XVII (soon to be XIII) on the church in the modern world.
During most of Period II, the Doctrinal Commission had as members
twenty-five council fathers, under the appointed President, Cardinal
Alfredo Ottaviani, and his appointed Vice-President, Cardinal Michael
Browne, the former Master General of the Dominicans. Late in the Period
five new members came on, of whom four were elected by the assembly on
November 29 and one was appointed by Pope Paul VI. The Commission
held internal elections on December 2, to choose from its members a
second Vice-President, André-Marie Charue, Bishop of Namur, and from
its periti an adjunct Secretary, Msgr. Gerard Philips, dogmatic theologian
2. Wicks, “Still More Light,” Catholic Historical Review, 98 (2012), 489–95.
3. This phase of the council is covered in detail in Giuseppe Alberigo and Joseph
Komonchak, ed., History of Vatican II, vol. 3, The Mature Council. Second Period and Intersession
(Maryknoll and Leuven, 2000). I give an overview of the 1963 period in Investigating Vatican
II. Its Theologians, Ecumenical Turn, and Biblical Commitment (Washington, DC, 2018), 166–
86, including the chapter’s appendix, “The Itinerary of a Vatican II Document.”
4. See Tromp’s notes recording the speeches and events of the October 30 council session in St. Peter’s: von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 1:239–49. Below, I will indicate Tromp’s laments over this event set in motion by the four cardinal moderators, whom he
and Cardinal Ottaviani judged to be encroaching on the area of the Doctrinal Commission’s
responsibility. Also, I will tell of Tromp’s effort to refute doctrinally key positions on which
the assembly voted its approval on October 30.

JARED WICKS, S.J.

533

at Louvain, who was already the reporter (relator) of the work on De ecclesia.5 To Tromp’s discomfort, the changes increased the Belgian influence
on the Commission’s work, which Tromp often found theologically alien.
Behind this he saw Cardinal Léon Joseph Suenens, who on the Coordinating Commission of cardinals was already the overseer and reporter on both
De ecclesia and Schema XVII on the church in the modern world.
The first part of the newly published edition gives Secretary Tromp’s
capsule accounts, from his listening in St. Peter’s, of the council members’
spoken comments on De ecclesia, along with minutes of the Commission’s
fourteen plenary meetings during Period II (pages 18–375). The diary
moves on to the intersession (pages 376–723), from which come, amid
much else, the minutes of meetings of both the Commission and its subcommissions, during further working sessions March 3–14 and June 1–6,
1964. Thus, the present edition records how De ecclesia was revised to
become the text on which the council members voted during Period III
and how the other dogmatic schema, De revelatione, was made ready for
discussion in that Period. As in the two earlier volumes, the diary entries
of the first part are given in Tromp’s Latin original and in German translation on facing pages.
The second part of the edition is a trove of documents reprinted from
the Vatican Archive, to which references are given in the editor’s backnotes added to the diary’s text. The documents are in their original languages, mainly Latin, and they include twenty-two reports (relationes) on
discussion and actions taken in working sessions, both of the whole commission and of its several sub-commissions for revising passages of its documents (pages 759–956). The documents also comprise letters from and to
the members of the Commission’s leadership (957–1029),6 with three sets
5. Von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 1:351 (election to the Commission of
Christopher Butler, Abbot of Downside, in England; Luis Henriquez Jiménez, Bishop of
Valencia, Venezuela; Alfred Ancel, Auxiliary Bishop of Lyon, France; and Jozef-Maria
Heuschen, Auxiliary Bishop of Liège, Belgium), 369–70 (election during the December 2
Commission meeting of Charue and Philips), and 393 (the January 11, 1964, news of the
pope’s appointment of the fifth new member, Antonio Poma, Bishop of Mantua, Italy). Both
Charue and Philips left diaries of their experience of the council, in Carnets conciliairers de
l’évêque de Namur A.-M. Charue, ed. Leo Declerk and Claude Soetens (Louvain-la-Neuve,
2000), and in Carnets conciliaires de Mgr Gérard Philips, secrétaire adjoint de la Commission doctrinale, ed. Karim Schelkens (Leuven, 2006), which I presented in “More Light,” Catholic
Historical Review 94 (2008), 76–80.
6. A number of the letters offered are in Italian, with a few in French or Latin, while
Tromp and Adjunct Secretary Gerard Philips wrote to each other on occasion in their native
Dutch or Flemish.

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of minutes added from meetings (1030–45), and a catch-all of twenty-two
more pieces such as attendance lists at meetings and memos of the leadership and members of the Commission (1046–1111). The edition concludes
with a name-index of all persons mentioned in the diary, with capsule
biographies added for those who were not identified in the index of the
previous Volume II.
By working through a huge number of comments by council members on previous drafts, the Commission reformulated the schemas of
Vatican II’s two dogmatic constitutions to produce revised versions,
which many council members welcomed with satisfaction during the following Period III of autumn 1964.7 On the Pastoral Constitution,
Gaudium et spes, the diary attests to the composition of the first complete
draft of a schema.
Tromp’s diary informs well on methods of revising the schemas for
which the Doctrinal Commission was responsible. A first step on De ecclesia was having the staff type for mimeograph duplication the texts of comments submitted by council members on the prior version of the schema.8
An initial batch of comments, mailed in by eighty council members as
individuals and by fifteen regional groups of bishops, had arrived before
Period II began on September 29, 1963, and from these the Doctrinal
Commission members received 150 mimeographed pages for initial assessment in view of revising the schema.9 An initial analysis of these comments
produced booklets given to the council members on September 29 and
7. One can see the outcomes of this work of the Commission in the synoptic presentation of the constitutions in Francisco Gil Hellin’s two volumes, Concilii Vaticani II Synopsis
. . . Constitutio Dogmatica De divina revelatione Dei Verbum (Vatican City, 1993) and Concilii
Vaticani II Synopsis . . . Constitutio Dogmatica De ecclesia Lumen Gentium (Vatican City, 1995).
In both volumes the prior text of 1963 and the revised text of 1964 are found side-by-side on
facing pages in columns II and III.
8. The prior version had been sent to the members in two parts, in April and July 1963.
I tell of its origin as a revision of the 1962 schema of the Preparatory Theological Commission
in Investigating Vatican II, 67–69 and 131–38. In all likelihood Pope John XXIII himself
started the process leading to the revised De ecclesia, through a suggestion on October 13,
1962, made by Cardinal Secretary of State Amleto Cicognani to Suenens, who then asked
Philips to work quietly with other periti in drafting an alternative to the official De ecclesia, as
was done by late October 1962 (Investigating, 132n29). Suenens told of Cicognani’s suggestion in a letter cited by Karim Schelkens in Carnets conciliares de Mgr Gćrard Philips, 157n16.
About Cicognani’s suggestion, one must doubt whether it was his own idea. More likely, it
came from John XXIII.
9. Here I follow Tromp’s Relatio de schemate De ecclesia denuo reformato of April 18,
1964, given in von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 2:759–79.

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535

October 9, in which the early interventions were broken up and their particular comments collated as comments on and recommended revisions of
each numbered paragraph of the thirty-six paragraphs of the schema’s four
chapters.10
From twenty-six council meetings on De ecclesia, copies of the interventions, both those spoken in St. Peter’s and those handed in by fathers
who did not speak, grew voluminously to 1776 pages with yet another 110
pages of comments mailed in during in January 1964. The revision process
began slowly under Philips, who had been the “reporter” (relator) on De
ecclesia since March 1963. Five Commission members had become on
October 2 a sub-commission, chaired by Cardinal Michael Browne, for
overseeing and coordinating the revision, assisted by six periti headed by
Philips.11 Working with copies of the members’ comments, the periti and
staff began typing the particular interventions on individual note cards
recording the members’ particular evaluations or desired modifications of a
given paragraph or sentence.12
Soon the need became clear for further mobilizing the Doctrinal
Commission members and periti for mastering the enormous number of
proposals calling for revisions of the 1963 text of De ecclesia. Philips made
this point at the plenary meeting on October 23 and the Browne sub-commission agreed two days later to organize Commission members into seven
further sub-commissions for the different parts of the schema. These corresponded to the five chapters, but for the chapter on the hierarchy and
bishops three sub-commissions were named: no. 3, on the institution and

10. The schema’s chapters were: I, on the mystery of the Church; II, on the hierarchy,
especially the bishops; III, on the laity in the people of God; and IV, on holiness especially in
religious life. The October 9 booklet also explained to the council members the imminent
structural change of De ecclesia, approved by the Coordinating Commission on October 2, by
which a new Chapter II, De populo Dei in genere, would be created from passages presently in
Chapters I and III and placed before the chapter on hierarchy and bishops. The same Commission approved a later structural change on July 3, 1964, by which the then Chapter V was
divided into distinct chapters V and VI, on its two topics, the universal call to holiness and
on religious life in the church.
11. Also on the central sub-commission: Bishops Charue, Ermenigildo Florit, of Florence, Gabriel-Marie Garrone, of Toulouse, and Francesco Spanedda, of Bosa, in Sardinia;
the other periti were Umberto Betti, O.F.M., Rosario Gagnebet, O.P., Jorge A, Medina,
Charles Moeller, and Heribert Schauf.
12. At the October 28 plenary of the Commission, Philips said that 1500 individual
note cards were already on hand for the sub-commissions that would draft revisions of Chapters I and II of the prior text, as recalled by Yves Congar, in My Journal of the Council, trans.
Mary John Ronayne and Mary Cecily Boulding (Collegeville, Minn., 2012), 400.

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sacramentality of the episcopate, no. 4, on presbyters and deacons, and no.
5, on the episcopal college.13
During the remaining days of Period II, only the sub-commission
for revising Chapter I, on the mystery of the church, completed its work
and brought its proposed revision to plenary meetings of the Commission on November 25 and 26, 1963. Tromp records the process of the
two meetings.14 Philips presented each revised paragraph and briefly
indicated the reasons for changed formulations. He had at hand sets of
the note cards recording the council members’ requests and could cite
them in justification if a modification was questioned. The Commission
members at times proposed further improvements of the text, while
others offered amendments of the proposals. In some cases, a vote taken
on the formulation to use.
The record gives Tromp’s documentation of a notable moment in the
Vatican II doctrinal labors. The November 26 meeting to revise the final
two paragraphs of Chapter I of De ecclesia began at 4:30 PM.15 At 6:35 PM
they arrived at the text affirming the identity on earth of the Church of
Christ. The prior formulation of earlier 1963 had said that this Church of
Christ is (est) the Catholic Church, but added, “however (licet) elements of
sanctification can be found outside the Catholic Church’s complete structure.”16 But the Chapter I sub-commission had, in response to a number
of bishops’ requests, nuanced the affirmed identity by replacing “is” by “is
present in” (adest in) the Catholic Church, which keeps the affirmation,
but could mean it was not an exclusive claim. The motive, Philips
13. The sub-commissions’ members and periti are given in von Teuffenbach, ed.,
Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 2:1077–81 adding directions for sub-commission work, drawn up by
Tromp and Philips, on how to propose revised texts for review by Browne’s central sub-commission before they came before the whole Commission for review, possible further modification, and approval.
14. Von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 1:337–49. In reporting on the meeting, as he does often in the diary, Tromp noted times to the minute of the interventions, so
he could more easily find the places in the tape recordings of the meetings and so assure the
accuracy of his record.
15. Unfortunately, the documentary part of the present edition of his diary gives no
detailed reports from sub-commission 1, which had revised Chapter 1 in meetings on
November 6 and 10. That group had as members Bishops Charue (presider), Georges Pelletier, of Trois Rivières, Canada, and Johannes van Dodewaard, of Haarlem, The Netherlands, while its periti included Lucien Cerfaux, Joseph Fenton, Salvatore Garofalo, Giorgio
Castellino, S.D.B., Jean Daniélou, S.J., and Beda Rigaux, O.F. M (secretary). Von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 2:1104–05.
16. Acta Synodalia, II, pt. 1:219.

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537

explained, was to have a verb that fits better with the statement immediately following on “elements” of the church found elsewhere.
Tromp records that the peritus, Heribert Schauf, professor in Aachen,
Germany, spoke up on this point, to say he did not approve of “is present
in,” but thought that the earlier “is” had to be used here to state the
Catholic self-understanding as being Christ’s Church. At this point,
Tromp himself spoke, to propose another wording to replace “is present in”
(adest in), offering “the Church of Christ subsists in (subsistit in) the
Catholic Church, which is exclusive, because elsewhere there are only elements, as the text explains.”17 The diary records no dialogue among Commission members or periti on Tromp’s proposal, but only adds the result,
namely, that Tromp’s wording “was accepted” (Admittitur). This led to
“subsists in” entering the revised schema of 1964 and being found in the
promulgated Lumen gentium, no 8.18
During the intersession, the Commission held sixteen plenary meetings from March 2 to 14, 1964, on De ecclesia, for treating the other subcommission reports and completing the revision of Chapters II–V. At the
end of the session, the Commission also reviewed the draft chapter on the
Blessed Virgin Mary, composed by Philips and Carlo Balić, O.F.M., and
accepted it provisionally as the basis of further work, as the second part of
this report will relate below.
As it completed the March agenda, the Commission discussed briefly
another addition to De ecclesia, which had arrived out of the blue on
Tromp’s desk on January 5, 1964. This was a draft chapter on relations
between the church on earth and the heavenly church of the saints in
heaven. This originated in a 1961 article by Paolo Molinari, S.J., on the
saints’ functions in the church. Pope John XXIII liked the article and
encouraged Molinari to continue investigating the saints’ roles in the
17. Karl Josef Becker cites Tromp’s words from the tape recording, in “An Examination
of Subsistit in: A Profound Theological Perspective,” L’Osservatore Romano, English Edition,
December 14, 2005, 11, accessed at www.ewtn.com/library/Theology/ subsistitin.HTM, on
January 28, 2019. Becker used italics, because Tromp said the word exclusivum quite insistently.
18. As the notebooks of Tromp’s hand-written diary were only discovered in the Vatican Archive in 2000, the principal commentaries on Lumen gentium do not trace subsistit in
back to Tromp and to it being a corrective of adest in. The attendance list of the November
26 plenary meeting (Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 2:1086) shows only sixteen Commission members present that day, including the President, Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, while ten members were absent. Thirty-one periti did attend, including Carlo Colombo, Jean Daniélou, S.J.,
Joseph Fenton, Alois Grillmeier, S.J., Karl Rahner, S.J., Joseph Ratzinger, Joaquin Salaverri,
S.J., Pieter Smulders, S.J., and Gustave Thils.

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Church’s worship, from which a book manuscript was soon ready.19 This
prompted the pope, in March 1963, to commission Cardinal Arcadio Larraona, C.F.M., Prefect of the Congregation on Rites, to assemble periti to
work with Molinari on composing a Conciliar schema on the saints and
the church.
After the vote in Period II to insert the council text on the Blessed
Virgin Mary into the ecclesiology constitution, Larraona’s periti revised
their text on the saints to also fit into De ecclesia. After delivery of the new
text to Tromp and its distribution to the Commission members, a Doctrinal sub-commission was commissioned on March 2 to report on it, as they
did briefly late in the morning of March 14, before the Commission members were told to send in their comments on it by mail, in preparation for
treating the text in the plenary session of June 1—6, when it was given a
form proposed to the council members early in Period III and then revised
to enter the 1964 schema of De ecclesia as its Chapter VII.20
The diary informs us about an effort made by Tromp in 1964 to influence the schema De ecclesia in its Chapter III, on bishops, their collegial
unity, and their authority as a college. Sub-commission 3, led by Archbishop Pietro Parente, had revised it, beginning during Period II and continuing in late January 1964.21 The revised text came to the Doctrinal Commission in March, with its affirmation of the sacramentality of episcopal
19. Molinari’s article was “Alcune riflessioni teologiche sulla funzione dei Santi nella
Chiesa,” Gregorianum 42 (1961), 63-96, followed by the book, I santi e il loro culto (Rome,
1962), translated as The Saints in the Church (New York, 1965).
20. Von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 1:409–11 (February 5 and 6: arrival
of the schema, narrative of its origin, its redactors, and Paul VI’s approval), pt. 1:425 (review
of the schema as a possible new chapter of De ecclesia, by the sub-commission of Cardinals
Franz König, of Vienna, and Rufino Santos, of Manila, with Bishop Garrone). Further documentation in Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 2:1004–21.
21. Sub-commission 3’s report is in von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt.
2:817–40. Parente had taught dogmatic theology at the Lateran University 1926–38 and
1940–55, was then archbishop of Perugia 1955–59, and became in 1959 Assesssor (equivalently
Vice-prefect) of the Congregation of the Holy Office. The other members of Sub-commission 3 were Bishops Joseph Schröffer, of Eichstatt, Germany, Hermann Volk, of Mainz, Germany and Florit, who chose Parente to preside over their work. The initial periti were
Umberto Betti, Carlo Colombo, Edouard Dhanis, S.J., Michele Maccarrone, Karl Rahner,
Joseph Ratzinger, Joaquin Salaverri, and Gustave Thils, but the huge number of council members’ comments led soon to appointing other periti, including Heribert Schauf, Rosario Gagnebet, O.P., Giuseppe D’Ercole, Ferdinando Lambruschini, and Otto Semmelroth, S.J.
Bettti was chosen the sub-commission’s secretary and wrote the report, which led twenty
years later to his detailed account of the genesis of Lumen gentium, chapter 3 on the hierarchy
and bishops, in La dottrina sull’episcopato del Concilio Vaticano II (Rome, 1984).

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539

consecration, which incorporates a new member into the episcopal college
succeeding the apostles, and its teaching that the episcopal college, in communion with its head the Successor of Peter, was the bearer of full and
supreme ecclesial authority, with a universal magisterium, an authority of
which an ecumenical council such as Vatican II is an extraordinary exercise.
Tromp judged these doctrines to be unfounded and as early as October
12 he had been working out arguments against them as expressed in the
revised schema of 1963.22 The schema is wrong, according to Tromp, where
it argues to conclusions about the episcopal college from Vatican I’s statement about the ordinary and universal magisterium proposing doctrines
calling for the response of divine and Catholic faith.23 For such teaching
arises in and from the actions of individual bishops, not from a collegial act.
Tromp holds that the schema is wrong on why the bishops in an ecumenical
council are a juridical college sharing in supreme power in the church. They
are not such a college before the ecumenical council, but are constituted
such by the pope’s calling them to collaborate with him for the good of the
universal church and for this convocation they receive a share in the pope’s
jurisdiction.24 Basic for Tromp is that the pope, as the unique representative
of Christ, has a jurisdiction that is never limited by any authority of the
bishops, even when they act as the episcopal college. The jurisdiction of the
college, as in an ecumenical council, is always limited by papal primacy.
Bishops can act authoritatively regarding the universal church only on matters that the pope proposes to them, whether explicitly or implicitly.

22. Von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 1:137. Tromp tells that Cardinal
Giuseppe Siri had communicated to him, through Paolo Molinari, that he (Siri) had gone to
Paul VI to warn him about the danger created by the theory of episcopal collegiality in the De
ecclesia schema, from which people are making statements which de facto limit the full and
supreme authority of the Roman Pontiff. Encouraged by this information, Tromp set down
on October 12 in his diary twenty-two lines of his own counter-arguments against the
schema’s doctrine.
23. Denzinger, 1792 / 3011. Vatican Council I, Dei Filius, Ch III, on the content of
faith: “By divine and catholic faith all those things are to be believed which are contained in
the word of God as found in scripture and tradition, and which are propose by the church as
matters to be believed as divine revealed, whether by her solemn judgment or in her ordinary
and universal magisterium.” Documents of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman P. Tanner
(London and Washington, DC, 1990), 2:807.
24. In a meeting on October 25, Tromp heard Cardinal Browne’s proposed formulation on the episcopal college’s authority, namely, that it has supreme ecclesial power, under
the pope but joined with him, because he invites them to act collegially and then freely
approves their action, as in an ecumenical countil—a view similar to the second point of
Tromp’s October 12 sketch. Von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 1:223. Tromp’s
developed text on episcopal collegiality will conclude in terms much like Browne’s.

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RECENT SCHOLARSHIP ON VATICAN COUNCIL II

After the main tenets of the schema on episcopal collegiality were confirmed by the assembly’s orientation votes of October 30, 1963, Tromp
worked out an expanded set of his contrary arguments.25 He held that the
developing positions of De ecclesia on episcopal ordination and collegial
authority were beset with confusion over their principal terms and that
their affirmation of episcopal collegial authority detracts from Vatican I’s
doctrine on papal authority as full and supreme in the church.
Tromp’s critical intervention ran parallel with Cardinal Michael
Browne’s opposition to the emerging Vatican II doctrine, which Browne also
saw as diminishing the pope’s supreme authority.26 But these dissents were
not successful, as they encountered authoritative rejections—unlike the
acceptance of Tromp’s proposal of subsistit in for the schema’s Chapter I.
Tromp had sent his November text to Paul VI in late February 1964,
but after talking with Rosario Gagnebet, O.P., the council theologian of
Cardinal Browne, he revised his text and on February 29, related its arguments to Ottaviani and Browne, who both agreed with it, which convinced
Tromp to also send his revised position paper to Pope Paul VI.27
Tromp attributes the schema’s errors to its being influenced by
modern approaches which are hostile to the scholastic theological tradition, with its attention to clear definitions, and which do not observe of the
classical tenet that the church’s magisterium is the proximate norm of
faith’s expression.28 Furthermore, the council’s ecclesiology discussion

25. Von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 1:285 (Tromp working November
17); 329 (finished November 24). The text is given in pt. 2:841–51, “De episcoporum collegio,” in the revision of February 28, 1964, which adds at the end Tromp’s recommended formulation for the schema, in a passage freed from the schema’s errors.
26. Browne composed on February 12, 1964, his “annotation” maintaining that the
schema’s emerging doctrine is incompatible with Vatican I’s definition of the full and
supreme authority of the pope. Browne’s text is given in von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 2:1056–58.
27. Von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 1: 417 (the earlier votum was for
Paul VI, but on February 27 he revised it and added a positive conclusion) and 419 (oral presentations to Ottaviani and Browne on February 29; their approval; and Tromp’s sending of
the revised report to Paul VI). Betti relates that both Browne’s annotation and Tromp’s votum
went to the Doctrinal Commission’s members for their March meetings, along with the
revised schema and the reports of the seven sub-commissions responsible for the revision (La
dottrina sull’episcopato, 204).
28. The diary relates that on December 17, 1963, Tromp prepared a memorandum on
a text he found instructive, namely, the Proemium which Vatican I added to its first dogmatic
constitution, Dei Filius. He discussed this a week later with Cardinal Browne (von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 1:383 and 385). The Proemium presented Vatican I’s teach-

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541

shows an antipathy to juridical concepts, with preference instead for dogmatic and ontological notions, which for Tromp is wrong, because in treating bishops and relating them to papal primacy one is dealing with matters
of “sacred rule” (sacrum imperium) and a “sacred magisterium,” which
require a juridical treatment.
Tromp argues that the apostles’ authority came from their mission,
not from ordination for priestly actions. Thus, episcopal authority lies primarily in the sphere of governance and teaching, not in that of sacraments.
So it is wrong to teach that consecration confers jurisdiction, which is
prior, by appointment to share in the apostolic mission. Furthermore, collegiality, in a special juridical sense for the episcopate, is not about governing and teaching the universal church, but about the concern that bishops
must have for governing their particular churches in a manner conducive
to the good of the universal church. The episcopal body must continuously
be one in intent and collaborative effort with the Vicar of Christ in his governmental care for the whole church.
Tromp sought at the end of his intervention to connect his views with
the emerging Vatican II teaching, by admitting that the episcopate may
have an “aptitudinal” power concerning the universal church, which is like
the “obediential potency” ascribed by theologians to human nature as its
only preparation for supernatural gifts of grace. The critical point is that the
body of bishops has no power in itself to actualize its aptitude. Instead,
they must be invited by the pope, as when he convokes them for an ecumenical council for collegial treatment of the topics on which he invites
them to deliberate. In this, Tromp’s paper joined Cardinal Browne’s position against the body of bishops having any actual universal jurisdiction,
but instead a collegial co-governance (con-gubernium) for the good of the
universal church, which may be actualized in a council by the pope on
issues which he may specify.29
In its March 1964 plenary session, the Commission did not take up
the objections that had come from its Vice-President, Browne, and its Secing as a response to centuries of degenerating understanding of God and the human reality,
caused by the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, and more recent atheistic socialism. See Documents of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Tanner, 2:804–05.
29. See the similar conclusions: Browne, speaking of the College “governing,” co-gubernandi, with the pope, as specified in a council for certain issues the pope freely submits (von
Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 2:1058) and Tromp, on it having a congubernium
with the pope, but as well an obediential potency to be called to share in supreme power on
issues the pope wants to be treated collegially (2:845 and 850–51).

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RECENT SCHOLARSHIP ON VATICAN COUNCIL II

retary, Tromp. The latter did hear from others that Paul VI had read and
liked his position on the issues of chapter 3, but he also heard Parente say
that Browne was creating unnecessary difficulties, which would also apply
to Tromp’s intervention.30 Then, in May, when the pope submitted thirteen suggested further emendations for the Commission to consider on
episcopal collegiality and its relation to papal authority, Paul VI made no
allusion to the positions taken by Tromp and Browne.
The Commission treated the papal suggestions in plenary meetings on
June 5–6, adopting some, revising others for a better fit into the schema,
and declining still others while offering justifications for this.31 Then,
Browne raised his difficulties about collegiality as incompatible with papal
full and supreme authority. But Browne’s views met no agreement, being
countered by arguments of the sub-commission’s periti, who, among other
points, noted that Paul VI, after intense study of the March schema, had
not endorsed Browne’s or Tromp’s positions in his suggestions. Betti was
commissioned to write for Paul VI a more complete justification of the
Commission’s decision, that is, why neither Browne’s nor Tromp’s views
were accepted as offering reasons to make a fundamental revision of the
developing text on the episcopate and its collegiality.32
30. Von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 1:595 (March 19: Paul VI read the
two papers), 597 (April 6: the pope likes Tromp’s conclusion), and 599 (April 6: Parente on
Browne’s unnecessary difficulties). But Paul VI’s homily on Holy Thursday of 1964, March
26, was taken as expressing his agreement with the main lines of the schema’s developing doctrine of episcopal collegiality. See Alberigo and Komonchak, ed., History of Vatican II, 3:365.
For the pope’s words, see http://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/it/homilies/1964/documents/hf_p-vi_hom_19640326_in-coena-domini.html, especially the tenth paragraph,
accessed March 9, 2019.
31. Von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 1:681–89, giving Tromp’s minutes
of the Commission’s discussion of the pope’s suggestions. Betti gives the text of Paul VI’s suggestions of May 19 and analyzes the Commission’s responses. Betti, La dottrina sull’episcopato,
493–96, 212–19.
32. Betti, La dottrina sull’episcopato, 219–20, with n. 63, on Browne’s June 4 paper,
“Considerationes . . . circa collegialitatem episcoporum,” and Betti’s memorandum of rebuttal, “Osservazioni sulla collegialità episcopale,” of June 19, which the author offers in full on
500–506. Betti cited the Vatican I spokesman for the Deputation on the Faith, Bishop Federico M. Zinelli, of Treviso, who said that the episcopate with its head does have supreme
and full powers (502–03) and that Vatican I’s definition of papal infallibility implies that the
episcopate as well possesses supreme teaching authority. For papal infallibility in defining the
faith is in fact the infallibility “which the divine Redeemer willed his church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals.” Pastor aeternus, Ch. IV, DH 3074 and Decrees of the
Ecumenical Councils, ed. Tanner, 2:816. Betti had indicated the implication in Vatican I’s
phrasing of a collegial-episcopal infallibility, in his work on Vatican I, La Costituzione dommatica Pastor aeternus del Concilio Vaticano I (Rome, 1961), 177–78 and 633–35.

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Tromp’s unsuccessful demarche over episcopal collegiality certainly left
him disappointed over Vatican II’s emerging doctrine in De ecclesia, Chapter 3. In the next volume of his Secretary’s diary, on Vatican II’s Period III
and the following intercession, we will look to see whether and how
Tromp receives the promulgated Lumen gentium of 1964 with its affirmation of positions from which he dissented during and after Period II.
Tromp’s diary on the Doctrinal Commission’s labors during the intersession of early 1964 also records steps in the Commission’s transformative
work on the schema De revelatione. After Period I, Pope John’s Joint Commission, from the Doctrinal Commission and the Unity Secretariat, had
worked amid difficulties to get beyond the controversial De fontibus revelationis (1962) by preparing a successor text with a new Prooemium on revelation itself and a labored exposition which observed a silence, neither
affirming nor denying the existence of divinely revealed truths originating
in traditions beyond the witness of the biblical books. The schema added
four short chapters on biblical inspiration and interpretation, the Old Testament, the New Testament, and Scripture’s role in church life.
As Period II ended on December 4, 1963, Pope Paul VI put De revelatione back on the council agenda for Period III and the council members
were given until the end of January 1964 to send in more comments in view
of a further revision of the schema. The Unity Secretariat had in this phase
only the role of giving a nihil obstat to the revision work done by the Doctrinal Commission’s members and periti.
Late in the Commission’s March 1964 working session, a seven-member
sub-commission for revising De revelatione came into being, chaired by the
new second Vice-President, A. M. Charue, and supported by a notable corps
of periti, whose first task was to examine all the council members’ critical and
constructive comments on the 1963 schema in view of proposed revisions
which would make the text more agreeable to council assembly. The new subcommission divided itself into two “sub-sub-commissions,” of which one,
chaired by E. Florit of Florence, took up the Prooemium and Chapter I on tradition and Scripture, while the second, headed by Charue himself, was to
revise the following four chapters on the Bible.33
33. Von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 1:541–45, detailing the March 11
organizational meeting. Florit’s section had as members Bishops Pelletier and Josef M.
Heuschen, Auxiliary Bishop of Liege, Belgium, with Abbot Butler. The periti included, for
the Prooemium on revelation, Pieter Smulders, S.J. and Carlo Colombo (Paul VI’s personal
theologian) and, to treat scripture/tradition, Yves Congar, O.P., Karl Rahner, S.J., and
Heribert Schauf. Florit’s personal theologian, Umberto Betti, O.F.M., would serve as secre-

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The members and periti received 220 mimeographed pages of comments on the 1963 De revelatione which had come in from eighty-five
council members and fifteen groups of bishops responding as conferences.
The sub-commission reconvened in Rome on April 20 for six days of work
leading to a provisional text from the proposals of the two internal subcommissions.34 The members then returned to Rome to present their text
for review and approval by the full Doctrinal Commission in meetings on
June 2 to 5.35
Tromp had first declared to Philips that he was not going to attend the
new Sub-Commission’s meetings, for which Philips would be the relator as
he was for De ecclesia. But Tromp was at the organizational session on
March 11, 1964, at which he passed out a report based on his study of the
member’s comments, which they could accept or not based on their own
study.36 On April 23, Ottaviani told Tromp of his discontent over the
text’s silence concerning revealed truths attested in tradition alone, at
which the Secretary reminded the Cardinal of the principle of stare decisis
tary. For revising the biblical chapters under Charue. the members were Johannes van Dodewaard, Auxiliary Bishop of Haarlem, the Netherlands, and Francisco Barbado, O.P. Bishop
of Salamanca, Spain. Their periti included Lucien Cerfaux, Beda Rigaux, O.F.M., Alois
Grillmeier, S.J., Otto Semmelroth, S.J., and Rosario Gagnebet, O.P., with Alexander Kerrigan, O.F.M. as secretary. The latter group also added Joseph Ratzinger, who does not appear
in Tromp’s first roster (542), but Kerrigan tells of him working with Grillmeier and Semmelroth to revise the chapters on inspiration and interpretation and on scripture in the church’s
life (III, pt. 2, 895–901, on 895 and 901).
34. On the revision work by the periti on the Proemium (soon to be Chapter 1), see
Jared Wicks, “Dei Verbum Developing: Vatican II’s Revelation Doctrine 1963–1964,” in The
Convergence of Theology, ed. Daniel Kendall and Stephen Davis (Mahwah, NJ, 2001), 109–21,
on Pieter Smulders’s work, and Jared Wicks, “De revelatione under Revision (March–April
1964), in The Belgian Contribution to the Second Vatican Council, ed. Doris Donnelly et al.
(Leuven, 2008), 471–94, on Charles Moeller’s work. Regarding the revision of Chapter 2, on
tradition, see Umberto Betti, La dottrina del Concilio Vaticano II sulla trasmissione della revelazione (Rome, 1995), 102–92, with the initial draft revisions by Karl Rahner and Yves
Congar given in the Appendix, 322–27.
35. Von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 1:605–11, on the April 20–25 meetings, concisely, and 637–79, giving Tromp’s minutes of the June 2–5 sessions on De revelatione, at which the Commission members assessed, further modified, and approved, paragraph by paragraph, the text that came from the Charue sub-commission. On June 26, the
cardinals of the Commission for Coordinating the Council’s Work approved the new version
of De revelatione and on July 15, Tromp had a copy in hand as a 65-page booklet which then
went by mail to all the council members. Von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 1:707
and 711. The booklet placed the texts of 1963 and 1964 in parallel columns and reported how
each revision had arisen from specific comments offered by council members.
36. Von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 1: 542. Tromp’s report is given Acta
Synodalia, III/3:109–23.

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545

which bound the sub-commission not to reopen a decision adopted by
majority vote in the Joint Commission a year earlier. At the same time, the
second sub-commission accepted from Tromp a revision on the inspiration
of Scripture, based on a strong phrase used by theologians at Vatican I,
namely that the inspiring Holy Spirit operates in and through the human
authors of the biblical books.37
The diary registers several expressions of dissatisfaction shared by
Tromp and cardinal Ottaviani over the tasks of the Doctrinal Commission
and the outcomes its labors. For them serious problems arose amid their
Commission’s relations with the higher authorities instituted by the popes
of the council, first, the Coordinating Commission, from John XXIII, and
then especially the four Cardinal Moderators, from Paul VI. In early
December and often afterward, Tromp registered his complaint that the
former body is giving orders and setting deadlines for the Commission’s
work without knowing the huge tasks it was undertaking. These cardinals
deliberate over the Commission’s work, but do not invite President Ottaviani or Secretary Tromp to the meetings.38
A major sore point was what Ottaviani and Tromp took as the Moderators’ invasion of the Commission’s area of responsibility when Suenens
announced to the assembly on October 15 that the members were going to
receive questions, first four, then five, for them to answer by voting in order
to give to the Doctrinal Commission a set of orientations to guide its revision of De ecclesia, Chapter III, on the episcopate and its collegiality.39
Tromp was also critical of the formulation of the question put to the
assembly on October 29 about the schema of Mary, namely, whether it
should become a part of De ecclesia or remain the schema of a separate constitution. It was, for Tromp, prejudicial to express this as a motion to incorporate the text into De ecclesia, asking for votes of placet or non placet, whereas
the fair method would have been to present a simple choice between Positions I and II.40 Later Tromp objected, in his diary, to the introductions
given in the council session of November 19, 1963, to the Unity Secretariat’s

37. Von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 2:609, on how Tromp answered
Ottaviani, and pt. 2:1109 gives Tromp’s note of April 11, leading to “in and through” now
being in Dei verbum, no. 11.
38. Von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 1:89, 373, 387, 393, 511, and 529.
39. Von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 1:153, 233, and 259.
40. Von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 1:233. On p. 237, Tromp denied
Cardinal Moderator Döpfner’s claim that the vote was doctrinally neutral, because the text’s
place really affected the Marian doctrine it proposed.

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schema on ecumenism by Cardinal Bea and Bishop DeSmet, as these were
both little more than one-sided celebrations of the schema’s content.41
Tromp spoke frankly to Philips on December 3, 1963 about how distraught he had become over his situation in the Doctrinal Commission.
On this day, the eve of the Public Session at which Paul VI was to sign and
promulgate for the whole Church the constitution on liturgical renewal,
Tromp said that officially he was the Commission’s first secretary and
Philips his adjunct, but the roles are really reversed, because Philips has the
major responsibility of overseeing the revision of De ecclesia while Tromp
senses that his own presence is barely tolerated at meetings of the central
sub-commission on the revision. Tromp claimed that by rights he, as the
Commission’s Secretary should be the first consultor of the Cardinal President, but he has never had this role, since Ottaviani turns first for advice
on doctrinal matters to a member of the Commission, Parente, the Holy
Office Assessor. But now his situation is worse, and Tromp is secretary in
name only, because the real direction of the Commission is in the hands of
Cardinal Suenens, whose agent, Bishop Charue, is the new Vice-President.42 Tromp will not ask to be relieved of his position, because doing that
could give offense to the pope. In spite of all this, Tromp assured Philips
of his friendly collaboration, even though he does not agree with the doctrine of the text they are revising on the Church.43
Despite the fact that Tromp’s diary has to chronicle doctrinal developments for which he had little or no sympathy, his record remains a precious window into the complex procedures by which the council came to
make its major statements of renewed Catholic doctrine.
The Itinerary of Lumen gentium, Ch. VIII,
on the Blessed Virgin Mary
Even a decade after its publication, I must report on the detailed study
of Vatican II’s Marian teaching by Cesare Antonelli, O.S.M.44 It rests on
41. Von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 1:301 and 303 (the “other side”
ought to be heard on this topic). The next day Tromp gave Ottaviani a brief four-point critique of the ecumenism schema (313).
42. On the reality and the limits of Suenens’s broad influence on Vatican II, see M.
Lamberigts and Leo Declerck, “The Role of Cardinal L.-J. Suenens at Vatican II,” in The Belgian Contribution to the Second Vatican Council, 61–271.
43. Von Teuffenbach, ed., Konzilstagebuch, III, pt. 1:371. This December 3 conversation took place before a forty-five-minute meeting of the newly formed leadership (Ottaviani,
Browne, Charue, Tromp, and Philips) to plan the Commission’s work during the coming
intersession (minutes on 373–75).

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547

extensive labors in the major Vatican II archives and makes good use of
published and unpublished diaries and correspondence of the council
fathers and periti.
Antonelli presents the several texts on Mary composed in 1961–62
as drafts for the Preparatory Theological Commission by the Croatian
Mariologist of the Pontifical Athenaeum Antonianum in Rome, Karlo
Balić, O.F.M. During the council’s Period I, on November 23, 1962, the
latest version of the text gained official status as a draft Dogmatic Constitution by its distribution to the council fathers, and it came to them
again, with a new title, by mail in April 1963. But when the fathers
decided, by a slight majority, on October 29, 1963, to locate Marian doctrine in a chapter of the council’s Constitution on the Church, a new
schema by Gerard Philips of Louvain became the working text on Mary,
which was modified by the Doctrinal Commission’s members and periti,
including Balić. The Aula discussion of the chapter on September 16–18,
1964, showed a broad approval of the draft but also differences over
Mary as Mediatrix of grace. The Fathers’ comments led to small but crucial modifications before the vote on the chapter on October 29 (1559
approving; 521 also approving, but offering amendments; ten not
approving). The Commission’s handling of the amendments gained
acceptance, by 2096 to 23, on November 19, before Lumen gentium, with
its Chapter 8, nos. 52–69, on the Virgin Mary, became official Catholic
teaching, by the Fathers’ vote of 2151 to 5 and Pope Paul VI’s promulgation, on November 21, 1964.
Antonelli’s study opens by evoking the twentieth-century Marian
fervor among Catholics and registering how theology manuals on Mary
regularly deduced her singular privileges from major principles, such as her
place within God’s eternal predestination of the redemptive incarnation of
the Eternal Word.45 But currents of ressourcement Mariology began flowing
in the 1950s in the French and German language areas. Consequently,
amid results of the canvass for council topics in 1959–60, the Preparatory
Theological Commission took note of 350 proposals to affirm new Marian
44. Il dibattito su Maria nel Concilio Vaticano II. Percorso redazionale sulla base di nuovi
documenti di archivio, Bibliotheca Berica 14 (Padua, 2009). A more recent and informative
background work is Mary on the Eve of the Second Vatican Council, ed. John C. Cavadini and
Danielle M. Peters (Notre Dame, IN, 2017).
45. For a window upon this current, see the appreciation of Balić’s Cuban-American
disciple and exponent of Mary as Coredemptrix, Junipero Carol OFM (1911–1990), by Peter
Fehlner, “Fr. Junipero Carol, OFM: His Mariology and Scholarly Achievement,” Marian
Studies 43 (1992): 17–59.

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privileges, such as her “spiritual maternity” of Christians, which however
contrasted with sixty requests that the council favor ecumenism by abstaining from such teaching. The Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office proposed teaching that Mary was and is a true participant in human redemption by her mediation of grace, whereas at an initial Preparatory
Commission meeting Msgr. Carlo Colombo of Milan argued that Marian
teaching should be located in the council’s account of ecclesiology, to present Mary as the exemplary and singular member of the church.46
As the initial drafting got under way, the teaching on Mary was foreseen as the second of fourteen chapters on the church and Balić became the
drafter, working in frequent interaction with members and other consultors of the De ecclesia sub-commission. A first draft ready in May 1961 had
the title, “Mary, Mother of Jesus and Mother of the Church,” and opened
with the eternal predestining decree of the Incarnation, within which Mary
was closely joined with Christ for her role in the saving economy and her
singular privileges. Mary consented to be Mother of God, of the Savior,
and, in a certain sense, of those saved. At the cross she suffered with her
son, while offering him for humankind. She was his socia generosa in gaining grace and she continues this in the granting of grace; her maternal love
toward all gives her a central role in the church. After treating the church’s
veneration of Mary, the chapter-schema ended on her as promoter of
Christian unity.47
The drafts by Balić met resistance from members and consultors of the
De ecclesia group, for example, against arguing deductively from the theological construct of God’s predestining decree (Joseph Lécuyer, C.S.S.P.),
against exaggeration of what she consented to in the incarnation (Jan
Witte, S.J.), against speaking scholastically when biblical phrases were at
hand (Philips), and against unneeded complexity in explaining Marian
titles (Colombo). In July 1961, critiques came in by mail, for example,
from Brazil (Boaventura Kloppenburg, O.F.M.), that the draft was inopportune in affirming sixteen points of Marian doctrine heretofore not
taught definitively. From Spain, Joaquin Salaverri, S.J., faulted the schema

46. Antonelli, Il debattito, 21–30 (Marian exuberance, along with deductive methods in
the manuals, and different impulses in 1950s works by both Hugo and Karl Rahner, Otto
Semmelroth, Michael Schmaus, Yves Congar, René Laurentin, and Henri de Lubac), 36–52
and 70 (vota of future Fathers), 55 (Holy Office), and 70 (Colombo, who became the council
peritus of Pope Paul VI).
47. Antonelli, Il debattito, 75–80 (draft of May 26, 1961) and 86–91 (July 4 text, revised
by changes offered by consultors residing in Rome).

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for drawing on Pius XII’s allocutions and exhortations, which lacked the
doctrinal standing of Pius’s encyclicals.48
In autumn 1961, after Balić expanded his text in line with friendly
amendments and continued to defend it against critics, the Commission
consultor and ressourcement Mariologist, René Laurentin, started thinking
of a different, biblically-enriched, draft for use in case Balić’s text met serious difficulties. Laurentin thought the schema was becoming an independent Mariology, minimally related to its context in De ecclesia, and he
opposed featuring “Mother of the Church,” because the title was unknown
in the early church, appeared only in the twelfth century, and occurred
rarely down to recent times.49
In telling of the September 1961 Theological Commission meeting,
Antonelli draws on Yves Congar’s daily journal entries to give vivid details
beyond the silent record of the drafts and minutes of sessions. At a Marian
sub-commission meeting, Congar found Balić’s introduction of the current
draft an impassioned sales pitch for it. Balić domineered as relator and when
Salaverri made a point about conciliar teaching outranking papal encyclicals, Balić shouted that this was not relevant, which Salaverri contested with
a louder shout. Congar argued for increased biblical grounding of the
schema to help Catholics give witness to Protestants, since ecumenism is a
call of God to the twentieth-century church. Laurentin made a calm case
for a fresh point of departure, namely, by declaring first what Catholics hold
in common with others, especially with the Orthodox, and then developing
further teachings from Scripture and the ancient roots of tradition.50
Balić continued touching up and expanding somewhat his text in
interaction with his fellow consultors, until, at the March 5–11, 1962, session of the Preparatory Commission, he began his report by stating that
the text ought to be the draft of a distinct dogmatic constitution on
48. Antonelli, Il debattito, 84 and 94 (Lecuyer, French Seminary in Rome), 83–84 and
95 (Witte, ecumenist at the Gregorian University), 94–102 (Philips’s comments at the July 6–
14 Preparatory Commission meeting, which Witte had urged him to attend), 99 (Colombo),
and 112–17 (eleven comments by mail, including those from Kloppenburg [113–15] and
Salaverri [116]).
49. Antonelli, Il debattito, 113 (Laurentin, by mail, on the revision of mid-July) and
117–20 (Lauentin’s early September letters suggesting to Philips that he compose an alternative Marian chapter, to which Philips answered that he sees the need). P. 118, n. 235, gives
Laurentin’s proposed biblical paragraph.
50. Antonelli, Il debattito, 120–23, citing what is translated in Yves Congar, My Journal
of the Council, trans. Mary Jane Ronayne, OP, and Mary Cecily Boulding, OP (Collegeville,
Minn., 2012), 52–55.

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Catholic Marian doctrine.51 With the approval of the Commission President, Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, Balić began enlarging the section on
Mary’s mediation, with help from both favorable and critical consultors,
until a completed draft constitution was ready in April for review by the
Vatican II Central Preparatory Commission.52 But Cardinal Ottaviani sent
the text first to Pope John XXIII for an initial approval before he ordered
its printing in a booklet.
A little known drama of Vatican II broke out on April 25, 1962, when
Pericle Felici, Secretary of the Central Preparatory Commission, passed on
news to the Theological Commission Secretary, Sebastian Tromp, S.J.,
that Pope John did not want Vatican II to issue a constitution on Mary.
Tromp then urged Ottaviani to go to Pope John to make the case for such
a document, and for this Tromp formulated a Latin memo for the Cardinal
to use—which was successful in diffusing the pope’s reluctance.53 The
schema was printed and came on the agenda of the Central Preparatory
Commission on the last scheduled day of its June session, when only a few
of the Commission members took part in the discussion and voting, with
four approving, ten approving with reservations, and one not approving.54
Late in Period I of Vatican II, copies of the schema on Mary came to
the Fathers and it was discussed along with De ecclesia on December 1–6,
after which the Fathers were also given until February 28, 1963, to send in
comments on the two drafts.55 Also, Pope John issued directives to all the
51. Antonelli, Il debattito, 158–163, from the minutes of the Preparatory Theological
Commission on March 5 and then, from Laurentin’s papers, information on a small subcommission which earlier agreed on the new location. No objection emerged on May 5 to
Balić’s idea of making the text into a draft constitution. Earlier, the consultors Umberto Betti,
O.F.M., and Salaverri had commented that the draft would be better on its own instead of in
De ecclesia (143–144).
52. Antonelli, Il debattito, 163–181, especially 170–72, giving a new text on Mary’s
consociatio with Christ in redemption. The schema had the title Constitutio de BVM—De
Maria Matre Dei et Matre Hominum. Laurentin saw the overall shape distorted by a long paragraph explaining Mary’s mediation, which also had been prepared too quickly to be a mature
statement (174), while Witte found it unsatisfactory in relation to 1 Timothy 2:5 on Christ
as the “one mediator” of universal salvation (177).
53. Antonelli, Il debattito, 181–82. I know of no record of Ottaviani or Tromp informing the Preparatory Theological Commission members about Pope John’s preference concerning the Marian schema.
54. Antonelli, Il debattito, 184–85, noting negative judgments by Cardinals Achille
Liénart (Lille, France) and Giovanni Battista Montini (Milan) on the schema’s teaching on
the mediation of Mary within God’s granting of saving grace.
55. Antonelli, Il debattito, 195, relates reasons given by speakers of December 1–5 for
inserting the Marian schema in De ecclesia (Cardinals Bernard Alfrink, of Utrecht, the

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council’s commissions to revise the drafts for which they are responsible, to
bring them into agreement with the pope’s inaugural council discourse,
which had resonated with the Fathers and become the key formulation of
the council’s purpose. The pope created, to supervise the mandated revisions, a new Coordinating Commission of seven cardinals, in which LéonJoseph Suenens, of Malines, Begium, became responsible for overseeing
work on De ecclesia and the Marian schema.56
At the Coordinating Commission’s session of late January 1963, Suenens’s proposal of joining the ecclesiological and Marian texts met opposition, but it was decided that the title would now refer to her as “Mother of
the Church.” Later the Doctrinal Commission decided to also qualify the
text as a “Dogmatic Constitution,” but the content remained as before. It
went to the Fathers, with other texts, on April 22, 1963, for the Fathers’
initial comments with a view toward Marian doctrine being on the agenda
of the council’s Period II.57
During Summer 1963, council members were dispersed, but their
reception of new schemas stimulated them to formulate and send in assessments. Over 100 individual bishops and groups of bishops in episcopal
conferences expressed themselves on the Marian draft.58
When the large group of German-speaking and Scandinavian bishops
met on August 26–27, they received from their periti a critique of the
schema, namely, that the contents had not been revised, and so it was substantially a pre-conciliar text from the same authors who drafted the failed
schema on the sources of revelation. The draft says it brings no new
dogmas, but then presents several doctrines as secure teaching on Mary in
Netherlands, and Suenens, with Bishops Adam Kozlowiecki, S.J., of Lusaka, Zambia, and
Isaac Ghattas, of Thebes, Egypt). The call for remarks by mail brought in on the Marian draft
forty-two individual statements and four sets of remarks from conferences, which however
Tromp found too small a number to ground any decisions by the commission (226–27).
56. Antonelli, Il debattito, 205–06, tells of the Coordinating Commission and of Suenens’ role, but not of Pope John’s norms for revising the documents. I relate these in “Vatican
II in Late 1962: Taking Hold of Its (and Pope John’s) Goals,” Josephinum Journal of Theology
19 (2002), 172–86, which is now in my Investigating Vatican II: Its Theologians, Ecumenical
Turn, and Biblical Commitment (Washington, D.C., 2018), 143–65.
57. Antonelli, Il debattito, 213–16 and 250, between which the author tells of a heated
exchange over the text between Laurentin and Balić (220–24), along with critical comments
from Max Thurian and Roger Schutz of Taize and from the Lutheran observer Edmund
Schlink (227–49).
58. Antonelli, Il debattito, 250–55 (the views of thirty-two representative individual
bishops).

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salvation about which theologians in good standing have reservations. Furthermore, the current text would do massive ecumenical damage with both
the Orthodox and Protestants.59
But many Spanish bishops agreed with the views of their Mariologists,
who faulted the existing schema for being weak on Mary’s mediation of
grace and for avoiding her title of “Co-redemptrix.” Certainly, Mary
should have a distinct document, to highlight her association with her Son.
The episcopate of England and Scotland also desired a distinct constitution, but one which will not sow misconceptions among both separated
Christians and Catholics. Auxiliary Bishop Karol Wojtyla of Cracow prepared the common remarks of the Polish bishops, including the preference
that Marian teaching make up Chapter II of De ecclesia.60
Shortly after Period II opened under Pope Paul VI, Balić circulated a
booklet of thirty-two pages, giving answers to the bishops’ criticisms of the
schema. He claimed that the “Marian movement” was given by divine
Providence and was just as important for Catholics as the liturgical and
biblical movements which the council is bringing to fulfillment. Good reasons justify having the distinct schema, since Mary is, according to St.
Bernard, between Christ and the Church. To take Mary as just a type of
the church is deeply reductive, but if the term Mediatrix displeases, then
equivalent alternatives can be introduced.61
On the second day of the Period, the Fathers voted 2234 to 40 to
accept as their base-text Philips’s new draft of De ecclesia, which a Doctrinal
Commission sub-commission had chosen in late February and then developed into five chapters by working from March through May. In the Aula,
before the vote, five Fathers said the draft should be further enriched by
incorporating the Marian schema into it. On October 1, the Moderators
59. Antonelli, Il dibattito, 258–70 (the German meeting, for which the periti Karl
Rahner, Joseph Ratzinger, Alois Grillmeier, S.J., and Otto Semmelroth, S.J., composed a
preparatory study and an alternative draft by Rahner on Mary as Mater Christifidelium, given
on 262–67—from a copy in Philips’s archive). Antonelli references, but does not report on,
the remarks that the conference sent to the council secretariat (268n415).
60. Antonelli, Il debattito, 270–71 (remarks from Spain), 271–72 (from England and
Scotland), 273 (from Poland). There follows the critical evaluation of the Secretariat for
Christian Unity (276–77), along with alternative drafts by Laurentin (278–283) and by
Edouard Dhanis, S.J., as requested by Suenens (284–94).
61. Antonelli, Il debattito, 294–97. Balić stirred astonishment by having the Vatican
Press bring out his personal booklet in the format of official council texts. He said that if
“Mediatrix” displeases, then one can say: “Mater Hominum Spiritualis.” “Advocata Peccatorum,” “Administra Gratiae,” or “Reparatrix Generis Humani” (297).

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posed to Paul VI the question of where to place the Mary text. The pope
said his personal preference was to have it be a chapter in De ecclesia, but
the Fathers should freely discuss and decide this by vote.62
On October 9, the Doctrinal Commission took up the question. Balić
read a prepared text arguing for a distinct document, but then Philips
sketched a possible draft chapter on “The Place and Role (munus) of the
Mother of God in the Church.” Bishop Marcos McGrath, C.S.C., of
Panama, pointed out that the Commission was formed to serve the council fathers, who have not expressed their views. Still, a vote of the Commission showed twelve members in favor of joining the Marian text to De
ecclesia and nine favoring a distinct constitution, with two abstaining. But,
in accord with the pope’s and McGrath’s view, the next meeting decided
to ask the Fathers to vote after they heard presentations of the option, first
by Cardinal Raffaele Santos of Manila, for keeping a distinct schema, and
then by Cardinal Franz Koenig of Vienna, for treating Mary in the
Church document.63
When the two Cardinals spoke on October 24, Santos followed points
from Balić, while Koenig used a text by Philips. There followed a five-day
“mobilization” in Rome, with conferences, letters, and flyers for both sides,
before the close vote on October 29 of 1114 to 1074 for including the
Marian schema in De ecclesia.64
A consequence of the vote was that the ensuing work on Mary came
under the astute direction of Philips, who had been since March the Doctrinal Commission’s relator supervising development of the ecclesiology draft.65

62. Antonelli, Il debattito, 303–04 (Cardinal Frings, Cardinal Silva Henriquez [for
bishops of Chile], and Bishops Garrone, Elchinger, and Ferrero), and 304–07 (the Moderators with Paul VI).
63. Antonelli, Il debattito, 307–11, citing Congar’s description of the meeting, now in
his Journal, 357–59.
64. Antonelli, Il debattito, 310–21: giving Philips’s text for König (310n470), the outline of a conference by Grillmeier (313), a notable line from Santos’s address, that “cum
Christo pro nobis [Maria] redemptionem meruit” (314), and samples of attacks on the
Marian “minimalism” now trying to “dethrone” the Madonna (315–19).
65. Antonelli, Il debattito, 327–330, describes Philips’s method, about to be extended
to De beata virgine, of having the Fathers’ interventions typed on index cards, by other periti
or priest-students of the Belgian College, with distinct cards recording each point made on a
numbered paragraph of the schema under discussion. The cards guided work on revising texts
and then served Philips when he reported to the Commission how proposed revisions met the
desires of definite numbers of council fathers. The typed cards are to the present-day part of
the Philips Vatican II archive in Leuven.

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To adapt the Marian text to its new placement, the Doctrinal Commission set up a sub-commission under Koenig and Santos, with the
Maronite bishop Michael Doumith and Pierre-Marie Théas, bishop of
Lourdes, out of which came a text composed November 9–10, 1963, by
Philips, who drew on suggestions by Laurentin, on parts of the previously
official text, and on Philips’s own Mariological witings.66
The previous draft began with the basic principle of God’s predestining
decree, with Mary’s fiat and went on to treat Mary’s role (munus) in salvation,
her privileges, veneration of her in worship and devotion, and her promotion
of unity. Philips’s draft began with a dense statement on God’s redemptive
action (citing the Nicene Creed), the basic veneration of Mary (citing the
Roman Canon of the Mass), and her cooperation in the rebirth of believers
(citing St. Augustine), from which it went on to present her as foreseen in
the Old Testament, in her faith at the Annunciation, her suffering during
Jesus’ early years, her presence during his public life to his crucifixion, her
prayer before Pentecost and her Assumption, in her role in the time of the
Church, on her as type of the Church, the veneration of Mary, and the
expectation of Christ’s return—before which the Church prays that Christians may be one as Mary’s sons and daughters, because they are brothers and
sisters of her first-born who is the Only Begotten of the Father.
After initial attempts on behalf of the previous schema, Balić agreed
to assist in perfecting Philips’s text, but this proved difficult in the remaining days of Period II, when Balić’s “corrections” brought back maximizing
statements on Mary’s consent, on her association with her Son’s redemptive deed, and on her mediation throughout the whole order of grace.67
In the last days before Period II ended on December 4, 1963, Philips
was occupied with the revision by several sub-commissions of other chapters of De ecclesia and had no time to prepare the Marian text for the
Fathers for their basic approval. But on December 2 a decisive reconfiguration of the leadership of the Doctrinal Commission created a more favorable context for Philips’s work, when Bishop André Marie Charue, of
66. Antonelli, Il debattito, 330–51, especially 334–40 (Philips’s schema) and 343–50
(adoptions from the previous schema and indications of nearly identical passages in Philips’s article, “Le mystère de Marie dans les sources de la Révélation,” Marianum 78/79 [1962]: 1–64).
67. Antonelli, Il debattito, 372–84, gives Balić’s second corrected text of November 28,
with the identification of Balić’s favorite themes. Earlier, Philips complained to Balić that his
way of “helping” was to take command of what should be said (363n356). Philips told Congar
that Balić wants him (Philips) to be the “editor” of a text that Balić will make even more maximalizing than the previous official schema (371, in Congar, Journal, 454, from November 25).

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Namur, Belgium, was elected Second Vice-President of the Commission,
and Philips himself was elected the Commission’s Adjunct Secretary
alongside Sebastian Tromp.
During the intersession of early 1964, Philips prepared a revised text
in January and then withstood Balić’s attempts to correct it according to his
views. Philips repeatedly refused to write that Mary was her Son’s generosa
socia in the work of redemption, saying only that “she served the mystery
of redemption.” He rejected Mater ecclesiae, saying instead Mater fidelium.
He insisted on Mary being “blessed because of her faith,” from Elizabeth,
at Luke 1:45, “because theologians do not enjoy freedom against Scripture!” He deleted “corrections” inserting passages on Mary’s mediation and
warned against even hinting she was a “co-principle of redemption.”68
Early in this phase, Philips sent his text to Paul VI’s peritus, Colombo,
who approved warmly, confirming the exclusion of generosa socia Christi
and Mediatrix, since she is great as ancilla Domini and in her believing selfoffering according to God’s plans, whatever they might be.69
On March 14, 1964, the Doctrinal Commission met on the new draft
Marian chapter. With Koenig absent, Santos spoke for the sub-commission, but he did not use Philips’s introductory notes and once more backed
having a distinct text while criticizing the new version. Charue used his
new authority to charge Santos with not representing the sub-commission
but speaking for himself—which left all the Commission members free to
judge the new text on its merits. When the vote was called, twenty of
twenty-four Commission members gave their placet to the new text as the
basis of work, which however would be examined in detail at a further full
meeting of the Doctrinal Commission.70
June 1–3, 1964, were days of high drama over the council’s teaching
on Mary, as the Doctrinal Commission’s members and periti examined
word-by-word the Marian text to be presented to the council assembly. At
a point on June 1, Balić proposed a rewording that implied Mary was
“Mother of the Church,” but the members voted twenty to three to leave
68 Antonelli, Il debattito, 386–435, with Philips’s drafts on 388–96 (January 9, 1964)
and 429–31 (explanatory comments of February 2, including p. 430 about theologians being
bound by Scripture), and Balić’s attempted corrections on pp. 407–16, with his iustificatio on
pp. 416–27.
69. Antonelli, Il debattito, 404–05 (Colombo’s January 27 letter to Philips, which indicated indirectly that Paul VI would welcome Philips’s work).
70. Antonelli, Il debattito, 436–44, giving Philips’s introductory notes on pp. 436–39.

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the text unchanged on this. Rahner proposed adding, on the finding of the
boy Jesus in the Temple, that Mary and Joseph “did not understand what
he said to them” (Lk 2:50), against which Balić argued, but on which
Philips said he thought it was needed, and the members agreed.71
Archbishop Pietro Parente, an officer of the Congregation of the Holy
Office and Commission member, made a strong intervention on the morning of June 2 for saying Mary is Mediatrix of grace, with which Bishop
Frane Franić, of Split, Yugoslavia, and Cardinal Michael Brown, O.P.,
first vice president of the Commission, agreed. Archbishop Gabriel Garrone, of Toulouse, France, said he accepted Mary’s “mediation of intercession,” but that a “mediation of cooperation” with her son is not so mature
as doctrine that the council ought to teach it. Parente countered that Mary
had a “true cooperation in the work of redemption.” At this point the
presider, Cardinal Ottaviani, asked for a comment from Balić, who said
the problem was that Philips had not followed his suggestions and so left
the Commission with a “protestant” text. Charue made the point that
while he believes in Mary’s role in redemption, this devotional conviction
is not enough for the council to state this as Church teaching.72
In the afternoon of June 2, Parente brought in an alternative text,
which cited 1 Timothy 2:5–6 on Christ as one mediator, but added God’s
call to Mary to be her Son’s “generous companion” by participation in
redemption. “Because of this, in the Catholic Church, she has been customarily addressed, among other titles, by the title of Mediatrix.”73 Philips
said that from the first he had wanted to treat Mary in the work of salvation, but without using Mediatrix (because he knew privately that this was
Paul VI’s preference). But Charue saw here a shift to a name by which
Mary is addressed, which does not amount to formally teaching her mediation of grace. Still, a majority preferred having the text still open on the
debated question, at least so it could be put to a vote.74

71. Antonelli, Il debattito, 452–59. For his account of the meetings of this session, the
author drew on diary notes of four participants, namely, Tromp, de Lubac, Charue, and
Congar. For Congar’s account, see Journal, 532–41, which ends with another report, through
Colombo, of Paul VI’s preference for avoiding mediatrix or mediatio in the chapter on Mary.
72. Antonelli, Il debattito, 459–68. Parente made a solemn intervention (Congar) and
became impassioned in the discussion (de Lubac). At one point, Parente conceded that the
term Mediatrix may be recent, but the same can be said of “collegiality,” which is central in
De ecclesia (463).
73. Antonelli, Il debattito, 470–71 (Parente’s text).
74. Antonelli, Il debattito, 472–78.

JARED WICKS, S.J.

557

On June 6, Philips brought back a revised text still without a change
in Parente’s sense, which led to the latter’s protest, and to the motion “that
here the Constitution should speak positively of the title of Mediatrix.” Of
twenty-one Commission members present, twelve voted placet and nine
non placet, which gave a majority for the addition, although not the twothirds required on major issues. Still, Philips revised the text, working with
Parente, in the sense of the latter’s draft on Mediatrx as a title used in the
church. This text then went to Paul VI who approved it on July 3 as part
of the whole De ecclesia for distribution to the Fathers.75
At this time Laurentin completed some weeks of research on Mary in
Christian works from the seventh to the nineteenth century. Before the
twentieth century, he found, Mediatrix was less frequently used than the
terms Advocate, Mother of Mercy, Patron, and Auxiliatrix. But beginning
in 1913, Mediatrix became frequent in Christian preaching and devotional
books on Mary, and it has marginalized the other titles.76
When the council’s Period III opened, the draft of De ecclesia, Chapter
VIII, was finally the object of concentrated attention by the council fathers.
The accompanying report of the Doctrinal Commission, composed by
Philips, mentioned the presence in the text of Mediatrix as a Marian title
(appellatio), to which however several Commission members were
opposed. The Aula discussion of September 16, 17, and 18 comprised
thirty-three speeches and garnered fifty-seven written comments. On the
title of Mediatrix, many speakers were pleased it was in the text, although
a few thought the bare title was too circumspect and was in need of specification as her universal mediation of the grace of Christ to humankind.
But Cardinal Bea said this was too easily misunderstood and should be
omitted. The Indonesian bishops had heard of Laurentin’s research and
proposed that other titles, like Advocate or Mother of Mercy, could well
be added, so as not to single out Mediatrix.77

75. Antonelli, Il debattito, 478–79 (Philips’s initial revision), 479–80 (Parente’s protest
and the June 6 vote), 483–84 (Philips’s further revision, agreed to by Parente), and 485–86
(Charue shows text to Paul VI).
76. Antonelli, Il debattito, 490–93. Laurentin sent his results to Philips on August 3,
1964, in an undated mimeographed text of six pages, “Mediation, Intercession, Patronage.
Pour la solution d’un problem de vocabulaire.” Antonelli related earlier that in 1913 Cardinal
Mercier, of Malines, had launched a broad program of study with the aim of gaining a doctrinal definition of Mary’s mediation of grace. Il dibattito, 23.
77. Antonelli, Il debattito, 503–16, to which are added the remarks on the text made by
the ecumenical observers at a September 22 session with officials of the Unity Secretariat
(517–30).

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Philips’ study of the Fathers’ remarks, handily present on his note
cards, showed that deletion of Mediatrix at this point would stir the ire of
many Fathers, while including it among several devotional titles would
indicate that here Mediatrix did not have the technical character of formal
teaching. On October 15, the Doctrinal Commission accepted the latter
change by a vote of twenty-two to four, as a last major change in the text
on which the Fathers would vote with a final opportunity of advancing
amendments. The modified text went to the Fathers on October 27, 1964,
for voting two days later, in which 1559 voted placet, only ten non placet,
but 551 approved while proposing amendments.78
Philips worked with his Belgian colleagues on evaluating the late
amendments, many of which repeated the same request and some of which
rejected what others proposed. Philips recommended accepting only the
few that really improved the existing text. When this work was reported to
the Doctrinal Commission on November 6, Philips’s proposals passed
easily, since no one wanted to touch a text produced amid such great effort.
The slightly revised text was printed and on November 19, the treatment
of the amendments was accepted by a huge majority of the Fathers, followed by the final vote in a congregation on the completed text, giving
2096 placet to only 23 non placet—an outcome far beyond the most sanguine expectations of all concerned.79
The Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, with its Chapter VIII,
nos. 52–69, “The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God (deipara), in the
Mystery of Christ and the Church,” became official Catholic teaching by
the Fathers’ vote of 2151 to 5 and Pope Paul VI’s promulgation on
November 21, 1964.80
The journey along the itinerary leading to Vatican II’s Marian chapter
gives council interpreters a relatively small but sharply etched version of the
theological clash at the council between a main current of early twentieth
century Catholic devotion and thought and the alternative that arose out
of the broad based “return to the sources” emerging after 1950.

78. Antonelli, Il debattito, 541–62, giving the October 15 Commission vote on p. 558
and the Aula vote of October 29 on p. 562.
79. Antonelli, Il debattito, 563–65 (examining and sifting the amendments, October 31
to November 4), 566–67 (Commission deliberation, November 6), and 567 (Aula votes,
November 19).
80. Philips chose the term deipara to evoke the Greek theotokos and the Council of Ephesus of 431.

Book Reviews
GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
The Watershed of Modern Politics: Law, Virtue, Kingship, and Consent (1300-1650).
By Francis Oakley. [The Emergence of Western Political Thought in the
Latin Middle Ages, Vol. 3.] (New Haven: Yale University Press. 2005. Pp.
xviii, 415. $85.00. ISBN 978-0-300-19443-2.)
This is the third volume of a trilogy entitled “The Emergence of Western
Political Thought in the Latin Middle Ages.” Oakley, who began publishing very
nearly sixty years ago, has long been one of the most distinguished historians of
ecclesiological and political thought in the long period, from Augustine to the
English Civil War, covered by this series. This present book stands alongside Brian
Tierney’s Religion, Law, and the Growth of Constitutional Thought (1982) in demonstrating the growth of modern constitutionalism, and even democratic radicalism,
out of the conciliarist theories of the Councils of Constance and Basel.
As a general account of political thought in this three-hundred-year period the
book is notable for its hostility to the arguments of Hans Baron and John Pocock
and to all those who have joined them in stressing republicanism as the source of
modern liberty. Quentin Skinner (with whose methodology Oakley has expressed
forceful disagreement) plays a puzzling role here. Volume 2 of his Foundations of
Modern Political Thought (1978) is rightly praised for grasping the importance of
conciliarism, and Skinner’s reading of Machiavelli as a republican is generally followed; but no work by Skinner after 1988 is cited, which means that Oakley fails to
come to grips with works such as Liberty Before Liberalism (1997), which offer an
alternative to the Baron/Pocock account of the central importance of republican theorizing. This omission is surely deliberate, and it is refreshing to read a book which
takes a long view of the historiography, discussing histories of conciliarism from
John N. Figgis to Constantin Fasolt, or even, indeed, from Melchior Goldast von
Haiminsfeld to George Garnett. The bibliography is long and judicious, though my
own essay on the origins of Civil War radicalism (1990) might have been of use in
helping Oakley tackle the puzzling transition from the constitutionalism of a
George Buchanan to the radical individualism of the Levellers.
The book has two main themes. The first is relatively conventional (thanks in
large part to Oakley’s own previous work): modern constitutionalism is an outgrowth of conciliarism. The second emerges clearly (for this reader at least) only in
the last few pages, and I found it puzzling and challenging. No reader familiar with
Oakley’s work will be surprised that he is a conciliarist; but it is crucial to this book
that he is also (it seems) an Augustinian—hence his remarkably sympathetic account
559

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BOOK REVIEWS

of Martin Luther. Oakley’s argument is that the creation of sacral kingship in the
early Middle Ages and the development of a papacy claiming both sacramental and
jurisdictional authority were contrary to the fundamental principle, theorized in
Augustine’s account of the two cities, that Christ’s kingdom is not of this world.
Christianity thus, when properly understood, became a force for secularization, and
we owe not only modern constitutionalism but also the full separation of Church
and State to the working out of the conciliarist tradition. It is thus Oakley’s contention that secularization (as he understands the term) is not contrary to, but inseparable from, sound ecclesiology. He repeatedly quotes Thomas Hobbes’s claim that
the new wine of Christianity had been poured into the empty bottles of Gentilism:
Conciliarism, the Reformation, and the Puritan sects slowly wrenched apart the religious from the secular, decanting Christianity from its worldly container. This is a
Catholic history which is more sympathetic to Hobbes than to Robert Bellarmine.
Oakley is thus that most interesting of historians: one whose spiritual and
intellectual commitments shape their understanding of the past, but do so in a way
which is idiosyncratic, original, and thought-provoking. This is a fine book.
University of York

DAVID WOOTTON

“Das Weib soll nicht gelehrt seyn”: Konfessionell geprägte Frauenbilder, Frauenbildung
und weibliche Lebensentwürfe von der Reformation bis zum frühen 20. Jahrhundert: Eine Fallanalyse am regionalen Beispiel der Grafschaft Oldenburg und des
Niederstifts Münster, seit 1774/1803 Herzogtum Oldenburg. By Maria Anna
Zumholz. (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag. 2016. Pp. 512. €29,80 paperback.
ISBN 978-3-402-13161-9.)
What kind of education would best prepare girls and young women to care for
hearth and home, to raise God-fearing and moral children? Do women teachers
provide the best instruction for girls and young women? How should girls’ education differ from boys’ education? In 1808 as part of these debates and discussions,
Dr. Friedrich Reinhard Ricklefs, the Protestant director of the Oldenburg Secondary School, argued Das Weib soll nicht gelehrt seyn [No learned women! directly: the
woman should not be learned]. Anna Maria Zumbolz takes this phrase as the title
of her book, and it also reflects the book’s focus on drawing together commentary
on girls’ and women’s education from the Reformation period to the present.
A through-line in her work is the change wrought in the gender order, or in
her words the “gender anthropology,” as a result of the Reformation. Martin
Luther’s criticism of celibacy and belief that celibacy was impossible shaped his
judgment that all must marry. Within marriage or within families, women were to
subordinate themselves to men. Thus, the Reformation closed off the most important path to a life independent of male family control as a member of a women’s
religious order. In her view, Martin Luther “denied women a choice between different forms of life, the possibility of professional activity.” Furthermore, in her
argument, Martin Luther “laid the foundation for the ideal of the bürgerlich-patri-

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561

archal marriage” as well as the “negative image of the useless old maid.” In these
ways, the Reformation, was a “story of loss for women” [Verlustgeschichte für
Frauen] (p. 421).
Taking the region of Oldenburger Land as her focus, Zumholz contrasts the
Protestant emphasis on preparing women only for motherhood with the Catholic
views that often seem to open up other possibilities for women to choose a
respectable life outside of the family home. Zumholz finds countless examples of
Catholics arguing that women best understand girls, and women make for the best
teachers, even the best principals of schools. In this way, the Catholic Church
offered women the possibility of real leadership in religious and educational institutions. Zumholz argues persuasively that Catholic institutions allowed for a professional life in the educational and caring professions that was not open to most
Protestant women in the early modern period. Buttressing her primary source
analysis with the arguments of Relinde Meiwes in ‘Arbeiterinnen des Herrn’:
Katholische Frauenkongregationen im 19. Jahrhundert (2000), Zumholz interprets a
range of Oldenburger Land religious orders and congregations as offering opportunities for fulfilling a professional life for women outside of marriage and family.
She goes so far as to see early modern orders and congregations like the Ursulines
and the Augustiner Chorfrauen “advocating for the interests of women” and “opening the opportunity for women to lead an independent and self-determined [selbstbestimmtes] life” (p. 422).
The first chapter introduces the main themes and contrasts the twentieth-century claims of a “Catholic Bildungs-deficit” with fact that for girls, by the twentieth
century, Oldenburger Land instead had a “Protestant Bildungs-deficit.” Chapter
two focuses on gender, education, and religion in the Reformation period and
chapter three focuses on those subjects in early modern Oldenburger Land. Chapter four considers the images of women and women’s education, and chapter five
discusses the ways that these images shaped women’s professional opportunities. A
conclusion in chapter six sums up the main points of the book. Throughout the
book are photos, maps, images, tables, and primary sources. The book’s “Excursus”
sections on the Ladies Society of Oldenburg 1797–1900, Wilhelmine Janssen
(1892–1976), or photographs of Cloppenburg women between 1906 and 1909
present fascinating stories about the daily lives of the women of this region.
The structure of the book in which the two later meaty chapters leap through
different periods from the 1700s through the 1950s and then are divided into
Catholic and Protestant sections provide insight into the continuities of the discourses around gender and education. They are filled with fascinating information
about this region and religious understandings of women’s education. This structure, however, makes it difficult for Zumholz to consider the ways that economic
changes created new understandings about gender. Zumholz is convincing for the
period before the 1880s. The period after 1880s sees a shift with opportunities
opening up for women, or at least for some women, in Protestant spheres. In contrast, on a national level, leading Catholics defended traditional roles for women

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BOOK REVIEWS

and seemed to wish to hold back changes, especially those that would allow for
increased political rights for women. Zumholz cites sociological literature that
demonstrates a continued “Bildungs-advantage” for Catholic women in comparison to Protestant women for at least as late as the 1970s. References to the ways
the national debates shaped local perspectives might have enriched her study.
It would be interesting to learn how Zumholz would integrate the criticism
of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century feminists into her story. Perhaps
the most important moderate feminist leader in Imperial Germany, Helene
Lange, grew up in Oldenburg, and Zumholz describes her life and work for
women’s education. Gertrud Bäumer, Lange’s life-long partner and successor as
the leader of the Bund Deutscher Frauenverein, the National Council of Women’s
Organizations with half a million members in 1913, criticized Catholic women
activists for their acceptance of Catholic doctrine that required women’s subordination to men. In 1901 Bäumer called into question the idea of a “women’s movement in the narrow sense” that could grow from the foundation of Catholicism.
(Bäumer, Die Geschichte der Frauenbewegung in Deutschland [1901], p. 165). Similarly, Ika Freundenberg, a Bavarian moderate women’s activist, argued in 1904
after the founding of the Katholischer Deutscher Frauenbund that “Catholic belief is
a constraint for the spread of the women’s movement.” (Alfred Kall, Katholische
Frauenbewegung in Deutschland [1983], p. 308). Catholic leaders of religious
orders made decisions about the sisters’ basic freedoms: who wrote them letters,
what they could read, where they could go, and whom they could see. Sisters who
came into conflict with church authorities could find themselves punished. These
aspects of life in a Catholic order and the sisters’ vow of obedience are not consistent with Zumholz’s emphasis on the independence and choices of the women
religious she studies.
This book makes a strong argument about the differences between Catholic
and Protestant approach to girls’ education and gathers together a wide-range of
sources that provide support for these claims. The detailed stories, debates, discussions about girls’ education make this book a useful contribution to the history of
education and to Oldenburger Land.
LISA FETHERINGILL ZWICKER

Indiana University South Bend

MEDIEVAL
The Honey of Souls: Cassiodorus and the Interpretation of Psalms in the Early Medieval
West. By Derek A. Olsen. (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press. 2017. Pp.
xii, 313. $44.95 paperback. ISBN 978-0-8146-8414-6.)
Few biblical commentaries in the Middle Ages were as influential as the sixthcentury Explanation of the Psalms by Cassiodorus. Its author lived in an age in
which educational and political institutions were being challenged at a rapid pace.
Descended of an ancient noble Roman family, Cassiodorus served as statesman

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563

under the Gothic kings of Italy, who had taken over from the last of the Roman
emperors in the Western part of the empire. It is not clear what eventually
prompted him to become a monk and transform his family estate, Vivarium, into
a flourishing center of monastic learning. Unlike the asceticism of his contemporary, Benedict of Nursia, Cassiodorus’ monastic vocation was found in the preservation of classical learning and the dedication to the Christian study of Scriptures.
His love of the Book of Psalms may have played a major role in his conversion to
the monastic life, Olsen speculates.
Derek Olsen offers in this study much more than just a sketch of Cassiodorus’
life and an analysis of his Psalms commentary. He gives a compelling introduction
to the role and importance of the Psalms in the medieval Church. Not only were
the Psalms the liturgical means to praise God; they were also regarded as a compendium to all of Scripture. Everything that was contained elsewhere in the entire
Bible was referenced here in a spiritual manner. Psalms were the spiritual life-blood
of early medieval Christians, and Olsen convincingly shows how their memorization and their liturgical use served as a way to overcome what he calls the “technological challenges” of the early Church: language, literacy, and the textual transmission of the Scriptures.
Olsen’s book details the influences on Cassiodorus’ commentary: Origen,
Theodore of Mopsuestia, and, most importantly, Hilary of Poitiers, and Augustine.
In chapters eight and nine, Olsen takes the reader by the hand and offers some
detailed samples of Cassiodorus’ reading of the Psalms. But what makes this book
a model approach to medieval exegesis is where Olsen takes us to the manuscripts
(a ninth-century manuscript from Saint Gall, to be precise), to show how Cassiodorus’ commentary techniques were embedded in the educational system of its
own time. He devised an intricate system of marginal notes and signs to signify figures of speech and other allusions to the liberal arts, a system that would endure in
the later medieval manuscript tradition.
A chapter on the distribution and influence of the commentary concludes the
book, and Olsen convincingly shows the key to the enduring success of the commentary: its adaptability to the demands of later centuries. Indeed, the reader of
Olsen’s book will be convinced that Cassiodorus’ commentary has lost nothing of
its relevance for today’s Christian spiritual life, too. Olsen provides a very readable
introduction to the whole world of early medieval spirituality and exegesis. The
book is written in an extremely accessible yet never condescending language that
clearly originates in classroom practice. If there is anything to criticize, it is a lack
of references and footnotes, which have been kept to an absolute minimum. The
bibliography is also rather sparse; suggestions for further reading at the end of each
chapter would have been welcome. These minor flaws aside, this book is a delight
to scholar and layman alike.
Calvin University

FRANS VAN LIERE

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BOOK REVIEWS

Bede’s Temple: An Image and Its Interpretation. By Conor O’Brien. [Oxford Theology and Religion Monographs.] (New York: Oxford University Press. 2015.
Pp. xx, 242. $100.00. ISBN 978–0–19–874708–6.)
In Bede’s Temple, Conor O’Brien presents an “extensive tour of Bede’s thinking on the temple” (p. 5). He tackles the entirety of Bede’s exegesis on that iconic
structure, not only his main trilogy—On the Tabernacle, On the Temple, and On
Ezra and Nehemiah—but also all other Bedan works referencing the temple. Moreover, O’Brien engages with contemporary, comparative representations of the
temple image, namely, those in the Codex Amiatinus, adding visual components to
his largely textual study. This monograph is well written and easy to read, engaging
as subtly with complex primary texts as with the broad historiographical field. It
offers a much-needed and successful exploration of Bede’s interpretation of the
temple that breathes life and color into these early medieval exegetical works.
After three black-and-white figures from the Codex Amiatinus, Bede’s Temple
opens with a helpful “Possible Chronology of Bede’s works” (pp. xix–xx). O’Brien
then evenly divides the monograph into eight chapters. The first serves as an introduction in which he explains the term dominating his study—the temple image.
Where temple alone would narrowly refer only to the physical building, temple image
“combine[s] the static architecture of the temple with the dynamic ritual of its
priests, thus allowing Bede to speak about both the eternal reality of the Church and
the living experience of its members through a single divinely sanctioned image” (p.
5). Rounding out his introduction, O’Brien offers a concise literature review and a
sweeping, though brief, historical overview of Bede’s world. The second chapter then
explores the intellectual context of Bede’s vision of the temple, including both
resources available at his monastery and the Christian exegetical tradition.
Chapters three through seven are the heart of the book. They embrace a thematic organization that moves through Bede’s many interpretations and fully lays
out O’Brien’s central argument “that Bede’s temple is a multifaceted image which,
nonetheless, teaches us much about the structure of Bede’s thought” (p. 6). Here
one shifts in scale, from Bede’s largest interpretations of the temple as history
(chap. 3) and cosmos (chap. 4), to his middle-level vision of the temple as body of
Christ (chap. 5) and as Church (chap. 6), and finally narrowing to his understanding of the temple as individual (chap. 7).
At one end, the temple image provided the keystone for Bede’s sweeping
vision of history, connecting Old Testament and New; linking Jewish past and
Christian present; and representing “a harmonious vision of salvation history” (p.
72). At the other end, the temple image represents the individual soul, just as it
referred to the entire Church. Together these chapters drive home O’Brien’s argument for “the consistent importance of unity to Bede’s world view and the theological importance of Christ as the guarantor and enabler of that unity” (p. 7). However Bede interpreted it, the temple image served to unify disparate entities—Jew
and Christian, earth and heaven, God and man.

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O’Brien’s eighth and final chapter serves as a conclusion. First, he undertakes
a diachronic approach to Bede’s writing, and then he discusses Bede within the
context of his monastery. Here O’Brien can return to the final portion of his argument, that while Bede’s thinking on the temple reveals much about the individual,
it also speaks to more than this one exceptional man’s ideas. Placing Bede at Wearmouth-Jarrow, O’Brien demonstrates how Bede’s temple emerged out of both a
significant Christian tradition and his particular historical context, that is, the intellectual environment at his monastery. This concise and focused monograph thus
forcefully illuminates not only Bede’s thinking on the temple image, but also the
man himself as well as monastic life and theological writing in the eighth century.
Wheaton College, Massachusetts

DANA M. POLANICHKA

Toledo Cathedral: Building Histories in Medieval Castile. By Tom Nickson. (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press. 2015. Pp. xviii, 306.
$89.95 cloth. ISBN 978-0-271-06645-5. $39.95 paperback. ISBN 978-0271-06646-2.)
Despite millions of visitors in recent decades, Toledo Cathedral has a marginal profile in histories of architecture, art, and spirituality. Publishers may release
piecemeal studies of a chapel, a painting, or an ecclesiastic, yet the historian and
layman alike usually cannot verbalize a cohesive narrative of the institution that
arose after Christians conquered the city in 1085. The formidable publication by
Tom Nickson, however, recognizes the primatial cathedral of Spain for its heroic
stature within Peninsular and European frameworks. While synthesizing a wide
range of scholarship, he also conducted on-site research to advance a perceptive
account of the late medieval building.
Lucid prose and a tripartite structure impart clarity to the book. Nickson presents an overview of Toledo as a city with ancient roots, often at the center of religious, political, and artistic discourse. With the spotlight on vibrant medieval cosmopolitanism, he contests the notion, bequeathed by the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, of a passive, liminal Spain. In the second section, Nickson becomes an
architectural historian and furnishes a strikingly accessible description of the cathedral as it grew from a converted mosque into one of the largest Gothic basilicas in
Christendom. Documentary and physical evidence informs his thorough characterization of the site and its construction, which drew inspiration from international
architecture. When identifying the four building campaigns from 1222 to 1381
that brought the existing cathedral to its “substantially complete” form, Nickson
repudiates the year of 1492 or 1493 that modern historians have long repeated as
the terminal date. His momentum continues into the final portion of the study,
which brings to life the experiences, cults, liturgy, music, art, and royal presence at
the cathedral. Generous with his knowledge of the full history of Toledo, Nickson
focuses on the late eleventh through the early fifteenth centuries.
Readers of Catholic Historical Review may take the book and gorge on the
rich illustrations, the engaging narratives about ecclesiastics, and the steady analy-

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sis of facts regarding the altars, relics, images, chapels, sacred texts, and other
components of the church. Matters large and small arise in this story. For example, one can appreciate how Archbishop Rodrigo Ximénez de Rada (r.1209–47)
harnessed the grandeur of Constantinian basilicas by endowing this Gothic cathedral with a double-aisled design. The gesture, which supported Toledo as the
apostolic heir to early Christian Rome, downplayed centuries of Islamic rule over
the former Visigothic urbs regia. On a more modest scale, the tomb of Fernán
Gudiel (d. 1278) features an epitaph celebrating the knight as having “honorably
served Jesus Christ and Holy Mary”; the high-ranking official rests beneath decorative geometric plasterwork that Nickson characterizes as “seemingly derived
from Nasrid Granada.” Nickson cautions against reading the ornament as a statement of any otherwise unsupported identity or Mozarabic lineage for the
deceased, but he largely avoids offering an interpretation of this “part of the decorative repertoire available to patrons and artists in medieval Castile.” The intricate
decoration may have evoked the palatine style of the Alhambra, where Arabic
inscriptions identify some comparably embellished spaces as paradisiacal—a
theme also suitable for a tomb.
Just as the archbishops of Toledo had envisioned their monumental cathedral
as speaking to diverse audiences near and afar, the book can serve a similarly broad
readership. In his references to English, French, Italian, and Andalusian traditions,
Nickson links Castilian magnificence with international developments. To be sure,
the story includes uncomfortably hard edges; after all, the church had effaced a
mosque, and, in grave moments, some artworks quarreled with the Jewish tradition. All of these dynamics resonated in the subsequent centuries of the cathedral,
which deserve renewed study in light of this analysis of its medieval history. The
cogent publication by Nickson will serve as a touchstone for scholars who pursue
new research on a range of questions.
University of Colorado Denver

JEFFREY SCHRADER

Liturgy and Law in a Dalmatian City. The Bishop’s Book of Kotor (Sankt-Peterburg,
BRAN, F. no. 200). By Richard F. Gyug. [Studies and Texts 204; Monumenta
Liturgica Beneventana, Vol. 7.] (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval
Studies. 2016. Pp. xxxii, 10 unpaginated color plates, 640. $110.00. ISBN
978-0-88844-204-8.)
This book is an edition, with introduction, of a composite Dalmatian manuscript of the twelfth century almost certainly originating in Kotor. But to say that is
almost to misrepresent the depth and richness of this comprehensive volume. Richard
Gyug has mastered all the disciplines required to provide expertise in paleography,
diplomatics, musicology, liturgical scholarship, and political history, and he deftly
brings this volume alive as a piece of living history in a way that few scholars can.
The book itself, written in a series of nine Beneventan hands, consists, as Gyug
makes clear, of several parts:

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1. Palimpsest pages of eleventh-century liturgical materials;
2. Guard-leaves containing brief sermons for use in chapter meetings;
3. A pontifical containing episcopal ceremonies—the principal part of the book;
4. A series of sermons, originally separate, in a thirteenth-century hand;
5. Diplomas and statutes copied in the margins of the combined book.
Material things as objects of study have often brought life to history, making
real what is sometimes only observable at a distance. Manuscripts are seldom subjected to such treatment, perhaps because not all scholars are able to muster the
required skills, and because not all manuscripts lend themselves equally well to such
an approach. This volume contains exemplary editions of all the constituent parts
of the manuscript, and students of sermons, pontificals, diplomatics, and Dalmatian history, will be able to rely on Gyug’s painstaking edition and apparatus.
For me, though, Gyug’s introduction—all 259 pages of it, is equally
admirable. I found in it a history of Kotor full of telling detail and historical nuance;
a fascinating historiographical background; an introduction to the complexities of
medieval pontificals that shows a mastery of the broadest possible scholarship;
musical analysis of the formulas for singing genealogies and other materials; and a
codicological description that could serve as a model for scholars and students
everywhere.
Among the documents I learned that slaves might lose their nose or a hand or
a foot for stealing livestock; that there are serious fines for damaging the city walls
or for opening any door in the wall facing the sea; that citizens are not required to
provide accounts to Ragusans collecting debts; that it is forbidden to make honeyed
wine for sale; and many other things. It is a living city.
The editions required broad expertise, but Gyug aims for interdisciplinarity and
inclusiveness, as he himself says, and as a result his essays introducing the various
parts of the manuscript, and his conclusions as to the place of the manuscript in the
history of Kotor, of Dalmatia, and of southern Italy and the Adriatic, over a space
of four centuries, allow scholars to introduce themselves to the complexity of fields
not their own, and to see how much can be learned by careful comparative work.
This manuscript has occupied Professor Gyug for essentially his entire scholarly career. It was the subject of his 1984 Toronto dissertation, and has occupied
him in various ways since then, as his own extensive bibliography demonstrates. He
has made himself an expert on pontificals, on Dalmatian history, on manuscripts
and their production in that zone, and on much else besides. In a long and distinguished career, he has contributed much to our understanding of the southern
Adriatic, and this volume is the fitting capstone of a magnificent arch.
Harvard University

THOMAS FORREST KELLY

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The Murder of William of Norwich: The Origins of the Blood Libel in Medieval Europe.
By Emily M. Rose. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2015. Pp. xvi, 394.
$27.95. ISBN 978-0-1902-19628.)
In 1144 a twelve-year old skinner’s apprentice named William, a younger son
in a clerical dynasty of some local note, was lured from his residence in Norwich
and murdered by person or persons unknown. William’s uncle, a married English
priest named Godwin Sturt, accused the small, recently-established Jewish community of Norwich of the murder, but little seems to have come from this initial
accusation. William’s body was buried in the churchyard of Norwich Cathedral
Priory, to which his family had some connections; but there it lay, largely ignored,
until 1149, when the claim of Jewish culpability for William’s murder was revived
by William Turbe, the newly-elected Cathedral Prior, who used the charge to
defend Simon de Novers, a local Norwich knight against allegations that Simon
had murdered Deulesalt/Eleazar, the leader of the Norwich Jewish community, to
whom Simon owed large sums of money. A year later a newly arrived monk of the
Priory named Thomas of Monmouth took it as his life’s mission to vindicate
William not only as a victim of Jewish malice, but as a martyr and saint whose body
and relics were a precious gift to Norwich Cathedral Priory.
Thomas began composing his Life and Passion of William of Norwich in 1150.
By the time he completed it, sometime after 1170, the claim that Jews kidnapped
and murdered Christian children in a ritualized demonstration of anti-Christian
animus had already been repeated in Gloucester (1168) and on the continent,
where it led, in Blois (1171), to the execution by fire of more than thirty Jewish
men, women, and children. Ten years later, this “blood libel” (or, as other historians will prefer, the “ritual crucifixion charge”) was employed by King Philip II to
justify the expulsion of all the Jewish communities from the Ile-de-France. From
France the libel swept on to the rest of Europe, passing ultimately to Russia and
the Middle East, where it continues even today to be repeated, promoted, and
believed, with horrific consequences for Jews and Jewish communities that have
rippled down through the centuries.
Dr. Rose’s new book is the boldest and most thoroughgoing of the many
attempts over the past sixty years to make sense of this enormously consequential
yet entirely specious claim. Her argument is straightforward, and in its broad
strokes persuasive. Although Thomas of Monmouth was the first to give literary
form to the blood libel, the libel spread not through Thomas’s text, nor as a result
of competition from rival pilgrimage centers for visitors, but as a result of the efforts
of a series of political and religious authorities to make use of the charge for their
own ends. In Gloucester, the libel was used to extort loans from the local Jewish
community to support Earl Richard fitz Gilbert de Clare’s (Strongbow) longshot
invasion of Ireland. In Blois, Count Thibaut V used it, and the executions that
resulted from it, to assert his independence from the growing strength of the
Capetian monarchy. In Bury St. Edmunds, the alleged martyrdom of Robert of
Bury at the hands of Bury’s Jews was an element in Samson of Bury’s successful

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campaign to be elected Abbot; while in Paris, Philip II used the libel to clear Paris
of Jews, so that he could redevelop the city into a modern commercial capital from
which he profited handsomely.
The sources for reconstructing this story are not plentiful, but Dr. Rose has
done excellent work in unearthing plausible details about William’s family and its
clerical connections in East Anglia, and in emphasizing King Philip II’s associations with the Cult of the Holy Innocents. These points will surely find their way
into other historians’ arguments. She is also clear and fair in addressing the contrary
interpretations that previous scholars have offered of William’s story and its dissemination. She has read widely and thought deeply about all these matters. Her
views command respect, even where some specialists, myself included, are likely to
disagree with them.
That said, however, Dr. Rose is a consistent historical maximalist. She is
determined to make her evidence tell the fullest story possible, and to that end she
is quite prepared to make bricks out of what may or may not be straw. “Possibly”
and “may have” are qualifiers one can find on almost every page, and suppositions
abound. This is a defensible way for an historian to proceed, but it does not produce
a solid foundation on which future scholars can build with confidence. Her footnotes bear watching: although they are always informative, they do not always provide support for the claims made in the sentences to which they are attached. And
sometimes crucial claims rest on no direct evidence whatsoever. For example, Rose
explains the transmission and rapid dissemination of William’s story to the continent after 1170 as the result of a relics tour undertaken in that year by William
Turbe (by then Bishop of Norwich) and his monks to north central France to raise
money to rebuild Norwich Cathedral. Such a tour would indeed explain much, as
Rose points out. But there is not a shred of evidence that such a tour ever took
place. Perhaps it did; but if it did, no surviving historical source makes reference to
it. Her suggestion that Simon de Novers’ debts arose from his participation in the
Second Crusade is similarly ungrounded. Even Rose concedes that the evidence is
“circumstantial” (p. 52); but the supposition that he had been a crusader allows
Rose not only to connect the blood libel to the anti-Jewish animus of crusaders, but
also to redate de Novers’ trial (at which William Turbe introduced the blood libel)
to 1149 or 1150, thus buttressing Rose’s claim (which I would dispute) that there
had been no local interest in William’s cult prior to 1150. Like all chains, Rose’s
argumentative chains are only as strong as their weakest link. And some of the links
here are uncertain indeed.
But I would not want to end on a negative note. The book is lively, well-written,
and consistently interesting. It will appeal to a wide readership, and will enrich the
scholarly debates about how this vicious libel began. And on a larger stage, it may also
serve to remind us, yet again, that the self-serving lies political leaders tell can have
consequences far beyond the immediate purposes for which these lies were invented.
University of Washington

ROBERT C. STACEY

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Ecclesiastical Knights: The Military Orders in Castile, 1150–1330. By Sam Zeno
Conedera, S.J. [Fordham Series in Medieval Studies.] (New York: Fordham
University Press. 2015. Pp. xii, 259. $55.00. ISBN 978-0-8232-6595-4.)
The medieval military orders have been subjected to extensive scholarly scrutiny
in recent years. In the Anglosphere, thanks to the sterling work of such luminaries as
Malcolm Barber, Alan Forey, Anthony Luttrell, Helen Nicholson, Jonathan RileySmith, and William Urban, to name just a few, we are now far better informed about
the origins, organization, and activities of the orders. In an Iberian context, too, much
important research on the chief orders of Calatrava, Santiago, and Alcántara has been
carried out, but studies in English, particularly since the pioneering efforts of Derek
Lomax and Joseph O’Callaghan, remain relatively limited. In Ecclesiastical Knights,
Sam Zeno Conedera rejects the widely-used term of “warrior monks” to denote the
members of the Orders, arguing forcefully and persuasively that the religious life pursued by the military brethren—both in the Iberian Peninsula and elsewhere—was
profoundly different from that of other religious movements. However, definition is
only part of the author’s agenda. More importantly, he seeks to explore the religious
life of the orders, which has often been overshadowed in the scholarship by their military activities. The book is divided into four chapters. In the first, “Foundations,” the
reader is provided with a brisk overview of the genesis of the military orders, both in
the Near East and Iberia, which helps to set the scene for what follows. Chapter 2,
“Interior Castle: The Orders’ Religious Observance,” explores the spirituality of the
orders, scrutinizing, in particular, their institutional structure, religious practices, and
outlook, and concluding by considering the thorny subject of reform and decline.
Chapter 3, “Ad extra: The Orders’ Mission in the World,” delineates the orders’ key
functions: waging war, caring for the sick, and helping to ransom captives. Finally,
Chapter 4, “Brothers in Arms: The Orders’ Relations with One Another,” considers
the dozen hermandades, or pacts, that were forged by Calatrava, Santiago, or Alcántara between 1150 and 1330, which highlight the considerable collaborative efforts
that were made by the orders to ensure military co-operation, mutual hospitality,
joint negotiation with other groups, legal assistance, and procedures for resolution of
disputes. Throughout, Conedera demonstrates good command of the archival sources
now housed in the Archivo Histórico Nacional in Madrid, as well as the not inconsiderable body of printed source material. As the author himself recognizes, his book
is to a large degree “a general picture” (p. 141) of the Iberian military orders. Most of
the content will be familiar to specialists in the field and, as such, it cannot be said
that the book supplants earlier and weightier contributions, most notably Carlos de
Ayala y Martinez’s magisterial Las órdenes militares hispánicas en la Edad Media (siglos
XII–XV) (Madrid: Marcial Pons Historia/Latorre Literaria, 2003). Nonetheless,
Conedera’s thought-provoking and clearly-written study does shed useful light on
the religious life of the rorders, and encourages us to recognize the extent to which
the institutions and practices of knighthood were shaped by a dynamic range of ecclesiastical impulses. For English-speaking students, in particular, this study will be an
invaluable guide to the subject.
University of Exeter

SIMON BARTON

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571

Avignon and Its Papacy, 1309–1417: Popes, Institutions, and Society. By Joëlle RolloKoster. (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group. 2015.
Pp. xiv, 314. $75.00. ISBN 978-1-4422-1532-0.)
“It has been the intent of this book to rehabilitate for the English-speaking
reader the Avignon papacy from its ‘black legend’” (p. 289). Thus Joëlle RolloKoster summarizes her new study, one rooted in the author’s thorough knowledge
of the relevant sources and perceptive readings of modern scholarship. The “black
legend” in question refers to the notion, already articulated in the fourteenth century and repeated thereafter, that the Avignon papacy was a venal, nepotistic, spiritually barren plaything of the French monarchy. To a very large extent, RolloKoster’s rehabilitation succeeds.
Avignon and Its Papacy consists of six chapters. The first three provide a brisk
yet thorough narrative of the Avignon papacy from its origins through Gregory
XI’s return to Rome in 1377. Chapter Four examines the administrative structures
that Avignon popes developed, while Chapter Five discusses with engaging
warmth Avignon’s urban life. The concluding chapter treats the period of the Great
Papal Schism (1378–1417), and also contains the author’s views on the extent to
which the schism resonated among the laity.
Rollo-Koster debunks some accusations levelled at the Avignon papacy and
disarms others by placing them in their historical context. Although subjected to
the influence of the neighboring Kingdom of France, the Avignon popes were not
mere instruments of French royal policy; they worked conscientiously (if not always
effectively, and partly to divert martial efforts elsewhere) for the establishment and
maintenance of peace between England and France. That “venality and nepotism
were rampant among all members of the high society” (p. 289) might be a lessthan-inspiring defense, but the point is a fair one: Avignon popes were not unique
in their staffing practices and pursuit of income. Rollo-Koster also rightly emphasizes the Avignon papacy’s administrative complexity, especially its “archiving and
financial capability” (p. 185). The papacy’s diplomatic and financial challenges were
enormous, and larger than those faced by any single European kingdom; consequently, the papal governing apparatus developed a high level of sophistication.
To Rollo-Koster’s credit, she does not shy away from those facts that fueled
the rise of the “black legend” in the first place. Cardinal Albornoz’s bloody subdual
of the Papal States in the 1350s and 1360s is fully acknowledged. Some cardinals
were as extravagant and high-handed as critics alleged. Sinecures and expectative
collations were commonplace and, especially in the case of multiple expectative collations for the same benefice, difficult to justify as anything other than revenuegenerating devices.
Only at rare moments does Rollo-Koster’s enthusiasm for her subject lead to
her to go perhaps a bit far. John XXII multiplied offices, but whether that makes
him an “administrative genius” (pp. 154, 175) is questionable. As the author notes

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regarding those who petitioned the papacy for appointments, “Vatican registers
illustrate a lag of some five years between requests and responses” (p. 157), which
suggests strain and inefficiency. As for the schism’s popular impact, Rollo-Koster
points to a pilgrimage of youths to Mont Saint-Michel in 1393 and to the spontaneous veneration of Peter of Luxembourg following his death in 1387. But events
such as these were not peculiar to the period of the schism; movements of youthful
pilgrims and the spontaneous veneration of recently deceased individuals with a
reputation for sanctity had precedents predating the years 1378–1417. RolloKoster does not adduce evidence that those who flocked to Peter of Luxembourg’s
tomb or the youths who went to Mont Saint-Michel had the schism in mind as
they did so. As for those who wrote about these events, they linked them to sinfulness and religious malaise in the most general terms, rather than linking them
directly to the schism. (Or, at least, that is what they do in the quotations that
Rollo-Koster includes.) These episodes, therefore, do not seem to be expressions of
widespread schism-induced angst among laypeople.
Notwithstanding such occasional interpretive disagreements, I warmly recommend Avignon and Its Papacy to all readers. Those new to the Avignon papacy will
find it to be the best English-language introduction to the subject, and those
already familiar with the topic will find it to be, like all of Rollo-Koster’s work,
richly informative and stimulating.
The College of William & Mary

PHILIP DAILEADER

Political Society in Later Medieval England: A Festschrift for Christine Carpenter.
Edited by Benjamin Thompson and John Watts. (Rochester, NY: The Boydell
Press, an imprint of Boydell & Brewer. 2015. Pp. 280. $99.00. ISBN 9781-7832-7030-9.)
The theme taken for this collection is one which has been central to the honorand’s work over the years, broadly defined here as the interface between the state
and the upper levels of society: primarily, but not quite exclusively, taken to mean
the landed nobility and gentry. This, as the introduction by John Watts spells out,
locates her within what has been regarded by late medievalists as the apostolic succession from K. B. McFarlane to Gerald Harriss, to her, and now to her students.
It is a theme which, especially if interpreted more generally as the relationship of
center to locality (or of private to public), can embrace a wide range of manifestations, and the eleven essays, with a couple of exceptions, possess an underlying
unity of purpose not always attained by Festschriften. The chronological range is
broadly from Henry III to the early Tudors, although one of the outliers (by Jenny
Wormald) takes as its starting point the death of the Scottish fifth earl of Huntley
in 1576. This apart, the emphasis is firmly on England. Tony Moore explores how
gentry and free tenants came to look to the royal courts, rather than county courts,
in the first part of the thirteenth century and the impact this had on the development of the common law. At the other end of the period, John Watts’s paper “’New
Men,’ ‘New Learning,’ and ‘New Monarchy’” (all three elements are thus prob-

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lematized), fruitfully and pragmatically revisits the questions contested now for well
over a century about their chronology and inter-connection. Medieval law, which
is a strand within several of papers, is foregrounded in the paper by Ted Powell on
the legal position of the duchy of Lancaster which discusses its shifting public/private status across the fifteenth century and its implications.
Andrew Spencer takes as his subject the royal coronation oath and in particular the implications of the requirement that the king should uphold the laws that
the community of the realm shall have chosen as this played out across the later
Middle Ages. The clause was deployed both by kings and their critics, and royal
critics are also the focus of Theron Westervelt’s paper on manifestos for rebellion,
although this covers more well-trodden ground. The relationship of medieval kings
with their subjects is developed in two other papers, each largely confined to a
single reign but offering interesting cross-references. Caroline Burt considers local
government in Warwickshire and Worcestershire in the reign of Edward II, offering a study of the connections (or, increasingly, the lack of them) between king,
magnates, and local gentry. A different (but complementary) emphasis is provided
by Richard Partington’s study of noble service to Edward III, which stresses the
extent to which the leading aristocracy should be seen as hard-working servants of
the Crown rather than as the recipients of (unearned) royal favor to “buy” their support. The stated ability of Edward III (along with Edward I and Henry V) to command this level of service here becomes a tacit condemnation of all the other latemedieval kings, although this is not developed.
Two papers turn to ecclesiastical issues. Andrea Ruddick deploys the published fifteenth-century letter collections to consider the ecclesiastical patronage
deployed by gentry families, with the Pastons’ well-documented dispute with the
duke of Suffolk at its heart. Advowsons, the right to present to a living, were classed
as property, and the right to them was thus worth defending to maintain local
influence. Benjamin Thompson’s paper makes a related, but broader, point in
exploring various facets of the integration of the late-medieval Church into secular
society, specifically the jurisdictional overlap whereby both secular and clerical litigants might deploy either lay or spiritual courts as best suited their case, offered
here as the context for the ultimate assumption by Henry VIII of the position as
Supreme Governor. Although readers will naturally find some papers here that
speak to their interests more strongly than others, there are intriguing resonances
to be heard across the collection.
University of Cambridge

ROSEMARY HORROX

Reading the Bible in the Middle Ages. Edited by Jinty Nelson and Damien Kempf.
[Studies in Early Medieval History.] (London: Bloomsbury Academic. 2015.
Pp. viii, 284. $42.95 hardcover; $35.96 paperback. ISBN 978-1-350-03628-4.)
This collection of essays originated in a day-conference at the University of
Liverpool in 2011 entitled, “Bibles: Reading Scriptures from Medieval to Early
Modern,” at which, as the editors note in their introduction, “[s]peakers conveyed

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impressions on Bible reading/hearing in particular times and places” (p. 1). More
specifically, the eight contributors—who hail from England, Austria, Germany,
the Netherlands, and the United States—treat a wide range of themes related to
scriptural reading throughout western Christendom in the sixth through twelfth
centuries. From Gerda Heydemann’s consideration of Cassiodorus as a reader of
the Psalms and Jinty Nelson’s study of lay readers of the Bible in the Carolingian
era, to Henry Parkes’s essay on biblical readings for the night office in eleventhcentury Germany and Claire Weeda’s treatment of how the Bible aided the construction of political power in twelfth-century France and Germany, this volume
will be of interest to a wide range of medievalists, scholars and students alike.
Nelson and Kempf warn their readers at the outset, however, concerning what may
be perceived as a lack of thematic unity among the essays: “Light-touch editors
have steered a course between excessive concern for coherence, that might have
cabined and confined plentiful original insights that occurred serendipitously, and
a fundamentally unified agenda and approach” (p. 2).
Though some readers may worry that the volume could be more internally
coherent, the quality of the essays gathered here is generally good; indeed, on the
whole they are well-conceived, clearly written, informative, and interesting. For
example, in “Sibyls, Tanners and Leper Kings: Taking Notes from and about the
Bible in Twelfth-Century England,” Julie Barrau opens a fascinating window onto
how one anonymous English student in the schools of the twelfth century read,
heard, and glossed the scriptural account of Israel’s history. These biblical glosses,
which have come down to us in Cambridge Corpus Christi College MS 288 (hereafter: CCCC 288), give witness to the student’s strict adherence to literal interpretations, his wide-ranging reading, and, at times, his idiosyncratic patterns of
thought. Concerning the latter, the glossator writes, for instance, that “Plato went
to Egypt, translated the books of Moses from the Egyptian language into Greek
and carried them [home] with him” (p. 123). Although we cannot know with certainty how such a gloss came to be, Barrau conjectures that this basic idea can be
traced to Ambrose, who, in commenting on Psalm 118, maintained that in Egypt
Plato had heard “the prophecies of the law of Moses” and somehow made use of
them in his “dialogue on virtue” (pp. 123-24). Barrau observes that such an oversimplification, even garbling, of Ambrose as that found in CCCC 288 is not necessarily to be attributed (solely) to the student who wrote these notes; rather, it
might (also) be the consequence of “an enthusiastic, authoritative but unorthodox
teacher” in the twelfth-century school who delivered the Old Testament lectures to
which this glossator listened (p. 144).
Among the volume’s many strengths, one weakness is that some essays fail to
engage more recent scholarship on the topic under consideration. In “TwelfthCentury Notions of the Canon of the Bible,” for example, Cornelia Linde considers the understandings of the canon of Hugh of St. Victor and Robert of Melun.
She seems particularly interested in Hugh’s teaching that the Fathers (patres) constitute the third ordo of the New Testament, following the Gospels and the Apostles (pp. 11–13). Linde concludes by noting how her study highlights “several

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remarkable facets of late medieval perceptions of the Bible,” the first and most
important being that “the canon was not yet closed, but was still open, beyond the
twelfth century” (p. 17). Some readers—particularly those less familiar with the
greater fluidity and elasticity of sacra scriptura prior to the printing press, the Reformation, and modernity—will doubtless be confused by such an affirmation.
Whereas Linde makes use of the scholarly work of Ceslas Spicq (1944) and Rainer
Berndt (1988) on Hugh’s understanding of the Fathers vis-à-vis the New Testament (pp. 12–13), curiously she does not engage more recent considerations of
what remains an important question in Victorine scholarship (in spite of her
acknowledgment that “the literature on Hugh is vast” [p. 171, n. 18]). Over against
the older view that Hugh boldly advocated an open canon of the New Testament
that included the Fathers, some more recent scholars maintain that the Victorine
master was merely reiterating a traditional list of sacred texts that included both
canonical and non-canonical writings without distinction (see, e.g., Interpretation
of Scripture: Theory [Victorine Texts in Translation 3], pp. 39–40).
In spite of such shortcomings, however, this collection will offer medievalists
of every stripe much food for thought and fodder for further research.
Boston College

FRANKLIN T. HARKINS

Medieval Exegesis and Religious Difference: Commentary, Conflict and Community in
the Premodern Mediterranean. Edited by Ryan Szpiech. [Bordering Religions:
Concepts, Conflicts, Conversations.] (New York: Fordham University Press.
2015. Pp. xvi, 329. $55.00. ISBN 978-0-8232-6462-9.)
This volume brings together thirteen essays originating in a conference held at
the University of Michigan in 2011. The contributions range from the tenth century
to the sixteenth and from Baghdad to Paris. The common goal is to examine how
Jews, Christians, and Muslims used exegesis—learned interpretation of their own
scriptures and of the scriptures of the rival monotheistic religions—as vehicles for
apologetics (defining and justifying their own religious communities) and polemics
(attempting to undermine the legitimacy of those outside their communities).
It is common to class the three faiths as “Abrahamic,” emphasizing common
ground symbolized by the patriarch revealed in all three traditions. Yet understanding of Abraham/Ibrahim could vary greatly within and between exegetical traditions, as Sarah Stroumsa shows in her study of how the patriarch is understood by
two Andalusian exegetes, the Muslim Ibn Masara (d. 931) and the Jew Maimonides (d. 1204). Walid Saleh compares the approaches to the Hebrew bible of
the Catholic Humanist Johannes Reuchlin (d. 1522) and the Mamluk scholar alBiqā‘ī (d. 1480). Saleh highlights the different kinds of interest in Judaism of the
two intellectuals and their religious and cultural milieus. The keen interest in
Judaism in sixteenth-century Christian Europe was accompanied by increasing persecution of Jews, whereas the relative lack of interest among contemporary Muslim
intellectuals helped permit a relative tolerance of Jews in Mamluk society.

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These intellectuals were often quite aware of rival exegetical traditions, and at
times exploited them deftly. Various Christian writers highlighted Qur’anic praise
of Jesus and Mary in their writings against Judaism; others used the Qur’an’s commendation of Torah and Gospel as an argument against the notion of tahrif (corruption of scripture by Jews and Christians). Sidney Griffith presents the work of
Ibn al-Mahrūma, a fourteenth-century Syrian Miaphysite who uses Muslim
exegetical arguments about the abrogation of the sharī‘a to affirm Christian supersession of Jewish law.
A number of the articles deal with Dominican exegesis of Bible, Talmud, and
Qur’an, often in the contexts of disputations and anti-Muslim or anti-Jewish
polemics. Thomas Burman, through a close study of a Parisian manuscript, looks at
the intellectual baggage of Ricoldo da Montecroce, who wrote an influential antiQur’anic polemic in the early fourteenth century. The Dominicans’ penchant for
finding apologetical arguments for Christianity in the writings of Jews and Muslims became compelling enough that at least one fourteenth-century Dominican,
Alfonso de Buenhombre, forged text by purportedly “Jewish” and “Muslim”
authors which vindicated the superiority of Christianity. Alfonso affirms that he
“found” these texts in the Maghreb and “translated” them into Latin (as we see in
the article by Antoni Biosca i Bas). Harvey Hames and Ursula Ragacs examine the
1240 Paris trial of the Talmud and the 1263 Barcelona disputation, showing how
Dominican and Jewish writers mobilized exegesis to present their divergent takes
on the meaning and outcome of those events.
Several articles show how Jewish exegetes used figures in Hebrew scripture to
represent and denigrate rival traditions. Esperanza Alfonso looks at how various
Sephardic exegetes understood the “strange woman” of Proverbs, who was seen as
representing sexual impurity, the uncircumcised, the study of gentile philosophy, or
of heresy and apostasy—particularly to Christianity. The dangerous and enticing
nature of this strange woman reveals the writers’ unease concerning the attractions
and dangers of relations between Jews and the majority Christian society. Alexandra Cuffel examines the rich and complex traditions of the Toledot Yeshu, oral and
written, from the Middle East and Europe, that make Jesus into a charlatan and
magician in efforts to parry Christian and Muslim traditions about him. It is
impossible in a brief review to do justice to a rich and fascinating collection of
essays by top scholars in the field, which together provide an important synthesis
of interest to scholars working on the history of exegesis and on Jewish-ChristianMuslim relations.
Maison des Sciences de l’Homme Ange Guépin,
University of Nantes

JOHN TOLAN

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577

Johannes Soreth: Expositio paraenetica in Regulam Carmelitarum. Ein Kommentar zur
Karmelregel. Übersetzt und erläutert von Leo Groothuis. Mit Beiträgen von
Bryan Deschamp und Edeltraud Klueting. [Schriften des Forschungsinstituts
der Deutschen Provinz der Karmeliten, Band 1.] (Münster: Aschendorff
Verlag. 2018. Pp. xii, 199. €29,90. ISBN 978-3-402-12135-1.)
The German translation of this 1455 text by John Soreth, Prior General of the
Carmelites, is based on the critical edition of the Latin original by Bryan Deschamp
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2016). The publication of this new translation is an important
contribution to the history of religious life in the fifteenth century, because it is a significant example of a much-needed reformation of the order more than a century
before Teresa of Jesus and John of the Cross in Spain. The original text was published for the first time in 1625 by Léon de Saint Jean in Paris, within the context
of the reform of Touraine, France, at the beginning of the seventeenth century.
John Soreth was born in 1394 in Caen, France, and entered the Carmelite
order in that city. He received a master’s degree in theology at the University of
Paris in 1438. Two years later, he was elected prior provincial of the province of
Francia. In 1450 he became vicar general, and in 1451 he was elected prior general
of the order, a function he held until his death in Caen in 1471.
Soreth chose the convent of Liège as the residence of the General Council. In
1455, he wrote the Third Rule of Carmel for lay people and was the founder of the
first Carmelite communities for women, whose first members were beguines. With
the help of Françoise d’Amboise, he founded a monastery at Bondon, Brittany
(France), where she wrote the Constitution for the first Carmelite nuns. Soreth’s
efforts at renewal and reform of the French convents began during his term as prior
provincial, and continued through his tenure as prior general of the order. His
detailed commentary on the Rule of Carmel has as its point of departure the original contemplative experience of the hermits on Mount Carmel. In his commentary, he emphasized a simple and hidden life centered on God alone.
Using the method of the connexio auctoritatum, he highlighted how the
Carmelite charism was embedded in the broad mystical and monastic tradition of
the Middle Ages. In keeping with the times, differentiation of a particular identity
was less important for him than the shared culture of religious life. Although it
seems impossible to prove any real influences of the Modern Devotion of Geert
Groote and Thomas à Kempis, they shared the same climate of reform.
The German translation is excellent and gives the reader a good insight into
the original text. However, modern readers will miss a mystagogic presentation of
the chapters, since such an ascetic interpretation might too easily hamper a spiritual
interiorization of its essence. Publication of a similar translation in English, as well
as in other languages, would be valuable. Hopefully, this publication will act as an
incentive for the future publication of the collection of Soreth’s sermons, which are
buried in the Liège archives.
Titus Brandsma Institute, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

JOS HULS, O.CARM.

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EARLY MODERN EUROPEAN
L’umiltà e le rose. Storia di una compagnia femminile a Torino tra età moderna e contemporanea. Edited by Anna Cantaluppi and Blythe Alice Raviola. (Florence:
Casa Editrice Leo S. Olschki. 2017. Pp. xxii, 401. €49,00 paperback. ISBN
978-8822-265043.)
A rich and carefully made volume, L’umiltà e le rose is dedicated to the Compagnia femminile dell’Umiltà of Turin, founded around the 1570s, active till 1934.
The miscellany collects twelve essays organized in four parts. The research on that
important female organisation of charity has been made possible thanks to the
Fondazione 1563 (Fondazione dell’Istituto bancario San Paolo di Torino per la
cultura, la scienza e l’arte), and thanks to the work of N. Calapà, for the construction of the data base that records the 1,700 women active in the Company from
1590 to 1901. These research papers put value on the rich archival sources of the
Umiliate, found in the Archivio di stato and in the Archivio Arcivescovile of Turin.
The volume starts with the list of abbreviations and a short introduction written by
the editors, and it is concluded by a final appendix with edition of two documents
(Relazione di un anonimo gesuita […] on the procession held in Turin in 1621 and
Avisi per il padre for the spiritual direction of the Umiliate, written in 1667);
together with the XLVIII tables of images connected with Saint Elizabeth and the
Umiliate; the English abstract of the twelve essays; a brief presentation of the eighteen authors, the list of images outside the text; the index of illustrations in the text;
the index of the names. This book is the result of the most recent research on the
Company and also the first step for future deeper works.
In the introduction, the editors explain the concrete occasion and main aims of
the book, and its place within the historiographical debate on female confraternities
in modern ages. The first part, with the contribution of A. Cantaluppi e B. A. Raviola together with P. Gentile, puts lights on the relationship between the female
Company and the male Compagnia San Paolo and its ties with the Court of Savoy.
The Umiliate was the female counterpart of the Compagnia di San Paolo, with a
more aristocratic profile, but also a smaller financial importance. Both Companies
received and gave support to the Jesuits in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
At the very first beginning, the Umiliate had connection with heterodox circles, but
from the end of the sixteenth century, the associations turned toward the much more
orthodox Marian spirituality promoted by the infanta Catalina Micaela. During the
eighteenth century the link with Savoy weakened, and Restoration did not help the
Company to react against decline, which advanced progressively.
In the second part of the volume, economy, social network, and assistance are
put on trial, with the two essays: the first written by E. C. Colombo and G. Uberti
and the second by M. Martiano, B. Zucca, and D. Tabor. The financial behavior
and management of the Umiliate let us understand the different aims of charity:
from the beginning to the golden age and then during the economic decline, the
charity was financed in more or less structured ways, by small gifts, or by richer

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bequests for distribution to the poor, celebration of Mass, and during the Ancien
Régime also dowries for young women. A symmetric image emerges from the study
of the social profile of the members, their social connections, and by the social profile of the girls chosen to receive a dowry (seventeenth to twentieth centuries),
above all from the middle and lower classes. The third part highlights religiosity
and devotions in the Company. M. Giuliani presents the origins of the Company
in Turin in the connection with the Jesuits, the Court, and the other female organizations of charity founded in Turin at the end of the sixteenth century. The evolution of the politics of devotion to Saint Elizabeth of Hungary and veneration of
the Virgin Mary are the two main Umiliate’s devotions aspects clarified by P.
Cozzo. The fourth section is dedicated to art, iconography, and literature related to
the Company and its patron saint, Elizabeth of Hungary: R. Bellini and M. Zefferino reconstruct the history of the ways in which the patron saint of the Third
Order of Franciscans has been represented over four centuries. G. Ciamportone
shows the different seasons of the chapel of Umiliate (on the left in the Jesuit
church of Santi Martiri in Turin) and the decorative program from the sixteenth to
the seventeenth century, centered on the representation of the Immaculate Virgin
and her mortal life. C. M. Carpentieri analyzes the development of the literary and
hagiographic portrait of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary between the thirteenth and
sixteenth centuries, when the model of that saint became a perfect equilibrium
between active engagement and spiritual attitude. S. Santacroce and L. Giachino
present the main works inspired by the life of Saint Elizabeth; L. Bianco focuses
on two homiletic texts written in 1633–34 by Emanuele Tesauro; S. Tagliaferri is
able to show how Saint Elizabeth, a queen who gave up her privileges in order to
become the humblest of the humble, was the passive protagonist of the self-legitimation process of the ruling class and, in the same time, a symbol of belief for the
working class too.
Goethe-Universität—Frankfurt

MARIA TERESA FATTORI

Fürstliche Prachtentfaltung in Abwesenheit des Herrschers. Bedeutung von Schloss und
Hofstaat im Fürstbistum Osnabrück zur Regierungszeit Friedrichs von York
(1764–1802). By Heinrich Schepers. [Westfalen in der Vormoderne: Studien
zur mittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Landesgeschichte, Vol. 30.]
(Münster: Aschendorff Verlag. 2018. Pp. 348. €51,00 paperback. ISBN 9783-402-15075-7.)
The Peace of Westphalia not only ensured the consolidation of the state order,
but also proved to be strong and sustainable for the future, strengthening the religious-political principles of state sovereignty and territorial integrity in earlymodern Europe. In this context, the prince-bishopric of Osnabrück in northwest
Germany has played a remarkable role, also apart from the fact that it was the capital and seat of residence and became one of the two venues (besides Münster) for
this peacemaking negotiation process in 1648. Since the Reformation era and in
the long eighteenth century, the population of Osnabrück consisted of Catholics
and Lutherans and was, already for that reason alone, a bi-denominational prince-

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bishopric. Even more significantly, this confessional dualism had also a specific
effect on the principles of princely succession. In order to ensure the religious-political balance of power, the prince-bishopric was ruled alternately, either by appointment of a Lutheran prince from the House of Hanover or by election of a Catholic
clergyman through the Catholic members of the cathedral chapter. In both cases,
however, the prince-bishopric of Osnabrück certainly underwent the same fate of
being controlled in ‘personal union’ with other principalities and, as a result, in total
absence of the respective ruler.
This is precisely the point where historian Heinrich Schepers questions what
strategies were used to maintain the dominance and power of an absent princebishop. Schepers specifically focuses on the reign of Frederick August, Duke of
York and Albany (1764–1802), who was appointed as the prince-bishop of
Osnabrück as an infant by his father George III, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg,
King of Great Britain and Ireland. Under the rule of Frederick, as Scheper explains
and illustrates in detail, the display of princely splendor reached its climax with the
reconstruction and redesign of the residence and garden as well as with the establishment of a princely court in Osnabrück. Fürstliche Prachtentfaltung in Abwesenheit des Herrschers provides a well-researched manuscript collection and in-depth
descriptions of the substantial changes between 1764 and 1791, offering also rich
insights into the practices of representation and symbolic communication (ritual,
ceremonial).
However, Scheper’s detailed interpretation of his findings sometimes appears
as too superficial. Further questions need to be addressed when asking about the
symbolic dimensions of princely splendor in the Age of Enlightenment: How did
the residence, garden, and court represent Frederick’s self-image as a “princeps” as
well as an “episcopus”?1 Did Frederick even identify himself as a noble and
Enlightened ruler? What was the role of religious tolerance in the visual and ceremonial culture, particularly against the bi-denominational constitutional background of the prince-bishopric? As Gerd Dethlefs has recently demonstrated in his
concise study on the construction of the residence palace at Münster, an entirely
Catholic prince-bishopric, analyzing the architecture, design, and decoration of
Münster’s residential palace allows historians to better understand the exercise and
representation of politico-ecclesiastical rule.2 Despite these weaknesses, Schepers’
explanations will certainly have several implications for research, especially into the
cultural history of political thought and practice in early-modern Germany.
University of Münster

ANDREAS OBERDORF

1. Bettina Braun, Princeps und episcopus. Studien zur Funktion und zum Selbstverständnis
der nordwestdeutschen Fürstbischöfe nach dem Westfälischen Frieden (Göttingen, 2013).
2. Gerd Dethlefs, “Sinnbild milder Herrschaft. Politische Ikonographie an der fürstbischöflichen Residenz zu Münster,” in Katholische Aufklärung in Europa und Nordamerika, ed.
Jürgen Overhoff and Andreas Oberdorf (Göttingen, 2019), 500–15.

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LATE MODERN EUROPEAN
La France dans la pensée des papes. By Martin Dumont. (Paris: Les éditions du Cerf.
2018. Pp. 186. €16,00 paperback. ISBN: 978-2-204-11674-9.)
As reactions to the recent Notre-Dame-de-Paris fire brought once more the
question of France’s catholicity to the fore, Martin Dumont’s timely book revisits
the checkered history of the relations between the Hexagon and the Holy See.
Unlike current publications about French Catholicism, the author shifts the focus
back to Rome. The book adopts the standpoint of the papacy: what did the popes
know and think about France? How did they address French political regimes,
social transformations, and international influence?
The baptism of Clovis in 496 created a special bond between the kingdom of
France and the Catholic Church abruptly interrupted by the French Revolution.
Dumont’s book examines how the popes related to the “eldest but not the most
faithful daughter of the Church” (Pope Francis) after the watershed of 1789. The
book provides clear insight to grasp the meaning of a semantic shift forged during
the Romantic age of the nation-state: while under the Ancien Régime the king of
France was referred as “the eldest son of the Church,” only after 1789 this designation encompassed the entire nation as “the eldest daughter of the Church.”
Chapters 1 and 2 provide an overview of two centuries of the papacy’s relations
with France, from Pius VI to Francis: despite political and diplomatic turmoil,
Dumont argues, the popes have always regarded France as a privileged repository of
Christian vocation. Viewed from Rome, this special election also implied reciprocity
and duties. For the popes, French governments had oftentimes dismissed and even
despised these responsibilities, especially when the Third Republic engaged in anticlerical policies culminating in the 1905 law of separation of church and state. As
John Paul II put it in his landmark Bourget speech of June 1980: “France, eldest
daughter of the Church, are you faithful to the promises of your baptism?” The
papacy’s special inclination toward France relies, Dumont asserts in chapters 3 and
4, upon the belief in a “Christian vocation of France”—a religious patrimony that
situates France at the forefront of Catholic spirituality and intellectual life. The
breeding place of well-known saints and Marian pilgrimages, France is also represented in Rome by institutions such as the École Française de Rome, the French
seminary, and the cultural center Saint Louis founded by Jacques Maritain after
World War II. Chapter 5 examines how the popes situated France’s influence
within the larger configuration of Vatican diplomatic relations, while chapter 6
explains the pontifical support for vectors of Christian reconquest of French secularized society such as Catholic education and the press. The last and most enlightening chapter discusses the current and controversial resonances of French laïcité
and traces a change in pontifical attitudes after Paul VI; as demonstrated by John
Paul II and Francis, the papacy’s recent acceptance of French secularism offers an
interpretation in which religion and the public sphere are distinct but not separated,
thus legitimizing Catholic citizens to speak out in political and societal debates.

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Dumont successfully examines together two entangled types of discourse: as
statesmen the popes speak to the political representatives of France, while as spiritual leaders they preach to the French faithful. A concise essay rather than a comprehensive monograph, the book brings papal voices to light with fluid writing and
a rich body of direct quotations. The work’s reliance on pontifical sources tends
however to offer a one-sided narrative, while other sources could have added complexity to an overwhelmingly flattering picture. Because of its brevity, the book
leaves aside the actual reception of pontifical discourses in France, a dimension
which the author had instead well documented in his previous volume on French
Catholics’ responses to Leon XIII’s Ralliement. The book could also further engage
with recent developments in the history of global Catholicism, especially on colonialism and imperial networks. In this perspective, historians hope that the opening
of the archives of Pius XII—who made Thérèse of Lisieux second patron saint of
France—would shed light on these issues relevant to the French case during World
War II and the Cold War.
Fordham University and École Française de Rome

NINA VALBOUSQUET

John Henry Newman: Man of Letters. By Mary Katherine Tillman. [Marquette
Studies in Philosophy, No. 86.] (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press,
2015. Pp. 353. $29.00 paperback. ISBN 978-1-62600-602-7.)
In her collection of essays, John Henry Newman: A Man of Letters, Mary
Katherine Tillman seeks to do justice to the particularity of Newman’s “thought in
the manifold variety of its written expressions” while drawing attention to his
understanding of the kind of philosophical habit of mind that shapes the process of
acquiring an “enlarged vision of the bearings and relations of things to one another
and to the whole” (pp. 11, 317). Accordingly, she argues that the “key methodological principle, across the entire spectrum” of Newman’s thought, is “his understanding and ‘realization’-in-use of his own notion of ‘view’” (p. 17). The employment of
this principle can be seen in Newman’s engagement with various fields of knowledge (for example, philosophy, theology, history, and education), topics (for example, the relationship between faith and reason, the role that imagination plays in
education, monasticism, phenomenology, and the illative sense), and historical figures (for example, Plato, Aristotle, Monet, Pascal, and Dilthey).
A fundamental claim in the volume is that views “cannot tell the truth whole,
but they may capture aspects of it” (p. 21). This point coheres well with Newman’s
thought that the attempt to acquire a deeper understanding of things calls for more
than a single disciplinary perspective. Views “are the elements or moments of polarities.” They encapsulate and disclose “the way things stand with that object, understood from such and such a particular, discriminating position or vantage point”
(pp. 17–18). Moreover, the cultivation of a philosophical habit of mind rarely if
ever happens in isolation and from one angle or perspective. Instead, the process is
profoundly social and cumulative. It calls for a complex network of social and intellectual practices and presupposes a trained and stable intellect, refined and
enhanced by disciplined reflection and vibrant practices. Thus, the practice of

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gleaning insights from others plays a fundamental role in enabling one to move
from a particular set of claims to a more comprehensive understanding of things.
As Newman shows in the Idea of a University, for example, the evaluative process
in which a trained intellect makes connections occurs by “piecemeal and accumulation . . . by the comparison, the combination, the mutual correction, the continual
adaptation, of many partial notions, by the employment, concentration, and joint
action of many faculties and exercises of the mind.”1
The emphasis on Newman’s concept of view highlights the extent to which we
evaluate things from a particular point of view. More importantly, the “ordered
concatenation of views that results from a university education, as the mind gradually develops, and if the desire is there, should lead to an integrated and philosophical habit of mind, the aim and goal of that education” (p. 21). In other words,
Newman was deeply interested in the formative practices, processes, and habits that
enable people to develop their cognitive capacities and enlarge their intellectual
horizons. In particular, he sought to clarify how a properly formed and trained
intellect acquires an integrative habit of mind.
Given Tillman’s engagement with a wide range of topics and areas of investigation, the interdisciplinary scope of the volume seems fitting and warrants our
attention and critical engagement.2
Abilene Christian University

FREDERICK D. AQUINO

AMERICAN AND CANADIAN
The Canny Scot: Archbishop James Morrison of Antigonish. By Peter Ludlow. [McGillQueen’s Studies in the History of Religion, vol. 72.] (Montreal: McGill–
Queen’s University Press. 2015. Pp. xvi, 330. $34.95 paperback. ISBN 978-07735-4498-7.)
In The Canny Scot, Peter Ludlow presents a multidimensional characterization
of James Morrison (1861–1950), Bishop and Archbishop of Antigonish, Nova
Scotia, describing the nature of the man, his life, and his time in history. Ludlow
details Morrison’s many contributions to the Catholic Church in general and the
Diocese of Antigonish in particular, his role as Chancellor of St. Francis Xavier
University (StFXU) in strengthening the institution, and his contribution to the
establishment of the University’s Extension Department and the promotion of the
Antigonish Movement.
Ludlow portrays Morrison as an exceptional man in exceptional circumstances, intensely private, austere and committed to his faith, but also pragmatic.
1. John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University, ed. I. T. Ker (Oxford, 1976), 134.
2. For example, the epistemological role that a right state of heart plays in the pursuit
of truth.

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As a young priest in Prince Edward Island (PEI), Morrison served as rector of St.
Dunstan’s College and oversaw the building of St. Dunstan’s Cathedral. He took
his tasks to heart and refused to cater to special interests, political or otherwise. The
term “canny Scot”, which was ascribed to Morrison by Father Jimmy Tompkins,
reflected his approach in protecting the interests of the Church and the well-being
of his parishioners, as well as those of StFXU.
Morrison’s accomplishments and shortcomings are described within their
local and global historical contexts. For example, Ludlow discusses the economic
plight of the rural areas of the Maritime Provinces and industrial Cape Breton, as
well as the global concerns related to the World Wars and their aftermaths. Ludlow
presents Morrison’s role in the emergence and spread of the Antigonish Movement
as complementary to that of Fathers Moses Coady and Tompkins, stressing his
facilitation role; without his willingness to allow priest-professors to participate, the
movement may never have occurred. While conservative and fiscally prudent, Morrison understood that action was required, and it was best to give Coady and the
others the freedom to carry it out.
Ludlow also notes that Morrison may have ‘overstayed’ in his role as bishop.
Efforts towards encouraging him to retire included granting him the title of Archbishop. Moreover, the appointment of Bishop John R. MacDonald to assist him
was not well received by Morrison, who continued to carry out his functions in the
same way as before, virtually until his death at age eighty-eight in 1950.
The bulk of the narrative (chapters 2 to 5) focuses on Morrison’s lengthy
tenure as Bishop of Antigonish; a period that coincided with tumultuous global
events including two World Wars and the rise of communism, important developments in the Catholic Church, and the emergence and workings of the Antigonish
Movement. Nevertheless, he also traces Morrison’s life from his birth and early
childhood in PEI, which was painfully marked by the loss of his mother in childbirth when he was six years old, through his life as a young man, as a student in
Rome, and his ministry as a priest in PEI. These formative years established the
foundations of Morrison’s character, beliefs, and worldview, while also exposing
him to the critical challenges facing the Church during the time, including animosities based along ethnic lines, in the Maritimes, Canada, and worldwide. By the
time he left PEI to assume the role of Bishop of Antigonish, Morrison was an erudite, serious, and pragmatic cleric.
Chapter 2 describes Morrison’s early years as Bishop of Antigonish. His
appointment as Bishop is one of an ‘outsider’ in the face of severe divisions that
existed within the Antigonish Diocese. Ludlow describes Morrison’s journey of fitting into his new role as bishop and new environment of Eastern Nova Scotia. As
a Church Administrator, Morrison exhibited characteristics of a ‘workaholic’ who
adopted an approach guided by professionalism, diplomacy, and political neutrality.
His dedication to meeting the needs of rural and industrial workers and immigrants
and his commitment to schools and education were consistent with Father Tomp-

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kins’ concerns with socioeconomic plight of the Diocese, and Morrison supported
Tompkins’ efforts. Morrison also played a role in recruiting for the war effort,
advocated for fair treatment of Catholic Chaplains, strove to protect Catholicism
from perceived prejudice, argued against sectarianism and dealt with many issues
related to military conscription.
Chapter 3, covering the period from 1919 to 1926, presents Morrison coming
into his own as Bishop of Antigonish and chancellor of StFXU. Together with
Tompkins, Morrison orchestrated the takeover of The Casket newspaper, established a Chair of French at StFXU to increase Acadian enrollment, established the
‘People’s School’, and supported the Maritime Rights Movement. Morrison agreed
with Tompkins’ vision concerning change, particularly the role of education, but as
he had to consider the broader needs of the Diocese and StFXU, he was more cautious about taking action. These broader concerns led to a split between the two
men over the university merger issue, leading to Tompkins’ exile to Canso.
Labour unrest in industrial Cape Breton posed a different challenge for Morrison, who had little practical knowledge of industrial areas plagued by poverty and
poor health. Such complex problems required meaningful solutions, and could not
be solved through Church authority and Morrison’s interventions.
Chapter 4, covering the period from 1927 to 1938, stresses Morrison’s efforts
in finding solutions to the area’s problems, especially in the in rural communities.
Thus, Morrison supported, for example, the rural conferences and the redistributionist’s notion of the “middle way” between capitalism and socialism as ways to reenergize the rural sector, alleviate the dire conditions faced by fishers, and foster
improvements in the industrial areas. Nevertheless, he remained cautious and
avoidant of becoming financially overextended. He thus needed convincing to allocate resources to the establishment of the StFXU Extension Department. He did
not interfere with the function of the Extension Department but insisted that what
it was undertaking be financially sound and separate from politics.
Morrison remained committed to agriculture and saw it as an option for unemployed miners. Nevertheless, he permitted Coady to implement the findings of the
MacLean Commission in the fisheries, hiring a labor leader as an Extension Department fieldworker, and renaming the Rural Conference to the Rural and Industrial
Conference. Morrison remained unwavering in support for his parishioners and The
Antigonish Movement. However, his conflict with Nova Scotia Premier Angus L.
MacDonald, stands out among his shortcomings during this time.
Chapter 5 starts out with a consideration of the complexity and confusion surrounding the rise of fascism and the coming of the World War II. Throughout,
Morrison remained steadfastly nonpartisan and committed to the Church and his
parishioners, StFXU, the Extension Department, and the Antigonish Movement.
However, while he held reservations about government policy toward Canada’s
indigenous people, he did nothing to interfere, giving rise to devastating results to
which he contributed by being slow to act.

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BOOK REVIEWS

Ludlow’s presentation of Morrison and his contributions is a meticulously
researched work of scholarship that weaves together Morrison’s life story and the
events of the time. This skillful blending of biography and history presents a fascinating must read.
St. Francis Xavier University

SANTO DODARO

Southern Religion and Christian Diversity in the Twentieth Century. By Wayne
Flynt. [Religion and American Culture.] (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama
Press. 2016. Pp. xiv, 386. $39.95. ISBN 978-0-8173-1908-3.)
Southern Religion and Christian Diversity in the Twentieth Century is a collection of fifteen essays by Wayne Flynt, distinguished university professor emeritus
at Auburn University. Flynt, one of the most important southern historians of the
last half of the twentieth century, can boast an impressive collection of honors,
including authorship or co-authorship of thirteen books, two nominations for the
Pulitzer Prize, and serving as founding editor-in-chief of the online Encyclopedia of
Alabama, to mention only a few.
Southern Religion and Christian Diversity in the Twentieth Century is the fruit
of a lifetime of research and thought. Although Flynt asserts that the “thesis” is that
“southern religion is more complicated than it seems,” this is less a thesis than a
theme that runs through these essays.
The essays look at southern religion from denominational (Southern Baptists,
Methodists, and Presbyterians), geographical (Alabama, Florida, and Appalachia),
and topical (social gospel, organized labor, and women) viewpoints.
All of these essays are worth reading, pondering, and re-reading, but two
stood out even more than the others, illustrate Flynt’s theme.
The first essay, “Growing up Baptist in Anniston: The Legacy of the Rev.
Charles R. Bell, Jr.,” is a brief biography of a renegade Baptist pastor. Bell was
pastor of Parker Memorial Baptist Church in Anniston, Alabama, from 1932 to
1944. To say the least, Bell exemplified “Christian diversity.” During a six-month
sabbatical, he met and talked with both Mohandas Gandhi and Japanese Christian
leader, Toyohiko Kagawa. Both men profoundly influenced Bell. His visit with
Gandhi undoubtedly strengthened Bell’s belief in non-violence; from Kagawa Bell
acquired a belief in co-operative (some would say socialist) principles. Unlike even
many otherwise liberal southern religious leaders, Bell both preached and practiced
racial inclusivity. What finally forced Bell to leave Parker Memorial, however, was
his refusal to have an American flag in the church’s sanctuary.
Another essay that stands out is “‘A Special Feeling of Closeness:’ Mt. Hebron
Baptist Church, Leeds, Alabama.” This essay (published in 1994) is an exceptionally close study of a small rural church founded in 1819. Like Flynt’s essay about
the Rev. Charles Bell, this study also usefully “complicates” typical assumptions

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587

about southern religion. The Rev. Fred E. Maxey, a lawyer and former labor negotiator, served as Mt. Hebron’s pastor from 1935 to 1945. Maxey “divided men and
women into separate groups and talked to them about marriage, relationships, and
sex . . . [teaching them that] God intended sex to be a joyous and wonderful part
of life” (p. 229). Maxey “spoke at communist rallies, wrote for the local communist
paper, and may have been a party member himself. Older members of the congregation remember Maxey not as a dangerous radical but as a beloved pastor who
helped them obtain jobs and ministered to them in their suffering. His efforts for
them (and on behalf of unemployed black members of the community) earned him
a Ku Klux Klan cross-burning but also rallied his members to a sense of sacred
meaning and community” (p. 248).
Flynt’s scholarship is outstanding, and there is little to criticize in this book.
However, because its central concerns are Southern culture and evangelicalism, it
would have been helpful to define their main features early in the book. Flynt does
offer a definition of evangelicalism in chapter 9 (“One in the Spirit, Many in the
Flesh: Southern Evangelicals”), but it is highly idiosyncratic. Flynt identifies five
characteristics of evangelicalism: democracy, individualism, the centrality of conversion, emotionalism, and a “preoccupation with original sin and guilt.” Most scholars
of evangelicalism would add crucicentrism, that is, the centrality of the cross in
Christian theology. But most surprising is that Flynt omits the centrality of the
Bible. A democratic church polity is by no means universal in evangelical churches,
and emotionalism is characteristic of many evangelicals but certainly not all.
Flynt might also have strengthened this book by paying some attention to
non-evangelical southerners, such as Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, and Jews,
but this is a collection of essays, not a monograph. One can hardly fault him for not
having any essays about these groups to include in this volume.
Wayne Flynt is an indispensable scholar of southern religion, reminding us
that it has never been just a narcotic that makes life’s suffering bearable. It also gives
its adherents resources for “filling the hungry with good things” and “casting down
the mighty from their thrones.”
Christ Church Episcopal, Las Vegas, Nevada

J. BARRY VAUGHN

Notes and Comments
ASSOCIATION NEWS
The annual meeting of the American Catholic historical Association will be
held in New York City from Friday, January 3, to Monday, January 6, 2020. The
headquarters and sessions will be in the Sheraton Hotel, 811 7th Avenue, with the
Mass at St. Francis Xavier Church, 30 West 16th Street, between 5th Avenue and
the Avenue of the Americas (6th Avenue), and a reception at the nearby Old Town
Bar. Registration opens on the new ACHA website www.achahistory.org. in late
September. The American Society of Church History will be headquartered in the
Parker New York Hotel, 64 West 39th Street. The over-arching theme of its conference will be “Whose America: New Perspectives, Contours, and Connections in
Church Histories.” For more information, please see www.churchhistory.org.

FELLOWSHIPS
The Newberry Library of Chicago is offering for academic year 2020-21
Long-Term Fellowships for postdoctoral scholars in continuous residence at the
Newberry for periods of four to nine months at the rate of $4,200 per month to
conduct research in its collections and to participate in active intellectual exchange
in it programs. The deadline for application is November 1, 2019. Short-Term Fellowships for postdoctoral scholars, PhD candidates, and those with terminal
degrees who live and work outside the Chicago metropolitan area are available for
one to two months at the rate of $2,500 per month. The deadline is December 15,
2019. For more information, contact research@newberry.org.
The Istituto Sangalli of Florence, Italy, is offering three residential fellowships
worth €2,000.00 for young scholars in religious history and religious studies. The
deadline is October 15, 2019. See https://www.istitutosangalli.it/wp-content/
uploads/2019/08/Call-TSFF-2020-en.pdf.

PRIZE
The Francis and Ann Curran Center for American Catholic Studies at Fordham University is offering a prize of $1,500 for an essay about Catholicism in the
Western Hemisphere by a new scholar whose PhD or ThD was awarded no earlier
than 2013. The essay must have been published or accepted for publication in a
peer-reviewed journal or scholarly collection within twelve months of the deadline
of February 15, 2020. Special consideration will be given to essays that advance the
understanding of historically underrepresented Catholics (e.g, of Latino/a, Indigenous, African, or Asian heritage). Applicants should submit a curriculum vitae,
588

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589

abstract of 500 words, essay of 12,000 or less words in either English or Spanish,
documentation of its acceptance and timetable for publication, and a letter from a
colleague or mentor in the relevant field testifying to the essay’s contribution to
Catholic studies. The winner will be announced in April 2020. For more information, contact caca@fordham.edu or https://www.fordham.edu/homepage/6592/
new_scholar_essay_prize_for_catholic_studies_in_ the_americas

CONFERENCES
On October 17, 2019 the Vatican Apostolic Library will host a conference as
part of its “Cultural Agenda” to be held in the Barberini Hall on the “Mellon Project” that deals with annotated manuscripts using IIIF. Two sessions will explain
some of the technical work behind the project. Session I will treat software and
platforms for interoperability, digital manuscript futures, coordination of the project, and lessons learned. Session II will be dedicated to web thematic pathways
(e.g., Latin and Greek paleography, Latin classics, Vatican palimpsests, and the
manuscripts of Duke Federico da Montefeltro). In the Salone Sistino will be an
exhibition of some selected original manuscripts. Participants need to pre-register.
See https://www.vaticanlibrary.va.
On November 13–15, 2019 the Istituto Maria SS.ma Bambina in collaboration with the Sezione Romana dell’Associazione Internazionale di Studi Tardo
Antichi will sponsor an international conference on the theme “Pagani e cristiani:
conflitto, confronto, dialogo. Le trasformazioni di un modello storiografico.”
Among the papers to be presented are: “’The Last Pagans of Rome’: la fine del
paganismo a Roma, tra consensi e polemiche” by Ritsa Lizzi Testa; “‘Il regno dei
cieli si fa strada con violenza’ (Mt 11: 12). Variazioni storiografiche sul ruolo della
violenza nel confronto tardo-antico tra cristiani e pagani” by Giovanni Filoramo;
“Pagani e cristiani ancora: nuove metodologie per nuovi risultati” by Giancarlo
Rinaldi; “Le acclamazioni Heis theos: competizioni e confronti nelle società multireligiose” by Nicole Belayche; “Pagani e cristiani: nuove prospettive archeologiche” by
Carla Sfameni; “Verità argomentata e verità testimoniata: il confronto tra platonici
e cristiani” by Marco Zambon; “Tra ‘magia’ e ‘religione’: alla ricerca di una ‘identità’
nel confronto tra pagani e cristiani” by Giulia Sfameni Gasparro; “L’anticristo nel
conflitto tra pagani e cristiani” by Marco Rizzi; “‘Ad Christianos et Romanos,
Romanus et Christianus accedo’ (Orosio): la cristallizzazione di una romana christiana
religio (ss. IV–V)” by Ramon Teja Caruso; and “Cristiani e pagani nella legislazione
tardoantica” by Lucio de Giovanni.
On December 5–7, 2019 the Pontificio Comitato di Scienze Storice and the
Dipartimento storia antropologia religione arte spettacolo of the Sapienza Università di Roma will sponsor an international conference on the theme “I papati medicei tra Erasmo e Machiavelli: Religione, politica, cultura” at the Sapienza Università. Among the papers presented are: “Giulio de’ Medici and the Fifth Lateran
Council” by Nelson H. Minnich; “Continuità inaspettate e contecciati nella cultura
clementina” by Kenneth Gouwens; “Coscienza del male e politica: Machiavelli,

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NOTES AND COMMENTS

Erasmo, e Tommaso Moro” by Gennaro Barbuto; “L’Historia Viginti Saeculorum di
Egidio da Viterbo come specchio della Weltanschauung di Leone X” by Stefania
Pasti; “Paolo Giovio, Clemente VII e la ‘libertà d’Italia’” by Elena Valeri; “Erasmo,
Machiavelli e la Chiesa fiorentina: Nuove notizie” by William Connell; “Firenze
nello specchio diocesano da Erasmo a Machiavelli” by Isabella Gagliardi; “Anticristianesimo e Antibarbari: un episidio sconsciuto della fortuna di Erasmo nella
Firenze di Machiavelli” by Daniele Conti; “Fra storia e storiografia: La circolazione
romana di Erasmo” by Pasquale Terracciano; “Erasmo e le polemiche antierasmiane su pace/guerra” by Vincenzo Lavenia; “Sadoleto interprete di Erasmo” by Stefania Salvadori; “De principatibus ecclesiasticis: l’XI capitolo del Principe” by Gabriele
Pedulla; “I papi, i profeti, e le armi in Machiavelli” by Mark Youssim; “I cardinali
imperiali a Roma. Nessi politici e spazi culturali tra i due pontificati medicei” by
Giovanni Contel; “L’esperienza curiale di Guicciardini nei Ricordi e nella Storia d’Italia” by Lorenzo Geri; “Guicciardini a Roma nel 1526: l’inizio della Luogotenenza” by Marcello Simonetta; “Nuove riflessioni sul canto degli Spiriti beati:
Machiavelli, i papi Medici e il pericolo turco” by Andrea Guidi; “L’Italia del Cristianissimo al tempo di Clemente VII: ambizioni politici e istanze di riforma religiosa” by Guillaume Alonge; “Cristoforo Marcello e la polemica antiluterana” by
Maria Fallica; “Flaminio curiale” by Ludovico Battista; “Machiavelli e i domenicani” by Pasquale Stoppelli; “Un umanista fra Medici e Strozzi: Francesco Zeffi
(1491–1547)” by Stefano Baldassarri; “Editori, stampatori e librai nella Roma
medicea” by Tiziana Provvidera; “Girolamo Casio de’ Medici, poeta ‘laureato’” by
Maria Antonietta Garullo; “I papi medicei in una canzone del Molza” by
Domenico Chiodo; “Il cardinale Bibbiena, l’antico e la natura” by Alessandro Zuccari; and “La curia medicea e le arti prima di Vasari” by Marco Ruffini.
On January 23–25, 2020 the Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry
Library in Chicago will host the 2020 Multidisciplinary Graduate Student Conference. It invites master’s degree and doctoral students to submit abstracts of twentyminute papers online only by Tueday October 15, 2019. For more information,
visit https://www.newberry.org/01232020-2020-multidisciplinary-graduate-student-conference-nlgrad20.
On March 12–14, 2020 the New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies will be held on the campus of the New College of Florida on the
shores of Sarasota Bay. A 250-word abstract of a twenty-minute paper on European and Mediterranean culture from the fourth to the seventeenth century should
be submitted by October 1, 2019. For more information, contact info@newcollegeconference.org or Professor Nova Myhill at nmyhill@ncf.edu.

PUBLICATIONS
Episcopal visitations in Latin America are the subjects of seven articles in
Volume 28 (2019) of the Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia: Jorge E. Traslosheros, “El
Derecho canónico, la visita episcopal y la Audiencia eclesiástica como medios de
reforma de la Iglesia Católica en la temprana modernidad. El caso del obispado de

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Michoacán, 1640–1646” (pp. 23–53); Berenise Bravo Rubio, “Sacralidad y gobierno, la visita pastoral de Francisco Aguiar y Seijas al Sur del Arzobispado de
México (1687–1688): una mitra itinerante” (pp. 55–70); Ana de Zaballa Beascoechea and Ana Ugalde Zaratiegui, “La primera parte de la Visita general de
Francisco de Aguiar y Seijas (1682–1698): gobierno y reforma en el arzobispado de
México” (pp. 71–99); Dora Dávila Mendoza, “La visita pastoral del Obispo Mariano Martí a la diócesis de Caracas, 1771–1784. Fuentes y temas para un studio
social” (pp. 101–131); Gabriela Ramos, “Los sujetos en la visita pastoral: una
mirada a la micropolítica colonial andina” (pp. 133–146); Elizabeth Hernández
García, “Una visita eclesiástica en zona de misiones: control y gobierno en el obispado de Maynas a inicios del siglo XIX” (pp. 147–172); and Macarena Cordero
Fernández, “Relaciones autoridades civiles y eclesiásticas en la Visitas de Idolatrías,
Lima, siglo XVII. Conflictos y oposiciones” (pp. 343–370).
Women in foreign missions are studied in three articles in the second issue of
Volume 43 (April, 2019) of Diplomatic History: “Introduction: Women and Missionary Encounters with Foreign Nationalism in the 1920s,” by Laura R. Prieto (pp.
237–245); “American Women Missionaries on Trial in Turkey: Religion, Diplomacy, and Public Perceptions in the 1920s,” by Barbara Reeves-Ellington (pp. 246–
264); and “Imperialism, Race, and Rescue: Transformations in the Women’s Foreign Movement after World War I,” by Connie Shemo (pp. 265–281).
The 125th anniversary of the beginning of the Missouri Synod’s missionary
work in India is celebrated in the issue for spring, 2019 (Volume 92, Number 1) of
the Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly with four articles: Damodher Christu
Das, “The Formative years of Missouri Evangelical Lutheran India Mission
(MELIM)” (pp. 11–26); Victor A. Raj, “Growing Pains of a Partner Church” (pp.
27–42); Joseph Rittmann, “Missionaries into all the World: Clarence and Emma
Rittmann and The Missouri Evangelical Lutheran Church India Mission, 1928–
1970” (pp. 43–56); and Phyllis Duesenberg, “Memories of India: The Adventures
of a Missionary Child” (pp. 57–68). A supplement appears in the next issue
(summer, 2019): Benjamin J. Nickodemus, “’Did Christ Not Come to Save These?’
MELIM’s First Native Indian Pastor and His Tireless Ministry to Sambavar Indians” (pp. 9–26).
The fall issue of the same journal (Volume 92, Number 3) celebrates in seven
brief articles the 125th anniversary of the founding of Concordia University,
Nebraska.
Historical Studies, the journal of the Canadian Catholic Historical Association,
in its volume for 2019 (85) contains these five articles: Robert H. Dennis, “Faith
on the Prairies: Social Catholics and the CCF [Cooperative Commonwealth Federation] in the Generation before Vatican II” (pp. 7–31); Terrence Murphy,
“Bermuda Triangle: Propaganda Fide, the Archdiocese of Halifax, and the British
Government: 1836–1863” (pp. 33–55); Rosa Bruno-Joffré, “Encountering social
change at a time of rapid radicalization of the national Church: The Missionary
Oblate Sisters in Brazil” (pp. 57–72); Christine Gervais and Shanisse Kleuskens,

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“Beyond their Mission: Solidarity, Activism and Resistance among Ontario-based
Women Religious Serving in Latin America” (pp. 73–98); and Terrence J. Fay,
S.J., “Bringing People Together: John Veltri, Retreat Renewal, and International
Outreach” (pp. 99–118).
The same volume contains the Études d’histoire religieuse, the review published
by the Société canadienne d’histoire de l’Église catholique: Catherine Larochelle
and Olivier Hubert, “Culture coloniale euroquébéquoise et missions catholiques
dans l’Ouest canadien au XIXe siècle” (pp. 5–21); Roberto Perin, “Saint-Boniface
au cœur d’un catholicisme continental et pluraliste” (pp. 23–38); Dominique
Laperle, “Le destin d’une sœur grise de Montréal dans la Prairie: contribution
d’une ‘vie’ anonyme au débat sur l’approche biographique en histoire” (pp. 39–58);
Alain Canuel, “Le rôle de l’Église catholique, du Conseil de la vie française et de
Paul-Émile Gosselin dans le développement de la radio française au Canada, 1940–
1955” (pp. 59–75); Julie Plourde, “Révolutions européennes et théâtre à la Congrégation de Notre-Dame, 1868–1871” (pp. 77-90); et Emmanuel Bernier, “Faire
Église au nord du 51e parallèle: la vie paroissiale à Gagnon et Fermont dans un
Québec en mutation (1958–1979)” (pp. 91–107).

OBITUARY NOTICE
J o h n Alb e rt L u k a c s
( 1 9 2 4 –2 0 1 9 )

John Lukacs was an extraordinary historian, writer, and American intellectual.
He understood the work of historians as more than just an academic discipline. The
past was for him the field of study helping us to understand ourselves. Historical
consciousness was the term he used for this and he developed it in a number of
books. In his work, historical events and biography were closely connected. This
fact he reflected more than other historians and not just in his autobiographical
writings such as his Confessions of an Original Sinner (1990).

NOTES AND COMMENTS

593

It was the years, months, and days in 1940/41 that decided the outcome of
World War II, a war, he was not tired to repeat, that was almost won by Adolf
Hitler. It took the tireless efforts of an almost impossible alliance of three world
empires, the Soviet Union, the USA, and the British Empire, to defeat him after
a four-year long war. In a series of books, beginning with The Last European War.
September 1939–December 1941 (1976), followed by The Duel: 10 May–31 July
1940: the Eighty-day Struggle between Churchill and Hitler, 1990), and ending
with Five Days in London, May 1940 (2014), Lukacs analyzed the struggle
between Churchill and Hitler and showed how isolated the British Prime Minister had been in the War Cabinet. The last book was so powerful that it could
even have been used as the basis for an Oscar-winning motion picture, The Darkest Hour (2017).
The outcome of this monumental struggle for Europe and the world was an
existential question also for the young John Lukacs. Born as János Albert Lukács
in Budapest on the last day of January of 1924 to a Catholic physician of Jewish
descent, the family survived the Holocaust hiding in a basement. His mother’s
Anglophilia had also a major impact on Lukacs, for she provided for an English
tutor and sent him to an English school, just a year before the outbreak of the war.
Lukacs then studied history at the University of Budapest (PhD 1946), attending
courses of the great Catholic historian Gyula Szekfü and other representatives of
the Hungarian school of Geistesgeschichte. His work of seventy years was based on
the conviction that the human spirit is the driving force of historical development.
Lukacs was critical of the academic mainstream, American Liberals, and neo-Conservatives, and of populist tendencies of all kinds.
Apart from his numerous publications on World War II, Lukacs published
several books on U. S. history (on Tocqueville, on his close friend George F.
Kennan, on Philadelphia’s Patricians and Philistines, 1900-1950 (1981), and on the
philosophy of history. One of his most beautiful books is his historical portrait of
Budapest 1900, which begins with a description of the various smells and odors of
his hometown. Writing books and numerous articles on the Cold War, as well as
discussing his views on television (grandiose his appearance in William Buckley
Jr.’s “Firing Line” in 1982, available on youtube), Lukacs foresaw the breakdown of
Communism in Eastern Europe. He did not share the widespread but mistaken
idea of many Americans that Communism had a strong influence inside the Soviet
sphere. No one, particularly not Eastern Europeans, was so deeply convinced of the
strength of Communism as were U. S. anti-communists! Lukacs insisted that
nationalism has been (and still is) a far more important ideology, as he wrote in his
The End of the Twentieth Century and the End of an Age (Yale University Press,
2002), refuting Fukuyama’s thesis of the triumph of liberal democracy. He thought
that a similar misunderstanding led to Pope Pius XII’s mistake to underestimate
the danger of Nazism during World War II. Rather, it took an isolated Catholic
such as the Austrian martyr Franz Jägerstätter, who was executed for refusing to
fight in Hitler’s army, to prove that “religious faith and that kind of nationalism are
incompatible” (ibid., p. 240)

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A prolific writer, his publications often reached a major audience. His more
than three dozen books were translated into French, German, Spanish, Swedish,
and Turkish. Since 1989, almost annually one of his books came out in Hungarian
translation. His unusual popularity could also, in part, have to do with his teaching
experience. He taught almost half a century at Chestnut Hill College, an institution for Catholic women, founded in 1924 by the Sisters of St Joseph in the Northwestern edge of Philadelphia. Although he had several offers to join the faculty of
more prestigious academic institutions, John Lukacs accepted only visiting professorships, he preferred the quiet atmosphere of his home institution. His thinking
was influenced by Catholic ideas such as personalism, although he did not write
much about that. In 1977, he was elected president of the American Catholic Historical Association, and wrote later that “no academic honor meant more to me”
(Confessions, p. 314). On May 6, 2019, John Lukacs died at the age of 96.
The Catholic University of America

ARPAD V. KLIMO

Periodical Literature
GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
The Politics of Religion and Language: Similar or Different? Philip S. Gorski.
Social Science History, 43 (Summer, 2019), 393–97.
“Prima sedes a nemine iudicatur.” Aspetti del primato del vescovo di Roma. Salvatore Vacca. Laurentianum, 59 (3, 2018), 503–63.
Giovanni Paolo II testimone della speranza. Sławomir Oder. Antonianum, XCIV
(Apr.–June, 2019), 313–29.
El pontificado de Juan Pablo II y su tiempo. Pablo Pérez López. Scipta theologica,
51 (Apr. 2019), 129–57.
Tesauro Agustiniano: Un monumento a la bio-bibliografía ibérica, americana y de
Filipinas. Luis Álvarez-Gutiérrez. Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia, 28 (2019),
405–16.
(K)ein Grab für Sternenkinder in der Schweiz. Katholische, reformierte und zivilrechtliche Antworten und (Aus-)Wege von der Reformation bis heute. Elke
Pahud de Mortanges. Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Religions- und Kulturgeschichte, 112 (2018), 365–82.
Armenian Churches in the Province of Gaziantep, Turkey. Ermine Dağtekin and
Semra Hillez. Iran and the Caucasus, 23 (1, 2019), 50–63.
A New Political Pacifism: Churches in the Wake of the Great War. William R.
Marty. Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 30 (1/2, 2018), 63–77.
Ecclesiastical nationalism and primacy in world Orthodoxy: the case of the Serbian
Church at the pan-Orthodox Council in Crete. Karin Hofmeisterová. Religion, State and Society 47 (3, 2019), 341–57.
La disputa por los bienes eclesiásticos en sede vacante en el arzobispado de Sevilla
(1482–1624). José Antonio Pineda-Alfonso. Hispania sacra, 71 (2019), 141–54.
Clothes Make the Nun? Feminism, Fashion, and Representations of Catholic Sisters in the 1980s. Theresa Keeley. Gender and History, 31 (July, 2019), 480–99.

ANCIENT
Meet the Christians. Daisy Dunn. History Today, 69 (June, 2019), 40–45.
Literary Criticism in Early Christianity: How Heracleon and Valentinus Used One
Passage to Interpret Another. Carl Johan Berglund. Journal of Early Christian
Studies, 27 (Spring, 2019), 27–53.
595

596

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Penitential Degrees in the Byzantine Church. Part I. Gradual Reconciliation in
Texts Written in the Civil Diocese of Pontus in the Third and Fourth Centuries. Frans van de Paverd. Ostkirchliche Studien, 67 (2018), 57–148.
The Unknown Martyrdom of Patriklos of Caesarea in Christian Palestinian Aramaic from St Catherine’s Monastery (Sinai, Arabic NG 66). Christa Müller–
Kessler. Analecta Bollandiana, 137 (June, 2019), 63–71.
„Iacobus episcopus“, Ambrosius von Mailand und die Bibliothek von Lorsch.
Lukas J. Dorfbauer and Victoria Zimmerl-Panagl. Revue d’études augstiniennes
et patristiques, 64 (2, 2018), 287–308.
Did Augustine Abandon His Doctrine of Jewish Witness in Aduersus Iudaeos? John
Y.B. Hood. Augustinian Studies, 50 (2, 2019), 171–95.
Mirrors for Bureaucrats: Expectations of Christian Officials in the Theodosian
Empire. Robin Whelan. Journal of Roman Studies, 108 (2018), 74–98.
Basil and Basilissa at Ancyra: Local Legends, Hagiography, and Cult. Aude
Busine. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 59 (2, 2019), 262–86.
Jordanes versus Procopius of Caesarea: Considerations Concerning a Certain Historiographic Debate on How to Solve “the Problem of the Goths.” Robert
Kasperski. Viator, 49 (1, 2018), 1–24.
La diócesis episcopal en la Hispania visigoda: concepción, construcción y disputas
por su territorio. Pablo Poveda Arias. Hispania sacra, 71 (2019), 9–24.

MEDIEVAL
Sine cerere et libero friget venus: el alcoholism como problema de salud en el
monacato visigodo. Luis R. Menéndez. Hispania sacra, 71 (2019), 25–38.
L’eclisse della visione nelle Vite di Aldegonda di Maubeuge. Daniele Solvi. Analecta
Bollandiana, 137 (June, 2019), 75–102.
Dryhthelm’s Desire: Compunction and Bede’s Celestial Topography. Erik Carlson. Traditio, 73 (2018), 1–17.
From virtue to virtue: diverging visions of sanctity and monasticism in two Lives of
Cuthbert. Matthew C. Delvaux. Early Medieval Europe, 27 (May, 2019), 226–
50.
Sacerdoce de tous les chrétiens et sacerdoce ministériel dans la théologie de Théodulphe d’Orelans. Alfonso M. Hernández Rodríguez. Revue d’histoire de
l’Église de France, 105 (Jan.–June, 2019), 5–16.
Between Seligenstadt and St. Bavo’s Abbey, Ghent: Making a Collection out of
Einhard’s Letters. Georges Declercq. Viator, 49 (2, 2018), 47–88.
Franks, Greeks, and Saracens: violence, empire, and religion in early medieval
southern Italy. Sarah Whittens. Early Medieval Europe, 27 (May, 2019), 251–
78.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

597

The Vita Alcuini, Asser and Scholarly Service in the Court of Alfred the Great.
Rebecca Thomas. The English Historical Review, CXXXIV (Feb., 2019), 1–24.
San Genadio, Obispo y monje en el Reino de León. Juan Antonio Testón Turiel.
Compostellanum, LXIII (Jan.–June, 2018), 35–58.
A new perspective on family strategy in tenth- and eleventh-century England: ealdorman status and the Church. Mary Elizabeth Blanchard. Historical Research,
92 (May, 2019), 244–66.
The Performative Manuscript: Art, Agency and Public Ritual in Ottonian Mainz.
Jesús Rodríguez Viejo. The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 70 (Apr., 2019),
229–64.
Secular and Ecclesiastical Justice in Late Anglo-Saxon England. Nicole Marafioti.
Speculum, 94 (July, 2019), 774–805.
Le Lieu de naissance de saint Alyre selon la Vita S. Illidii par Winebrand. JeanPierre Chambon and Emmanuel Grélois. Analecta Bollandiana, 137 (June,
2019), 120–29.
Una fase del dibattito sulle res ecclesiae: Pier Damiani contro la distinzione tra officium e beneficium. Caterina Ciccopiedi. Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia,
LXXII (1, 2018), 1–22.
A Queer Little Book: An Examination of the Reception of Peter Damian’s Liber
Gomorrhianus by the Papacy and the Canonical Tradition. Robert J. Olsen.
Viator, 49 (2, 2018), 89–110.
La Leggenda agiografica della Madonna Velata di Foggia. Renzo Infante. Rivista
di storia della Chiesa in Italia, LXXII (1, 2018), 93–114.
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do: Dissolving Royal and Noble Marriages in EleventhCentury Germany. Alison Creber. German History, 37 (June, 2019), 149–71.
The Papacy and the Commutation of Crusading Vows from One Area of Conflict
to Another (1095–c. 1300). A.J. Forey. Traditio, 73 (2018), 43–82.
“I Fear Greeks, Even When They Bear Gifts”: The Gifts of Alexios I and the Histories of the First Crusade. Lars Kjaer. Viator, 49 (1, 2018), 25–50.
The Inhabitants of the British Isles on the First Crusade: Medieval Perceptions and
the Invention of the Pan-Angevin Crusading Heritage. Simon Thomas Parsons. The English Historical Review, CXXXIV (Apr., 2019), 273–301.
Du nouveau sur Adgar et son Gracial (XIIe siècle). Déborah González. Cahiers de
civilisation médiévale, 62 (Apr.–June, 2019), 177–84.
Some remarks on the ecclesiology of Honorius II’s Papacy (1124–1130). Enrico
Veneziani. Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia, LXXII (1, 2018), 23–48.
The Byzantine canonical scholia: a case study in reading Byzantine manuscript
marginalia. David Wagschal. Byzantine and Early Modern Greek Studies, 44
(Apr, 2019), 24–41.

598

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Anchorites and Orthodox Culture: Spiritual Instruction in the Twelfth Century.
Joshua Easterling. Viator, 49 (1, 2018), 77–98.
“Familiar as the Rose in Spring”: The Circular Window in the West Façade of
Saint–Denis. Elizabeth Carson Pastan. Viator, 49 (1, 2018), 99–152.
Working Miracles: Seeing Active Supplicants in Marian Miracle Stories. Gina
Brandolino. Viator, 49 (1, 2018), 173–86.
Learning from Gaius? Different Layers in Gratian’s Decretum and Research on
Roman Law. Stephan Dusil. Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, 135, Kanonistische Abteilung, 104 (2018), 151–81.
La Virgen de los Reyes y las sombras errantes de su leyenda. María de los Ángeles
Gutiérrez Romero. Hispania sacra, 71 (2019), 77–87.
La delimitación entre las diócesis de Lugo y Oviedo. Escritura diplomática y territorialidad diocesana a mediados del siglo XII. Miguel Calleja-Puerta. Hispania sacra, 71 (2019), 39–57.
Islamic Influence on Christian legislation in the Kingdom of Castile. Ana Echevarria. Journal of Medieval History 45 (3, 2019), 301–15.
Canterbury and Jerusalem, England and the Holy Land, c. 1150–1220. Katherine
L. Hodges-Kluck. Viator, 49 (1, 2018), 153–72.
Glossing the Gloss: Reading Peter Lombard’s Collectanea on the Pauline Epistles
as a Historical Act. Peter O’Hagan. Traditio, 73 (2018), 83–116.
Manuel I Komnenos and the Stone of Unction. Ivan Drpić. Byzantine and Early
Modern Greek Studies, 44 (Apr., 2019), 60–82.
L’art gothique entre Bretagne et Limousin. Michèle Boccard. Annales de Bretagne
et des pays de l’Ouest, 126 (2, 2019), 154–70.
Affect et sculpture gothique: questions de méthode. Paul Binski. Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 62 (Apr.–June, 2019), 143–59.
La première diffusion du Policraticus de Jean de Salisbury en France: l’apport du
manuscrit Charleville-Mézières, BM, 51. Nicolas Michel. Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 62 (Apr.–June, 2019), 161–76.
Bishop Bartholomew of Exeter (d. 1184) and the Heresy of Astrology. David
Runciman. The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 70 (Apr., 2019), 265–82.
Emotional Content and Rhetorical Form in Herbert of Bosham’s Historia of
Thomas Becket. Henry Bainton. Viator, 49 (2, 2018), 111–36.
Crowland Abbey as Anglo-Saxon Sanctuary in the Pseudo-Ingulf Chronicle.
Lindy Brady. Traditio, 73 (2018), 19–42.
The Hospitallers: From Land to Sea—An Examination of the Hospitallers’ Naval
Activities in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. Judith Brenstein.
Medieval History Journal, 22 (May, 2019), 53–91.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

599

The Image of the Greek: Western Pilgrims’ Views of Eastern Monks and Monasteries in the Holy Land, c.1200–1500. Andrew Jotischky. Speculum, 94 (July,
2019), 675–703.
The Body Inside-Out: Anatomical Memory at Maubuisson Abbey. Jack Hartnell.
Art History, 42 (Apr., 2019), 242–73.
Le Modèle absolu de la princesse charitable. La première légende vernaculaire de
sainte Élisabeth de Hongrie et sa réception. Prolégomènes à une edition critique. Levente Seláf. Le Moyen Age, CXXIV (2, 2018), 371–95.
Lo que un epitafio esconde: Pedro Pérez, obispo de Salamanca (1248–1264). Fernando Gutiérrez Baños and Estrella Pérez Rodríguez. Hispania sacra, 71
(2019), 59–76.
The Mongol Invasions between Epistolography and Prophecy: The Case of the
Letter “Ad Flagellum,” c. 1235/36–1338. Alasdair C. Grant. Traditio, 73
(2018), 117–77.
A Lesson in Patronage: King Henry III, the Knights Templar, and a Royal Mausoleum at the Temple Church in London. Zachary Stewart. Speculum, 94
(Apr., 2019), 334–84.
«Agustinismo político» y los espejos de príncipes. Javier Vergara-Ciordia. Anuario
de Historia de la Iglesia, 28 (2019), 221–47.
Mémoire byzantine en Sicile orientale: la décoration picturale de l’église rupestre de
Sainte-Marguerite à Lentini (Syracuse) et la culture artistique «méditerranéenne». Guilia Arcidiacono. Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 62 (Apr.–
June, 2019), 115–41.
A Tomb for All Seasons: The Cenotaph of Saint Audomarus at Saint-Omer and
the Performative Mutability of Art in the Late Middle Ages. Michalis Olympios. Viator, 49 (1, 2018), 199–240.
Kirche und Stadt im mittelalterlichen Schweden. Dieter Strauch. Zeitschrift der
Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, 135, Kanonistische Abteilung, 104 (2018),
1–71.
Die Legitimierung nichtehelicher Kinder als Testfall für die Kompetenzen des
römisch deutschen Königs im späten 13. Jahrundert. Susanne Lepsius.
Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, 135, Kanonistische
Abteilung, 104 (2018), 72–150.
Das Verlachen des Sakralen. Zur Abwehr eines Delikts des hochmittelalterlichen
Liturgierechts. Hanns Peter Neuheuser. Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für
Rechtsgeschichte, 135, Kanonistische Abteilung, 104 (2018), 182–235.
Translating the Northern English Saints within Late Medieval Vernacular Legendaries: Oswald, Cuthbert, Ninian. Christiania Whitehead. Viator, 49 (2,
2018), 25–46.

600

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Parisian Grammar Schools and Teachers in the Long Fourteenth Century.
William J. Courtenay. Viator, 49 (2, 2018), 199–250.
Des clercs limousins en Bretagne ou des clercs bretons en Limousin au début du
XIVe siècle? Anne Massoni. Annales de Bretagne et des pays de l’Ouest, 126 (2,
2019), 133–44.
Walter Bower’s reception of the Manipulus florum (1306) in composing the
Scotichronicon (c. 1440). Innes Review, 70 (1, 2019), 55–64.
Milenarismo franciscano en el Sermo de beato Francisco de Pedro d’Ailly. José C.
Santos Paz. Hispania sacra, 71 (2019), 89–102.
De modo meditandi vel contemplandi: A Pedagogical Treatise for Novices from Burg
St. Edmonds in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 240. Jacob Riyeff. Journal
of Medieval Religious Cultures, 45 (2, 2019), 139–82.
La memoria e il culto dei martiri francescani di Thane. Carlo Vurachi. Il Santo, LIX
(2019), 91–115.
Il tema del “Congedo di Cristo dalla Madre” in un affresco di Giusto de’ Menabuoi
nella cappella della Madonna Mora (più una postilla). Valentina Baradel. Il
Santo, LIX (2019), 117–41.
L’iscrizione dialogata. Franco Benucci. Il Santo, LIX (2019), 143–68.
El ocaso del poder papal y su justificación en los siglos XIV y XV. José Ángel
Echeverría. Laurentianum, 59 (3, 2018), 425–501.
Valles, cofradías de clérigos y señores en el este de la provincia de Burgos (1383–
1600). José Antonio Cuesta Nieto. Hispania sacra, 71 (2019), 103–11.
Women and Their Sequences: An Overview and a Case Study. Margot E. Fassler.
Speculum, 94 (July, 2019), 625–73.
The Feminine Prehistory of the York Purification: St. Leonard’s Hospital, Civic
Drama, and Women’s Devotion. Nicole R. Rice. Speculum, 94 (July, 2019),
704–38.
Hospitaller confraternity scripts, crusading and the English Reformation, c. 1440–
1537. Rory McLellan. Historical Research, 92 (May, 2019), 445–57.
Transformar las cosas transitorias en eternas. El obispo Lope de Barrientos y su
capilla funeraria en el hospital de la Piedad en Medina del Campo. Diana
Lucía Gómez-Chacón. Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia, 28 (2019), 287–318.
The Work Called Congesta and Fifteenth-Century English Theology. Siegfried
Wenzel. Traditio, 73 (2018), 291–319.
«E i miei denari che prestai a usura?». Banchi di pegno ed etica economica nel
teatro fiorentino del secondo Quattrocento. Pietro Delcorno. Rivista di storia
della Chiesa in Italia, LXXII (1, 2018), 42–92.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

601

Singing Together Alone: Dynamics between Individual and Community in
Middle Dutch Religious Song Collections. Cécile de Morrée. Journal of
Medieval Religious Cultures, 45 (2, 2019), 85–112.
Theology before the Reformation: Renaissance Humanism and Vatican II. John
W. O’Malley, S.J. Theological Studies, 80 (June, 2019), 256–70.
The Hidden Jew of Jerusalem: The Legend of the Eternal Jew in Medieval and Early
Modern Pilgrimage Narratives. Iris Shagrir. Viator, 49 (2, 2018), 333–59.

SIXTEENTH CENTURY
Confesionalización y disciplinamiento social: dos paradigmas para la Historia moderna. Andrea Arcuri. Hispania sacra, 71 (2019), 113–29.
Migration from Within and Without: In the Footsteps of Eastern Christians in the
Early Modern World. John Paul A. Ghobrial. Transaction of the Royal Historical Society, 27 (Dec., 2017), 153–73.
The tapestries of St. Anatoile (1502–1506): Burgundian perceptions of a ‘Scottish’
saint and the royal house of Scotland at the turn of the sixteenth century.
Bryony Coombs. Innes Review, 70 (1, 2019), 1–35.
‘Holy Things’: Dürer’s Feast of the Rosary in the Rudolfine Court. Miranda Lee
Elston. Cerae: An Australasian Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 5
(2018), 95–117.
La Chiesa davanti ai Padri: Erasmo, gli umanisti riformati e la patristica cattolica
romana tra Rinascimento e Controriforma. Paolo Sachet. Rivista di Storia e
Letteratura Religiosa, LIV (2, 2018), 389–418.
Quodammodo transfiguratum est in animum: Erasmus’ doctrine of the resurrection
of the body and its Origenian roots. Marta Fallica. Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum, 23 (1, 2019), 82–100.
Counsels of Perfection and Reformation Political Thought. Sarah Mortimer. Historical Journal, 62 (June, 2019), 311–30.
The Impact of Luther and the Reformation in the Portuguese Seaborne Empire:
Asia and Brazil, 1520–1580. José Pedro Paiva. The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 70 (Apr., 2019), 283–303.
Against the World: The Doctrine of Separation Within the Political Context of the
Origins of Swiss Anabaptism. Daniel P. Rhodes. Baptist History and Heritage,
54 (1, 2019), 38–53.
The Spread of Protestantism in Francophone Europe in the First Century of the
Reformation. Philip Benedict. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 109 (Sept.,
2018), 7–52.
Unzeitige Reformation? Zu einer frühreformatorischen Kirchenordnung in
Thüringen. Ernst Koch. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 109 (Sept., 2018),
53–82.

602

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Das religiöse Bild nach der Reformation: Zu Lucas Cranachs d.Ä. ‚Schmerzensmann‘, Wittenberger Stadtkirchenretabel, ‚Kindersegnung‘, ‚Christus und die
Ehebrecherin‘ und ‚Gesetz und Evangelium‘. Thomas Noll. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 109 (Sept., 2018), 152–209.
Märtyrer der Reformation? Die ersten Prediger in Polen. Maciej Ptaszyński. Archiv
für Reformationsgeschichte, 109 (Sept., 2018), 210–30.
The Special Value of Precarious Patrons: Lucrezia Agliardi and the Tradition of the
Italian Laywomen Church Builders. Catherine King. Early Modern Women,
13 (Spring, 2019), 33–57.
Zur Entwicklung der habsburgischen Überlegungen für eine außerkonziliare Überwindung der Kirchenspaltung bis zum „Religionsgespräch“ in Hagenau. Ernst
Laubach. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 109 (Sept., 2018), 83–125.
Martin Luthers viele Krankheiten. Ein unbekanntes Konsil von Matthäus Ratzenberger und die Problematik der retrospektiven Diagnose. Michael Stolberg
and Tilmann Walter. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 109 (Sept., 2018),
126–51.
Luthers Stellung zur Obrigkeit bei der Reform der Landeskirchen. Martin Heckel.
Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, 135, Kanonistische
Abteilung, 104 (2018), 236–303.
Quem vidistis, pastores? Espacios, rito y música de los maitines de Navidad en la
catedral de Burgo de Osma (1534–1857). José Ignacio Palacios Sanz. Hispania
sacra, 71 (2019), 313–28.
San Juan de Ávila, doctor de la misericordia. Francisco Juan Martínez Rojas. Isidorianum, XXVII (2018), 53–68.
Der Moment der Entscheidung? Die Einführung der Reformation in Nürnberg als
Ergebnis von Minimalentscheidungen. Hanna Goyer. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 109 (Sept., 2018), 331–50.
„Ich wünsche nur, wir wären eins in Christo.“ Die Reformationsentscheidungen
des Humanisten und Juristen Dr. Christoph Scheurl II. Laura-Marie
Krampe. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 109 (Sept., 2018), 351–72.
Eine noch unbekannte Geheimschrift in der Korrespondenz zwischen Ambrosius
Blarer und Heinrich Bullinger (1546–1553). Reinhard Bodenmann, Alexandra Kess, and Judith Steiniger. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 109 (Sept.,
2018), 413–27.
«Strong-headed barbarians». The Greeks of Ancona and the papal policies in the
Sixteenth Century. Niccolò Fattori. Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia,
LXXII (1, 2018), 115–38.
Profecía y veracidad en la Reforma y la Contrarreforma: Ignacio de Loyola y
Calvino. María Rosario Serrano García. Scripta fulgentia, XXVIII (2018),
137–54.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

603

El sacrificio de Javier y su visión para introducir el cristianismo en Japón: Las
desavenencias y similitudes en el intercambio filosófico y religioso de los
jesuitas en sus primeros días en Japón. Efraín Villamor Herrero. Hispania
sacra, 71 (2019), 131–40.
Del mundo medieval al moderno: cambio devocional y conflicto social: El ejemplo
valenciano de las cofradías de Llíria (siglos XV–XVI). José Antonio Llibrer
Escrig. Hispania sacra, 71 (2019), 165–77.
Les censures de la faculté de théologie de Reims à l’époque du cardinal de Lorraine.
Répression du protestantisme, contrôle du livre, conflits intra-catholiques et
normalisation post-tridentine. Bruno Restif. Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, LXXXI (1, 2019), 7–42.
Sovereignty and spectacle in 1557: the reunion of Philip II and Mary I. Matthew
Tibble. Historical Research, 92 (May, 2019), 305–17.
Iconoclasts of the Imagination? Image and Memory in Sixteenth-Century English
Catechesis. Alex Fogleman. Church History and Religious Culture, 99 (1, 2019),
1–20.
Le parcours d’un prélat ligueur, Nicolas de Pevellé. Jean Sénié. Revue d’histoire de
l’Église de France, 105 (Jan.–June, 2019), 17–40.
‘Michelangelo’s Panel’: Content, Context, and Vasari’s Buonarroti Altarpiece. Sally
J. Cornelison. Art History, 42 (June, 2019), 416–49.
The Theology of Vocation of Teresa of Ávila’s Reformed Convent through the
Lens of “Two Very Wicked Heretics.” Alisa J. Tigchelaar. Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 54 (Spring, 2019), 186–209.
Richard Topcliffe and the Book Culture of the Elizabethan Catholic Underground. Mark Rankin. Renaissance Quarterly, 72 (Summer, 2019), 492–536.
Not the Puritan Messiah. Stephen Tomkins. History Today, 69 (June, 2019), 12–
14.
Entre el ecumenismo y la intolerancia: la procesión del Domingo de Ramos en la
Jerusalén de los siglos XVI y XVII. Víctor de Lama de la Cruz. Hispania sacra,
71 (2019), 155–64.
Las atribuciones judiciales de los cabildos catedralicios en época moderna: Conflictos y faltas de los capitulares en Salamanca: siglos XVI–XVII. Francisco Luis
Rico Callado. Hispania sacra, 71 (2019), 233–47.
Ceremonial y trámites de anuncio, reparto y publicación de la bula de Cruzada en
el arzobispado de Santiago (siglos XVI–XIX). Mónica Fernández Armesto.
Hispania sacra, 71 (2019), 299–312.

604

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SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
(EASTERN HEMISPHERE)
Konstantyn Ostrogski and the anti-Orthodox policy of Sigismund III Vasa (1595–
1608). Marek Melnyk. Ostkirchliche Studien, 67 (2018), 305–24.
An ecumenical momentum. Reunion talks among Anglicans, Gallicans, Arminians
and Huguenots in early seventeenth century Europe. Philippe Denis. Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, LXXXI (1, 2019), 43–63.
Gender and Ritual: Crowning Empresses in the Holy Roman Empire. Katrin
Keller. German History, 37 (June, 2019), 172–85.
Cédulas de profesión del monasterio de Valbuena de Duero en el Archivo
Histórico Nacional. Guillermo Fernández-Ortiz. Anuario de Historia de la
Iglesia, 28 (2019), 371–404.
The Oath of Allegiance, Hannah Arendt, and the Trials of Jacobean Political Theology. Todd Butler. Journal of Early Modern Cultural Studies, 18 (Spring,
2019), 60–82.
When Witches Litigate: New Sources from Early Modern Navarre. Lu Ann
Homza. The Journal of Modern History, 91 (June, 2019), 245–75.
L’affaire Gaufridy: possession, sorcellerie et eschatologie dans la France du premier
XVIIe siècle. Joris Astier. Revue des sciences religieuses, 93 (Jan.–June, 2019),
111–36.
John Murton’s Argument for Religious Tolerance: A General Baptist’s Use of
Non-Biblical Sources and Its Significance. Joe L. Coker. Baptist History and
Heritage, 54 (1, 2019), 8–24.
Des carrières pastorales à Bischwiller (1618–1663). Politique et discipline dans une
communauté de réfugiés. Julien Léonard. Revue historique, 142 (Oct., 2018),
795–835.
Music in worship and recreation at Little Gidding in the time of the Ferrars. David
Yeandie. Seventeenth Century, 34 (Apr., 2019), 159–79.
Michael Jones and the survival of the Church of Ireland, 1647–9. Patrick Little.
Irish Historical Studies, 43 (May, 2019), 12–26.
The Hermeneutics of Silk: China and the Fabric of Christendom according to
Martino Martini and the Early Modern Jesuit “Accommodationists.” Alice
Yeh. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 61 (Apr., 2019), 419–46.
Seicento religioso. Nuovi dati sul “laboratorio” milanese. Danilo Zardin. Rivista di
storia della Chiesa in Italia, LXXII (1, 2018), 139–70.
L’arrestation et la conversion d’Isaac de la Peyrère d’après les sources romaines
(1656–1657). Yvan Loskoutoff. Revue de l’histoire des religions, (3, 2019), 545–
75.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

605

Confessional disputes in the republic of letters. Susan Du Verger and Margaret
Cavendish. Seventeenth Century, 34 (Apr., 2017), 181–207.
Las primeras canonjías de oficio en la catedral de Valencia. Un episodio de la rivalidad entre obispos y cabildos durante el siglo XVII. Emilio Callado Estela.
Hispania sacra, 71 (2019), 179–89.
El Seminario de San Pelagio en la Córdoba del siglo XVII. Análisis prosopográfico
y estudio socio-geográfico de sus estudiantes. Isabel Barrado-Jiménez. Hispania sacra, 71 (2019), 209–20.
Urbanismo en la ciudad cristiana: los archipiélagos conventuales de la ciudad de
Palma. Margarita Novo Malvárez. Hispania sacra, 71 (2019), 259–70.
La Orden de la Merced en el Señorío de Vizcaya: el caso del beaterio de Santurce.
Nere Jone Intxaustegi Jauregi. Hispania sacra, 71 (2019), 271–82.
Sacred Medicine and the Bible: Thomas Bartholin’s On Biblical Diseases (1672).
Tricia M. Ross. Early Science and Medicine, 24 (1, 2019), 90–116.
Rethinking Political Theology in Milton: De Doctrina Christiana and the Colloquy
in Heaven in Paradise Lost. David Loewenstein. Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, 18 (Spring, 2018), 34–59.
Translating the Jansenist Controversy in Britain and Ireland. Mark R.F. Williams.
The English Historical Review, CXXXIV (Feb., 2019), 59–91.
El cabildo catedral cordobés en el pontificado del cardenal Salazar. Cuestiones de
método y primeras aportaciones. María Paloma de las Mercedes Enríquez
García. Hispania sacra, 71 (2019), 249–57.
Las cofradías de Logroño en los siglos modernos. Fermín Labarga. Hispania sacra,
71 (2019), 283–97.
Réflexion sur l’«iconoclasm tridentin» dans le diocèse de Bordeaux aux XVIIe et
XVIIIe siècles. Jérémy Balan. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 105 (Jan.–
June, 2019), 41–58.
Conserver, transformer ou détruire: qu’a-t-on fait des églises romanes du Brionnais
du XVIIe au XIXe siècles? Anelise Nicolier. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de
France, 105 (Jan.–June, 2019), 59–83.
Dragomans, tattooists, artisans: Palestinian Christians and their encounters with
Catholic Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Jacob Norris.
Journal of Global History, 14 (Mar., 2019), 68–86.
The legacy of a pioneer of female education in Ireland: tercentennial considerations
of Nano Nagle and Presentation schooling. Deirdre Raftery, Catriona
Delaney, and Deirdre Bennett. History of Education, 48 (Mar., 2019), 197–
211.
Un intento frustrado de fundación del Orataorio de San Felipe Neri en Écija
(1749). Jorge Alberto Jordán Fernández. Isidorianum, XXVII (2018), 123–39.

606

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

“A Loyal Heart to God and the Governor”: Missions and Colonial Policy in the
Surinamese Saramaccan Mission (c. 1750–1813). Jessica Cronshagen. Journal
of Moravian History, 19 (Spring, 2019), 1–24.
Paisij Veličkovskij als Abt des Klosters Simonos Petras. Zu den Umständen der
Übersiedlung Paisijs und seiner Bruderschaft vom Berg Athos ins Fürstentum
Moldau (1763). Anna Briskina-Müller. Ostkirchliche Studien, 67 (2018), 212–
36.
‘A dreadful phenomenon described and improved’: Reverend John Fletcher’s
account of the Buildwas earthquake of 1773. James P. Bowen and Neil Macdonald. Journal of Historical Geography, 64 (Apr., 2019), 72–84.
Sobre la construcción y restauración de la iglesia sevillana de San Bartolomé y su
torre. José Manuel Higuera Meléndez. Isidorianum, XXVII (2018), 155–78.
Dissensus and Toleration: Reconsidering Tolerance in the Age of Enlightenment.
Ourida Mostefai. Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture, 47 (2018), 269–73.
Hester Hammerton and Women Sextons in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century
England. Wanda Henry. Gender and History, 31 (July, 2019), 404–21.

NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES
(EASTERN HEMISPHERE)
Pedagogies of Prayer: Teaching Orthodoxy in South India. Vlad Naumescu. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 61 (Apr., 2019), 389–418.
Pietism and German Inter-Confessional Nationalism. Doron Avraham. Church
History and Religious Culture, 99 (1, 2019), 21–45.
Songs of the spirit from Dufftown. Shelagh Noden. Innes Review, 70 (1, 2019),
36–54.
‘Like Waterloo Survivors’: Ex-Priests and the Nineteenth-Century Australian
Press. Colin Fowler. The Australasian Catholic Record, 96 (Apr., 2019), 153–65.
La Dottrina sociale della Chiesa e il Ticino. Contributi cattolici nella società ticinese dell’Ottocento e Novecento. Markus Krienke. Revista teologica di Lugano,
XXIII (Mar., 2018), 129–53.
Reading Others Who Read: The Early-Century Print Environment of the Religious Tract Society. Sara L. Maurer. Victorian Studies, 61 (Winter, 2019),
222–31.
Radici scotiste del pensiero rosminiano. Massimo Pasquale Cogliandro. Antonianum, XCIV (Apr.–June, 2019), 353–65.
Materiality and the extended geographies of religion: the intuitional design and
everyday experiences of London’s Wesleyan Methodist circuits, 1851–1932.
Ruth Slatter. Journal of Historical Geography, 64 (Apr., 2019), 60–71.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

607

Bishop Charles Davis’s Musical Contribution to the Early Australian Catholic
Church. Graeme Pender. The Australasian Catholic Record, 96 (Apr., 2019),
166–77.
The Cost of Catholicism: Catholic Leadership and Colonial Chaplains in Western
Australia, 1852–86. Odhran O’Brien. The Australasian Catholic Record, 96
(Apr., 2019), 131–52.
Europäischer Antiklerikalismus. Eine Suche zwischen Säkularisierung und Religionsreform. Lisa Dittrich. Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 45 (Apr., 2019), 5–36.
Berufsverläufe auf der mittleren kirchlichen Leitungsebene. Individualisierung oder
Institutionalisierung? Elisabeth Dittrich. Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 45 (Apr.,
2019) 295–311.
Aux origines du confessionalisme libanais. Andrew Arsan. Revue d’histoire du XIXe
siècle, 58 (2019), 165–80.
Diplomazia senza Nunzio tra Svizzera e Santa Sede. Il ruolo della Sacra Congregazione degli Affari ecclesiastici straordinari negli anni 1874–1920.
Lorenzo Planzi. Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Religions- und Kulturgeschichte,
112 (2018), 317–31.
‘We do not wish to be sofa cushions, or even props to men, but we wish to work by
their side’: celebrating women as popular educators at the Anglican Church
congresses 1881–1913. Sue Anderson-Faithful and Catherine Halloway. History of Education, 48 (Mar., 2019), 180–96.
The Idea of Christian Unity at the End of the Nineteenth Century (the Case of
Vl.S. Solovyov). Elena Besschetnova. Church History and Religious Culture, 99
(1, 2019), 46–63.
Le jeûne et l’abstinence dans le catholicisme contemporain: contributions françaises
du premier XXe siècle au débat sur les mortifications du carême. Sylvio Hermann de Franceschi. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 105 (Jan.–June,
2019), 85–111.
Difference between the Self and the Heathen: European Imperial Culture in Dutch
Missionary Exhibitions, 1909–1957. Miel Groten. Journal of Imperial and
Commonwealth History, 47 (June, 2019), 490–513.
Curia romana e Gewerkschatftsstreit. Prime considerazioni sull’origine dell’enciclica
Singulari quadam (1912). Francesco Tacchi. Rivista di Storia e Letteratura
Religiosa, LIV (2, 2018), 351–88.
Protestant Sectarianism in Twentieth-Century British Labour History: From Free
and Labour Church to Pentecostalism and the Churches of Christ. Peter
Ackers. International Review of Social History, 64 (Apr., 2019), 129–42.
Über die rumänisch-orthodoxe Kirche Siebenbürgens während des Ersten
Weltkrieges. Paul Brusanowski. Ostkirchliche Studien, 67 (2018), 237–72.

608

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

The “Long” Church Council of 1917–1918: Institutional Crisis, Intellectual Capital. Gregory L. Freeze. Ostkirchliche Studien, 67 (2018), 187–211.
Katholiken des byzantinischen Ritus in Ungarn. II. Teil: Von 1920 bis 1989.
Tamás Véghseő. Ostkirchliche Studien, 67 (2018), 273–304.
Conversion and the Problem of Discontinuity in the East African Revival. Jason
Bruner. The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 70 (Apr., 2019), 304–21.
The Metaphysics of Race: Revisiting Nazism and Religion. Amit Varshizky. Central European History, 52 (June, 2019), 252–88.
«Did you mean that I ought to say: “I’m a priest?”». The industrial apostolate of the
Dutch Jesuits in the city of Rotterdam and its suburbs, 1947–1988, I. Joep van
Gennip. Gregorianum, 100 (3, 2019), 649–71.
„Zwischen Gott und dem freien Gewissen ist für eine Staatsreligion kein Platz“:
Die Namensweihe und politische Religion in der DDR. Heléna Tóth.
Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 45 (Apr., 2019), 37–69.
La ricezione del Concilio Vaticano II durante l’episcopato di mons. Giuseppe Pullano, vescovo di Patti dal 1957 al 1977 (secondo parte). Stefano Brancatelli.
Itinerarium, 26 (3, 2018), 41–52.
Defending God’s Creation? The Environment in State, Church, and Society in the
German Democratic Republic, 1975–1989. Julia E. Ault. German History, 37
(June, 2019), 205–26.
Moving a Seminary: A Personal Recollection. Part I: The Manly Story. Brian
Lucas. The Australasian Catholic Record, 96 (Apr., 2019), 190–208.
Il martirio: orizzonte della vita Cristiana. A 25 anni dal martirio del beato
Giuseppe Puglisi sacerdote esemplare dedito specialmente alla pastorale giovanile. Marcello Badalamenti. Itinerarium, 26 (3, 2018), 53–68.

AMERICAN
Catholics in Colonial Georgia. Jerome Oetgen. Georgia Historical Quarterly, 103 (2,
2019), 57–91.
The First Freedom: Religion in the American Republic. William R. Clough. Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 30 (1/2, 2018), 4–28.
Cherokee and Moravian Relations during the New Madrid Earthquakes, 1811–
1812. Lucinda Yang. Journal of Moravian History, 19 (Spring, 2019), 25–44.
The Girls Boarding School in Salem, North Carolina: A Report by Abraham
Steiner for the 1818 Synod in Herrnhut, Germany. Grant Profant McAllister.
Journal of Moravian History, 19 (Spring, 2019), 45–85.
American Ottomans: Protestant Missionaries in an Islamic Empire’s Service,
1820–1919. Henry Gorman. Diplomatic History, 43 (June, 2019), 544–68.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

609

Political Polarization and the Churches: Tocqueville on Religion, Democracy and
the Future of Christianity. Charles A. McDaniel. Journal of Interdisciplinary
Studies, 30 (1/2, 2018), 117–44.
Baptist Confessionalism: Unity and Diversity Among Baptist Associations in the
Southern United States During the Nineteenth Century. E. Peter Frank
Lumpkins and Gerald J. Pillay. Baptist History and Heritage, 54 (1, 2019), 54–
72.
Secular power, Sectarian politics: The American-Born Irish Elite and Catholic
political Culture in Nineteenth-Century New York. Patrick McGrath. Journal
of American Ethnic History, 38 (Spring, 2019), 36–75.
Of Three Nations: Devotion and Community in French-American Chicago, 1850–
1950. Daniel Snow. Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, 112 (Spring,
2019), 68–99.
The Disappearance of Mother Agnes Spencer: The Centralization Controversy and
the Antebellum Catholic Church. Elisabeth C. Davis. American Catholic Studies, 130 (Summer, 2019), 31–52.
“An Unfortunate Son of Erin”: The Irish in Civil War Kentucky. David T. Gleeson. Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 117 (Spring, 2019), 197–214.
Dancing with Jim Crow: The Chattanooga Embarrassment of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Paul W. Harris. Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era,
18 (Apr., 2019), 155–73.
The Blessed Channel of Work: Gender, Power, and the Union of the Women’s
Foreign Missionary Societies in the Religious Society of Friends. Isaac Barnes
May. Quaker History, 107 (Spring, 2019), 27–53.
“Woman’s Work”: Race, Foreign Missions, and Respectability in the National
Training School for Women and Girls. Angela Hornsby-Gutting. Journal of
Women’s History, 31 (Spring, 2019), 37–61.
Susan E. Jones de Arévalo and Luz Heath Barrios: Pioneer Baptist Missionaries in
Mexico in the Twentieth Century. Rubi Elizabeth Barocio Castells. Baptist
History and Heritage, 54 (1, 2019), 92–100.
The 1930s Origins of California’s Farmworkers–Church Alliance. Kathryn S.
Omlsted. Pacific Historical Review, 88 (Spring, 2019), 240–61.
The Republican Schoolmaster and the Problem of Religion in America. Gerald De
Maio. Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 30 (1/2, 2018), 169–94.
Hazel Brannon Smith (1914–1994): A Mississippi Baptist Journalist Without
Honor in Holmes County, Mississippi. Charles M. Dollar. Baptist History and
Heritage, 54 (1, 2019), 73–91.
Faye Pearson (1940–2019): Mission Leader, Continuing a Legacy. Ron West.
Baptist History and Heritage, 54 (1, 2019), 102–16.

610

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Baptists and the Johnson Argument. David J. Holcomb. Baptist History and Heritage, 54 (1, 2019), 25–37.
Surprising Allies: The Struggle over Birth Control and Abortion in 1960s Massachusetts. David P. Cline. Historical Journal of Massachusetts, 47 (Summer,
2019), 44–73.
“The Neutralism of Outer Hell”: Daniel Berrigan In (and Out of) the Civil Rights
Movement, 1960–1963. Eric Martin. American Catholic Studies, 130
(Summer, 2019), 53–74.
Lessons from Quaker History: What’s an Historian to Say about Whittaker
Chambers and Clarence Pickett? H. Larry Ingle. Quaker History, 107 (Spring,
2019), 1–26.
The Introduction of Contemporary Worship Music into the Lutheran Church—
Missouri Synod. Samuel Eatherton. Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly,
92 (Summer, 2019), 27–48.

LATIN AMERICAN
Old Words and the New World: Liberal Education and the Franciscans in New
Spain, 1536–1601. Aysha Polinitz. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society,
27 (Dec., 2017), 123–52.
Communicating faith: language and extirpation in the seventeenth-century Archdiocese of Lima. Amy Huras. Colonial Latin American Review, 28 (June,
2019), 197–228.
Los temibles ojos, oídos y brazos de la Inquisición: notas sobre la censura de libros
en Nueva España entre los siglos XVII y XVIII. Idalia García. Colonial Latin
American Review, 28 (June, 2019), 258–80.
Asociacionismo religioso. Cambios y permanencias en la transición del siglo XVIII
al siglo XIX. Un estudio de caso: la cofradía del Santísimo Sacramento, Salta,
Argentina, 1774–1880. Víctor Enrique Quinteros. Hispania sacra, 71 (2019),
329–43.
Pobreza franciscana y economía monástica: Prácticas cotidianas de frailes y monjas
en Santiago de Chile (1790–1820). Cristián Leal-Pino, Alexandrine de-laTaille-Trétinville, and Alejandra Fuentes-González. Anuario de Historia de la
Iglesia, 28 (2019), 319–41.
Ilustración católica y argumentos político-teológicos en la independencia de la
Nueva Granada. María del Rosario Vázquez Piñeros. Hispania sacra, 71
(2019), 345–55.
Jesuitas y laicos: diversas maneras de encarar los “arreglos” de 1929. Fernando M.
González. Estudios Jaliscienses, 99 (Feb., 2015), 19–35.
Iglesia, laicos y política. Laura Alarcón Menchaca. Estudios Jaliscienses, 99 (Feb.,
2015), 36–51.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

611

The Medical and the Anti-Modern: Horse-and-Buggy Mennonite Migrants and
Medicine in Latin America. Royden Loewen. Histoire Sociale, 52 (May,
2019), 137–54.
Evangélicos e voto legislativo: Diversidade confessional e voto em deputados da
bancada evangélica no Brasil. Rodgrigo Rodrigues-Silveira and Emerson
Urizzi Cervi. Latin American Research Review, 54 (3, 2019), 560–73.
The Church of the Poor and Civil Society in Southern Mexico, Oaxaca, 1960s–
2010s. Juan Manuel Lombera. Journal of Contemporary History, 54 (July,
2019), 640–65.
Fragmentación católica sedevacantista en Guadalajara. Austreberto Martínez Villegas. Estudios Jaliscienses, 99 (Feb., 2015), 52–63.
Bonds of Suffering, Bonds of Hope: The Story of the Priest Committed to the
Poor. Elba Noemí Gómez and Bradley Wright. Latin Americanist, 65 (June,
2019), 141–62.

Other Books Received
Attridge, Harold W. History, Theology, and Narrative Rhetoric in the Fourth Gospel.
[The Père Marquette Lecture in Theology, 2019.] (Milwaukee: Marquette
University Press. 2019. Pp. 101. $15.00 cloth.)
Brown, Rachel Fulton. Mary & the Art of Prayer: The Hours of the Virgin in Medieval
Christian Life and Thought. (New York: Columbia University Press. 2018. Pp.
xlii, 629. $75.00 cloth.)
Evans, D. Simon (ed.). The Welsh Life of St David. (Cardiff: University of Wales
Press. 2016. Pp. lx, 91. £12.99 paperback.)
Hahn, Scott W. Kinship by Covenant: A Canonical Approach to the Fulfillment of
God’s Saving Promises. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 2019. Pp. xvi,
589. $32.00 paperback.)
Hart, David Bentley. That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell and Universal Salvation.
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 2019. Pp. vi, 222. $26.00 cloth.)
Hereford, Amy, CSJ. Beyond the Crossroads: Religious Life in the Twenty-First Century. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. 2019. Pp. xvi, 176. $22.00 paperback.)
Magocsi, Paul Robert. With Their Backs to the Mountains: A History of Carpathian
Rus’ and Carpatho-Rusyns. (Budapest: Central European University Press.
2015. Pp. xx, 511; 102 Plates. $45.00 paperback.)
Moore, Sally Falk. A Life of Learning. [Charles Homer Haskins Prize Lecture for
2018.] (New York: American Council of Learned Societies Occasional Paper
Series, No. 75. 2018. Pp. x, 18.)
Porter, Jean. The Perfection of Desire: Habit, Reason, and Virtue in Aquinas’s Summa
theologiae. [The Père Marquette Lecture in Theology, 2018.] (Milwaukee:
Marquette University Press. 2018. Pp. 157. $15.00 cloth.)
Rudy, Kathryn M. Piety in Pieces: How Medieval Readers Customized their Manuscripts. (Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers. 2016. Pp. xviii, 392. £24.95
paperback.)
Stephens, Walter, and Earle A. Havens (eds.). Literary Forgery in Early Modern
Europe, 1450–1800. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2019. Pp.
xiv, 285. $54.95 cloth.) Among the thirteen essays published here are “Annius
of Viterbo as a Student of the Jews” by Anthony Grafton (pp. 147–169);
“Exposing the Archforger: Annius of Viterbo’s First Master Critic” by Walter
Stephens (pp. 170–190); “Material and Textual Forgery in the Lead Books of
Granada” by A. Katie Harris (pp. 215–226); and “Melchior Inchofer, S.J., and
612

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

613

the Letter of the Virgin Mary to the Citizens of Messina” by Ingrid D. Rowland (pp. 227–240).
Sullins, D. Paul. Keeping the Vow: The Untold Story of Married Catholic Priests. (New
York: Oxford University Press. 2015. Pp. xiv, 322. $29.95 cloth.)
Sysyn, Frank E. (ed.). Mykhailo Zubryts’kyi: Collected Works and Materials, Volume
I: Scholarly Works. (Lviv, Ukraine: Litopys. 2013. Pp. 609. $44.99 cloth.)
Tedeschi, Peppino. Memorie di un prigioniero di guerra. (Brescia, Italy: Scholé,
Editrice Morcelliana. First edition 1947; this edition 2018. Pp. 271. €18,00
paperback.)