Victoria Van Hyning, Convent Autobiography: Early Modern English Nuns in Exile, Oxford: Oxford University Press for The British Academy, 2019, pp. xxviii + 388, £85, ISBN: 978-0-19-726657-1

Abstract

ten by Edmund Campion, which are currently held in private archives. Jan Graffius’s chapter contains beautiful photographs of some of the relics and reliquary illustrations in the collections of Stonyhurst College. The appendix at the end of Ana Sáez-Hidalgo’s chapter provides a transcription of the book inventories she examined in the Escorial Library. The additional resources that the volume provides, in the way of high-resolution photographs of manuscripts and annotated book pages, as well as transcriptions of some archival materials in the United Kingdom and continental Europe, will make it a useful resource for graduate students. The volume may also be of use to those teaching on various aspects of English Catholicism, post-Tridentine Catholicism, and Catholic missions to undergraduates. As the title indicates, this is a book about England and mainland Europe, with other parts of the British Isles and the rest of the early modern world making only brief appearances. The Scottish Jesuit mission, for instance, is mentioned in Thomas McCoog’s chapter, and while Christopher Gillet brings an Atlantic dimension into his essay on the Oath of Allegiance, the book’s claim to demonstrate that the English Jesuit mission was fully part of a global missionary network might have been made stronger with more consideration of connections to Catholic missions outside of Europe. That being said, the collection amply demonstrates the integration of English Catholicism into the wider European Catholic Church. The essays stand out particularly in their demonstration of the depth and geographical breadth of the cultural connections between Catholics in England and continental Europe, which is in part facilitated by the thematic focus on the Jesuits (the book is part of Brill’s Jesuit Studies series). On the whole, the volume paints a vibrant picture of the intellectual, artistic, and literary contributions of English Jesuits to the Society’s missions in early modern Europe, and enriches our understanding of the Jesuits’ significance in cultivating ties between English Catholics and their European neighbours.