knowledge of the Counter-Reformation, the early public sphere, and the use of the press in the reconsolidation of Habsburg rule in the Southern Netherlands. Soetaert’s understandable aim for comprehensiveness leaves room for more thorough literary criticism and questions about the cultural impact of transregional exchanges. A case in point is the discussion of the Netherlandish engraver Martin Baes, who provided dozens of illustrations for English martyrologies. The book minutely reconstructs the process by which Baes was commissioned, but leaves open the extent to which this resulted in the transfer of a Netherlandish print culture to the British Isles. Finally, while the book successfully advances the argument that the Ecclesiastical Province of Cambrai transcended its regional significance, the choice to publish it in Dutch hardly supports this claim. One hopes an English translation will be commissioned soon. All in all, De Katholieke Drukpers in de Kerkprovincie Kamerijk makes a convincing case for the importance of regions in the European book trade and deserves a wide readership among students of the early modern Low Countries, English Catholicism, and the European book trade.
{"title":"Kelsey Jackson Williams, The First Scottish Enlightenment. Rebels, Priests, and History, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020, pp. xv + 351, £70, ISBN: 9780198809692","authors":"Tom Tölle","doi":"10.1017/bch.2021.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/bch.2021.11","url":null,"abstract":"knowledge of the Counter-Reformation, the early public sphere, and the use of the press in the reconsolidation of Habsburg rule in the Southern Netherlands. Soetaert’s understandable aim for comprehensiveness leaves room for more thorough literary criticism and questions about the cultural impact of transregional exchanges. A case in point is the discussion of the Netherlandish engraver Martin Baes, who provided dozens of illustrations for English martyrologies. The book minutely reconstructs the process by which Baes was commissioned, but leaves open the extent to which this resulted in the transfer of a Netherlandish print culture to the British Isles. Finally, while the book successfully advances the argument that the Ecclesiastical Province of Cambrai transcended its regional significance, the choice to publish it in Dutch hardly supports this claim. One hopes an English translation will be commissioned soon. All in all, De Katholieke Drukpers in de Kerkprovincie Kamerijk makes a convincing case for the importance of regions in the European book trade and deserves a wide readership among students of the early modern Low Countries, English Catholicism, and the European book trade.","PeriodicalId":41292,"journal":{"name":"British Catholic History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49284158","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A the end of 1600, the elderly Flemish Jesuit Franciscus Costerus (1532–1619) returned from a pilgrimage to Rome—there had been another Jubilee—carrying two images of Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556) and a letter from Claudio Acquaviva, the Society of Jesus’s Superior General. The first larger image had been painted on leather, the second smaller one was oval in shape. The Belgian province, the Society’s largest, was home to several older Jesuits who had met Ignatius in their youth. Acquaviva, who had joined the Society a decade after the death of its founder, wished to hear ‘the judgement of the fathers of this province who at some point have seen this blessed man.’1 This proved difficult to organize, both on account of the value of the paintings and the frailty of the witnesses, who were not all as sprightly and up for travelling as Costerus had been (on his death in 1619, Costerus was the last surviving Jesuit to have known Ignatius personally). The Jesuit to whom Acquaviva directed this request was Olivier Manare (1523–1614), a person well-accustomed to being in charge of everything: his enemies accused him of running the Belgian province as his personal fief.2 Manare had been vicar general following the
{"title":"How to Study Memories in the Making","authors":"Jan Machielsen","doi":"10.1017/bch.2021.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/bch.2021.6","url":null,"abstract":"A the end of 1600, the elderly Flemish Jesuit Franciscus Costerus (1532–1619) returned from a pilgrimage to Rome—there had been another Jubilee—carrying two images of Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556) and a letter from Claudio Acquaviva, the Society of Jesus’s Superior General. The first larger image had been painted on leather, the second smaller one was oval in shape. The Belgian province, the Society’s largest, was home to several older Jesuits who had met Ignatius in their youth. Acquaviva, who had joined the Society a decade after the death of its founder, wished to hear ‘the judgement of the fathers of this province who at some point have seen this blessed man.’1 This proved difficult to organize, both on account of the value of the paintings and the frailty of the witnesses, who were not all as sprightly and up for travelling as Costerus had been (on his death in 1619, Costerus was the last surviving Jesuit to have known Ignatius personally). The Jesuit to whom Acquaviva directed this request was Olivier Manare (1523–1614), a person well-accustomed to being in charge of everything: his enemies accused him of running the Belgian province as his personal fief.2 Manare had been vicar general following the","PeriodicalId":41292,"journal":{"name":"British Catholic History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/bch.2021.6","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46171060","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Although Catholics were marginalized and strongly associated with Jacobitism under the early Hanoverians, the reign of George III saw a gradual assimilation of Catholics into mainstream political culture. The Vicars Apostolic of Great Britain played a key role in this process by emphasizing passivity and loyalty. The bishop who most strongly personified this Jacobite to loyalist transition was George Hay (1729-1811). A convert to Catholicism from the Scottish Episcopalian faith, Hay served the Jacobite Army as a medic in 1745 and was imprisoned following that conflict. After his conversion and subsequent ordination, Hay became coadjutor of the Lowland District of Scotland in 1769 and was promoted to the Apostolic Vicarate in 1778. Hay actively engaged with many high-profile statesmen and political thinkers, including Edmund Burke. Most notably, he constructively utilized Jacobite political theology to criticise revolutionary ideology. His public involvement in politics was most remarkable during the American and French Revolutions, when he confidently deployed the full force of counterrevolutionary doctrines that formerly alienated Catholics from the Hanoverian state. However, since the Age of Revolution presented a stark duality between monarchy and republicanism, Hay’s expressions of passive obedience and non-resistance endeared him and the Catholic Church to the British establishment.
{"title":"From Jacobite to Loyalist: The Career and Political Theology of Bishop George Hay","authors":"Gregory Tirenin","doi":"10.1017/bch.2021.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/bch.2021.3","url":null,"abstract":"Although Catholics were marginalized and strongly associated with Jacobitism under the early Hanoverians, the reign of George III saw a gradual assimilation of Catholics into mainstream political culture. The Vicars Apostolic of Great Britain played a key role in this process by emphasizing passivity and loyalty. The bishop who most strongly personified this Jacobite to loyalist transition was George Hay (1729-1811). A convert to Catholicism from the Scottish Episcopalian faith, Hay served the Jacobite Army as a medic in 1745 and was imprisoned following that conflict. After his conversion and subsequent ordination, Hay became coadjutor of the Lowland District of Scotland in 1769 and was promoted to the Apostolic Vicarate in 1778. Hay actively engaged with many high-profile statesmen and political thinkers, including Edmund Burke. Most notably, he constructively utilized Jacobite political theology to criticise revolutionary ideology. His public involvement in politics was most remarkable during the American and French Revolutions, when he confidently deployed the full force of counterrevolutionary doctrines that formerly alienated Catholics from the Hanoverian state. However, since the Age of Revolution presented a stark duality between monarchy and republicanism, Hay’s expressions of passive obedience and non-resistance endeared him and the Catholic Church to the British establishment.","PeriodicalId":41292,"journal":{"name":"British Catholic History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/bch.2021.3","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43936852","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Gulielmus Laurus, a recusant exile and neo-Latin poet from Yorkshire has left a variety of evidence for his existence from 1587 through to the late 1590s, mostly in published verse in which he reflects on his life and experience, protests against the Anglican settlement, and asserts his faith. The article attempts to piece together his biography from the meagre information he gives, and offers two alternative interpretations of the data: one in which he was born around 1565, and one, marginally preferable, which makes him about ten years older. His poems are highly personal documents which reveal his interactions with the ‘republic of letters’ in Belgium, Germany and France, and the intense practical and psychological pressures of life as a friendless exile.
Gulielmus Laurus是一位来自约克郡的逃亡者和新拉丁语诗人，他从1587年到1590年代末为自己的存在留下了各种证据，主要是在出版的诗歌中，他在诗歌中反思了自己的生活和经历，抗议英国圣公会定居点，并坚称自己的信仰。这篇文章试图从他提供的少量信息中拼凑出他的传记，并对这些数据提供了两种不同的解释：一种是他出生于1565年左右，另一种是稍微好一点，这使他大了大约十岁。他的诗歌是高度个人化的文献，揭示了他与比利时、德国和法国的“文学共和国”的互动，以及作为一个没有朋友的流放者，生活中的巨大现实和心理压力。
{"title":"The Poetics of Exile: Gulielmus Laurus the Recusant","authors":"J. Stevenson","doi":"10.1017/bch.2021.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/bch.2021.2","url":null,"abstract":"Gulielmus Laurus, a recusant exile and neo-Latin poet from Yorkshire has left a variety of evidence for his existence from 1587 through to the late 1590s, mostly in published verse in which he reflects on his life and experience, protests against the Anglican settlement, and asserts his faith. The article attempts to piece together his biography from the meagre information he gives, and offers two alternative interpretations of the data: one in which he was born around 1565, and one, marginally preferable, which makes him about ten years older. His poems are highly personal documents which reveal his interactions with the ‘republic of letters’ in Belgium, Germany and France, and the intense practical and psychological pressures of life as a friendless exile.","PeriodicalId":41292,"journal":{"name":"British Catholic History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/bch.2021.2","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47861605","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The growth in Catholic pilgrimage in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century is widely acknowledged, but little attention has been paid to how and why many of the mass pilgrimages of the era began. This article will assess the contribution made by the Guild of Our Lady of Ransom to the growth of Catholic pilgrimage. After the Guild’s foundation in 1887, its leadership revived or restored pilgrimages to pre- and post-Reformation sites, and coordinated the movement of thousands of pilgrims across the country. This article offers an examination of how and why Guild leaders chose particular locations in the context of Marian Revivalism, papal interest in the English martyrs, defence of the Catholic faith, and late-nineteenth century medievalism. It argues that the Guild was pivotal in establishing some of England’s most famous post-Reformation pilgrimages. In doing so, it situates the work of the Guild in late nineteenth and early twentieth century religiosity, and demonstrates the pivotal nature of its work in establishing, developing, organising, and promoting some of the most important post-Reformation Catholic pilgrimages in Britain.
{"title":"The Guild of Our Lady of Ransom and Pilgrimage in England and Wales, c. 1890–1914","authors":"Kathryn Hurlock","doi":"10.1017/bch.2021.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/bch.2021.5","url":null,"abstract":"The growth in Catholic pilgrimage in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century is widely acknowledged, but little attention has been paid to how and why many of the mass pilgrimages of the era began. This article will assess the contribution made by the Guild of Our Lady of Ransom to the growth of Catholic pilgrimage. After the Guild’s foundation in 1887, its leadership revived or restored pilgrimages to pre- and post-Reformation sites, and coordinated the movement of thousands of pilgrims across the country. This article offers an examination of how and why Guild leaders chose particular locations in the context of Marian Revivalism, papal interest in the English martyrs, defence of the Catholic faith, and late-nineteenth century medievalism. It argues that the Guild was pivotal in establishing some of England’s most famous post-Reformation pilgrimages. In doing so, it situates the work of the Guild in late nineteenth and early twentieth century religiosity, and demonstrates the pivotal nature of its work in establishing, developing, organising, and promoting some of the most important post-Reformation Catholic pilgrimages in Britain.","PeriodicalId":41292,"journal":{"name":"British Catholic History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/bch.2021.5","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47536337","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
demise of his personal empire of power and patronage, but he was also a victim of circumstance who, as a low-born royal servant, always depended on Henry’s favour and never had any truly independent power. The book is easy to follow and balances narrative progression with a thematic focus on key areas of Wolsey’s achievements, although I feel each chapter would have benefited from a brief conclusion gathering together its main insights. Overall, in an admirably concise treatment, Richardson does justice to Thomas Wolsey’s complexity, drawing out the cardinal’s desire to be seen as a learned figure and patron of learning and eschewing simplistic portrayals of Wolsey as a schemer or overreacher. For all that, however, Richardson’s most telling judgement on Wolsey is that ‘His ambitions : : : ever outran his capacity to achieve them’ (p. 151). In spite of his immense and impressive abilities, Wolsey simply bit off more than he could chew. This balanced, nuanced, and up-to-date biography will hopefully make Wolsey accessible to a new generation of scholars and bring his extraordinary legacy the attention it deserves.
{"title":"Alexander Samson, Mary and Philip: The Marriage of Tudor England and Habsburg Spain, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020, pp. iii + 278, £80.00, ISBN: 978-1-5261-4223-8","authors":"F. Domínguez","doi":"10.1017/bch.2021.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/bch.2021.8","url":null,"abstract":"demise of his personal empire of power and patronage, but he was also a victim of circumstance who, as a low-born royal servant, always depended on Henry’s favour and never had any truly independent power. The book is easy to follow and balances narrative progression with a thematic focus on key areas of Wolsey’s achievements, although I feel each chapter would have benefited from a brief conclusion gathering together its main insights. Overall, in an admirably concise treatment, Richardson does justice to Thomas Wolsey’s complexity, drawing out the cardinal’s desire to be seen as a learned figure and patron of learning and eschewing simplistic portrayals of Wolsey as a schemer or overreacher. For all that, however, Richardson’s most telling judgement on Wolsey is that ‘His ambitions : : : ever outran his capacity to achieve them’ (p. 151). In spite of his immense and impressive abilities, Wolsey simply bit off more than he could chew. This balanced, nuanced, and up-to-date biography will hopefully make Wolsey accessible to a new generation of scholars and bring his extraordinary legacy the attention it deserves.","PeriodicalId":41292,"journal":{"name":"British Catholic History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/bch.2021.8","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42762120","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ambiguities of confessional allegiances during the Tudor period. What do we mean by Catholic? This was as vexed a question during Mary’s reign as it was before and after her. It is worth noting that critiques of Mary were not only the product of Protestant zeal, but also of a certain Jesuit sensibility later in the sixteenth century, which emphasized her failures of religious reform. Her shortcomings were linked to a supposedly corrupt court that could and did help dupe and misleadMary and Philip. Samson ultimately argues that the co-rulership of Philip and Mary was, in fact ‘a great success, incorporating England into the heart of a global empire’ (p. 223). To be sure, the cultural and political effects of the marriage are not primarily ‘negative’ but it would be remarkable if England departed from the realities of the rest of the empire, held together as it was in the shadow of instability and discontent, even within the Iberian Peninsula. If one were forgiven to dabble in counterfactuals, as much of the recent literature on Mary does, it is easy to imagine this early honeymoon period as described here descending into chaos amid contention between the regime and the papacy (the architect of religious reform, Reginald Pole, had been excommunicated by the Pope), potential ongoing punishments of Protestants, and deepening involvement of England in the various crises attending the Spanish Habsburg empire. It seems to me that a glittering court does not in any way reflect stability. Ultimately, though, Samson has provided a foundational work in what he rightly identifies as a field awaiting more exploration. There is little doubt that his book is a sort of death knell for old-fashioned takes on Mary and Philip: it shows by example that there are all sorts of sources that have been untapped. Having helped establish this, I hope that scholarship will increasingly deal with the Marian regime outside the shadow of chauvinist and confessional scholarship that seems more dull and dilapidated with every passing year.
{"title":"Aislinn Muller, The Excommunication of Elizabeth I: Faith, Politics, and Resistance in Post-Reformation England, 1570-1603, Leiden: Brill, 2020, pp. x+242, €125.00, ISBN: 978-90-04-42600-9","authors":"E. Gregory","doi":"10.1017/bch.2021.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/bch.2021.9","url":null,"abstract":"ambiguities of confessional allegiances during the Tudor period. What do we mean by Catholic? This was as vexed a question during Mary’s reign as it was before and after her. It is worth noting that critiques of Mary were not only the product of Protestant zeal, but also of a certain Jesuit sensibility later in the sixteenth century, which emphasized her failures of religious reform. Her shortcomings were linked to a supposedly corrupt court that could and did help dupe and misleadMary and Philip. Samson ultimately argues that the co-rulership of Philip and Mary was, in fact ‘a great success, incorporating England into the heart of a global empire’ (p. 223). To be sure, the cultural and political effects of the marriage are not primarily ‘negative’ but it would be remarkable if England departed from the realities of the rest of the empire, held together as it was in the shadow of instability and discontent, even within the Iberian Peninsula. If one were forgiven to dabble in counterfactuals, as much of the recent literature on Mary does, it is easy to imagine this early honeymoon period as described here descending into chaos amid contention between the regime and the papacy (the architect of religious reform, Reginald Pole, had been excommunicated by the Pope), potential ongoing punishments of Protestants, and deepening involvement of England in the various crises attending the Spanish Habsburg empire. It seems to me that a glittering court does not in any way reflect stability. Ultimately, though, Samson has provided a foundational work in what he rightly identifies as a field awaiting more exploration. There is little doubt that his book is a sort of death knell for old-fashioned takes on Mary and Philip: it shows by example that there are all sorts of sources that have been untapped. Having helped establish this, I hope that scholarship will increasingly deal with the Marian regime outside the shadow of chauvinist and confessional scholarship that seems more dull and dilapidated with every passing year.","PeriodicalId":41292,"journal":{"name":"British Catholic History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/bch.2021.9","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48460063","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
‘This is a well-written, well-presented account of the evolution of the post of papal nuncio from that of apostolic delegate during the years 1938-1982. It is an original piece of research which demonstrates excellent use and interpretation of primary sources and of relevant secondary sources. It is a detailed, forensic study, which the contributor narrates with pace and vigour. It is a fascinating and accessible account of the events which led up to the establishment of the post of nuncio. This piece, bringing together an impressive body of data from primary sources, nicely lays out a politically and ecclesiastically complex situation in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and also deals with the larger European context. It is an excellent, original piece of scholarship which makes a valuable contribution to the field.’
{"title":"Prize Announcement: The British Catholic History Best Article Prize","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/bch.2021.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/bch.2021.1","url":null,"abstract":"‘This is a well-written, well-presented account of the evolution of the post of papal nuncio from that of apostolic delegate during the years 1938-1982. It is an original piece of research which demonstrates excellent use and interpretation of primary sources and of relevant secondary sources. It is a detailed, forensic study, which the contributor narrates with pace and vigour. It is a fascinating and accessible account of the events which led up to the establishment of the post of nuncio. This piece, bringing together an impressive body of data from primary sources, nicely lays out a politically and ecclesiastically complex situation in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and also deals with the larger European context. It is an excellent, original piece of scholarship which makes a valuable contribution to the field.’","PeriodicalId":41292,"journal":{"name":"British Catholic History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/bch.2021.1","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46836893","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the last decade, ego-documents, oral history interviews, and the Mass Observation Archive have increasingly been used to trace changes in intimacy and authenticity in twentieth-century Britain and Europe.1 Similarly, demographic historians have used oral histories to better understand the ways religion impacted reproductive behaviours.2 Research by Diane Gervais and Danielle Gauvreau has shown the emotional struggles Catholic women underwent when trying to comply with the Catholic position on contraception in Quebec.3 The fiftieth anniversary of Humanae Vitae, the Catholic Encyclical that condemned the use of artificial methods of birth control, has further renewed interest in religion and sexuality.4 Despite this research, very little is known of the ways self-identified Catholic women lived their sexual lives in post-war Britain. David Geiringer’s book fills this gap. His clear prose challenges the ‘tale of sex destroying religion’ (p. 3) by closely exploring the discursive, material, and embodied sexual experiences of Catholic women. Based on 27 interviews with self-identified Catholic women, Geiringer takes women’s narratives seriously by recognising women’s agency in their daily life, and explores the relationship between religion and sexuality. Geiringer’s commitment to privileging the voices and experiences of Catholic women is reflected in the methodology and structure of the book. The life-cycle, divided in three key stages in reverse chronology, namely sexuality in later marriage, sexuality in early marriage, and early life and premarital sex, provide the core structure of his
{"title":"David Geiringer, The Pope and the Pill, Sex, Catholicism and Women in Post-War England, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020, pp. XII + 213, £80.00, ISBN: 9781526138385","authors":"C. Rusterholz","doi":"10.1017/bch.2020.25","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/bch.2020.25","url":null,"abstract":"In the last decade, ego-documents, oral history interviews, and the Mass Observation Archive have increasingly been used to trace changes in intimacy and authenticity in twentieth-century Britain and Europe.1 Similarly, demographic historians have used oral histories to better understand the ways religion impacted reproductive behaviours.2 Research by Diane Gervais and Danielle Gauvreau has shown the emotional struggles Catholic women underwent when trying to comply with the Catholic position on contraception in Quebec.3 The fiftieth anniversary of Humanae Vitae, the Catholic Encyclical that condemned the use of artificial methods of birth control, has further renewed interest in religion and sexuality.4 Despite this research, very little is known of the ways self-identified Catholic women lived their sexual lives in post-war Britain. David Geiringer’s book fills this gap. His clear prose challenges the ‘tale of sex destroying religion’ (p. 3) by closely exploring the discursive, material, and embodied sexual experiences of Catholic women. Based on 27 interviews with self-identified Catholic women, Geiringer takes women’s narratives seriously by recognising women’s agency in their daily life, and explores the relationship between religion and sexuality. Geiringer’s commitment to privileging the voices and experiences of Catholic women is reflected in the methodology and structure of the book. The life-cycle, divided in three key stages in reverse chronology, namely sexuality in later marriage, sexuality in early marriage, and early life and premarital sex, provide the core structure of his","PeriodicalId":41292,"journal":{"name":"British Catholic History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/bch.2020.25","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48431228","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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