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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2016
The Englishmen who were members of the Italian or Cassinese Benedictine Congregation in the seventeenth century have been neglected, mainly because, unlike the Englishmen who joined Spanish monasteries, the Cassinese did not perpetuate themselves and thus did not produce historians who would keeptheir memory alive. This is a pity, since several of them are important figures: Robert Gregory Sayer (1560-1602), who gained an international reputation as a moral theologian, which, it has been claimed, remains unrivalled among Englishmen; Roland Thomas Preston (1567-1647), whose prolific literaryoutput against the papal deposing power at least assures him of a place in the history of Anglo-Gallicanism; and Robert Anselm Beech (1568-1634), who was the agent in Rome who negotiated the setting up of the Benedictine mission to England and defended it against attack.
The Anglo-Italians failed to perpetuate themselves because in 1616 they refused to unite with the other English monks, mainly in order to remain loyal to Preston, whom the others condemned for his writings. This article deals, first, with their attempt to found a community of their own at Paris, and, then, with their final years as a group. These two episodes have not been noticed before, and they have to be reconstructed entirely from manuscripts in the archives of the Archbishop of Westminster, the Abbey of S. Pietro at Perugia, the Congregation ‘de Propaganda Fide’ and the Vatican Library.
1 Mahoney, E.J., The Theological Position of Gregory Sayerus, O.S.B., 1560-1602 (Ware, 1922)Google Scholar.
2 Lunn, D.M., ‘The Anglo-Gallicanismof Dom Thomas Preston, 1567-1647’, Heresy, Schism and Religious Protest, ed. Baker, D., Studies in Church History 9 (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 239-46Google Scholar.
3 Lunn, D.M., ‘The Origins and Early Development of the Revived English Benedictine Congregation, 1588-1647’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis (Cambridge, 1970), chaps 3 and 4Google Scholar.
4 Monte Cassino Archives (abbreviation — MC), ‘Matricula . . . ’ s.v. Other abbreviations: AAW — Archives ofthe Archbishop of Westminster; ARSI — Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu; HMC — Historical Manuscripts Commission; VA — Vatican Archives; VL — Vatican Library; DR—The Downside Review; CRS — Catholic Record Society; AP — Archives of the Congregation of Propaganda ; SOCG — Scritture Originali Riferite nelle Congregazioni Generali; DL — Downside Abbey Archives.
5 MC, ‘Matricula . . . ’, s.v.; Birt, H.N., The Obit Book of the English Benedictines from 1600 to 1912, reprinted with an introduction by Lunn, D.M. (Farnborough, 1970), p. 10 Google Scholar.
6 The Life and Letters of Sir H. Wotton, 2 vols, ed. Smith, L.P. (Oxford, 1907), vol. 1, p. 350 Google Scholar.
7 Perugia MSS/803: Codner to Law, 23 December 1636.
8 AAW 9/173: [J. Jackson alias] Nelson to More, 8/18 June 1611.
9 AAW 10/495: W. W. to [Richard] Ireland, c. 1611-12.
10 ARSI 36/262: Silisden to Vitelleschi, 28 August [1626].
11 AAW 10/195: Benjamin Norton to More, 14/24 June 1611.
12 AAW 10/169: R. Pett to More, 4 June 1611.
13 AAW 10/303: Champney to More, 16 August 1611; 319: same to same, 31 August 1611; 331: Pett to More, 3 September 1611.
14 AAW 10/365: Champney to More, 27 September 1611; HMC 76 Downshire 3, 177: Edmondes to Trumbull, 6 November 1611.
15 AAW 10/395: E. Bennett to More, 16 October 1611 ; 425 : Champney to More, 22 November 1611; 11/285-6: More to Champney, 20 June 1612; 343: R. Smith to More, 31 July 1612; Chaussy, Y., Les Bénédictins Anglais Réfugiés en France au XVIIe Siècle (1611-1669) (Paris, 1967), pp. 44–47 Google Scholar.
16 VA Borghese I/911/357-8 : Ubaldini to Borghese, 14 August 1612; AAW 12/667: Champney to More, 18 December 1613.
17 AAW 11/617: Champney to More, 4 December 1612. See HMC 76 Downshire 3, 194; Thomas Floud to Trumbull, 8/18 December 1612.
18 Spicilegium Benedictinum, 5 vols (Rome, 1896), I, 11–18 Google Scholar: Augustine [Smith] to Beech, 4 December 1612. See HMC 76 Downshire 3, 440: J. Beaulieu to Trumbull, 17 December 1612.
19 AAW 12/75: Champney to More, 12 February 1613; 129: same to same, 26 March 1613; Chaussy, p. 90.
20 AAW 11/343: Smith to More, 31 July 1612; 12/667: Champney to More, 18 December 1613.
21 AAW 10/303: Champney to More, 1 August 1611.
22 Archives of the Abbey of Subiaco, MS 42/64; AAW 8/479; CRS 39, 139-40.
23 MC, ‘Matricula Monachorum Omnium Congregationis S. Justinae ... a 1409 ad annum 1782’.
24 For this and the following: Perugia MSS/757, 759: William Law to [T. G. Law], 10/20 February 1623/4, 4/14 January 1624/5. The first is printed in Spicilegium Benedictinum 11, 60-61.
25 Fabre, F., ‘Unedited documents inthe Town Archives at Douai relating to the English secular college’, DR 89 (1971) 302-16Google Scholar. (Notes 27-31 contributed by D. M. Lunn); CRS 10, pp. 28, 44, 50, 52, 57, 124, 130-1, 140.
26 CRS 37, 130-1.
27 AAW 10/109-10: Augustine Bradshaw to Thomas More, 9 May 1611.
28 AAW 14/81-88: Don Gregorio Inglese to Don Francesco di Perugia and Don Alouigio Romano, 1 February 1615.
29 Perugia MSS/757, 759.
30 AP, Lettere della S. Cong, dell’ anno 1626, 5/25v: to P. Fra. Gregorio Inglese, 4 February 1626.
31 Perugia MSS/555: expenses paid out of the Nicholas Fitzherbert bequest; Lunn, , ‘Benedictine Opposition to Bishop Richard Smith’, Recusant History 11 (1971) 1–20 Google Scholar.
32 AP SOCG 134/129, 132: Codner to Ingoli, 28 March and 19 April 1634. He lived at S. Callisto and was Secretary to Cardinal Borgia (Perugia MSS 813: Codner to Law, 31 March 1637).
33 Perugia MSS/773: Codner to Law, 25 April 1634.
34 VL Barb. 8633/186-190v: Panzani to Barberini, 2 March 1634; VA Inghilterra 5/24: same to same, 9 March 1635. See also VL Barb. 8619/124: Codner to Barberini, 3 March 1641; Dockery, J.B., Christopher Davenport, London, 1960, pp. 66, 69Google Scholar; AP Acta 10, Cong. 199, no. 11, pp. 150V-151: 5 December 1634.
35 Spicilegium Benedictinum 11, 5-12: Codner to Law, 23 December 1636.
36 AP SOCG 105/210: Stravius, Nuncio at Brussels, to Barberini, 3 February 1635; Acta 10, Cong. 203, no. 27, p. 226: 23 April 1635. See also SOCG 134/132: Codner to Ingoli, 19 April 1634; Acta 10, Cong. 207, no. 36, p. 304: 21 August 1635.
37 Perugia MSS/785: Codner to President Giulio di Castello, 20 October 1636; undated version in Spicilegium Benedictinum 11, 15-17.
38 AP SOCG 137/345, 346-7v: Codner to Ingoli, 24 June 1637, with ‘Injunctions pro bono Regimine Regularium Missionariorum in Anglia’. The others accused him of forging it (VL Barb. 8619/124).
39 AP SOCG 137/255: Codner to Ingoli, 30 June 1637; Perugia MSS/817: Codner to Law, 11 August 1637.
40 Perugia MSS/787, 807: Codner to Law, 20 October and 30 December 1636; Spicilegium Benedictinum 11, 5-12: same to same, 23 December 1636; Perugia MSS/813: Codner to Law, 31 March 1637.
41 Perugia MSS/819: D. Maurus Taylor to Law, received 29 December 1637.
42 VL Barb. 8619/99: Codner to Barberini, 26 February 1641.
43 DL, Bliss transcripts IX/137v-139v: Carlo Rosetti, at Cologne, despatch of 6 July 1642.
44 AP SOCG 87/364V. January/September 1642; VL Barb. 8620/92-93: to Barberini, 2 November 1642.
45 Oratio in Funere Augustissimae Mariae de Medicis, (Paris, 1643)Google Scholar.
46 AP SOCG 43/13, 18: Codner to Spada and the Holy Office, 18 September 1645; ibid. 409/169, 170v, and 410/118, 131v: report and petition to Propanganda, n.d.; Acta 16, Cong. 15, no. 21, p. 432, and no. 36, p. 437: 19 September 1645.
47 AP SOCG 43/16: Codner to Barberini, 22 September 1645. See ibid. 410/123, 124, 125v: to Spada and the Holy Office, 7 November 1645.
48 AP SOCG 43/15: Codner to Ingoli, 27 November 1645; Acta 16, Cong. 15, no. 35, p. 481 : 5 December 1645.
49 AP SOCG 43/162, 170: Codner to Innocent X, 26 December 1645.
50 AP SOCG 43/63: to Ingoli, 18 January 1646.
50 Armellini, M., Bibliotheca Benedictino-Casinensis (9 vols, Assisi, 1731-36) 1, 149Google Scholar.
51 AP SOCG 416/477, 488v: Law to Barberini, April 1648; Acta 43, Cong. 81, no. 3, p. 57v: 1 April 1648.
53 MC, ‘Matricula’, s.v.v.; AP Acta 36, no. 12, pp. 30v-31v: 8 February 1667. Bodleian MS Rawlinson C. 960, a recently discovered Cassinese Matricula, has Maurus Taylor and Michael Godfrey still alive in 1653.
