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New Light on the Early History of the Breve Compendio. The Background to the English Translation of 1612

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

A.F. Allison
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Extract

Twenty-five years ago two scholars working independently published the results of their researches on the origin and early history of the late sixteenth century mystical treatise known as Breve compendio intorno alla perfezione cristiana. Marcel Viller S. J., in an article in Revue d'ascétique et de mystique (1931), settled the question of authorship and provided an invaluable account of the circumstances in which the treatise was composed. Jean Dagens, writing in Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique (1931) on Bérulle’s Bref discour de l'abnégation intérieure, which is based on the Breve compendio, discussed the history of the work in France. These two studies aroused considerable interest at the time and led to the publication of further articles and notes. Dagens summarises the results of this research in his chapter on the Bref discours in his recent extensive study, Bérulle et les origines de la restauration catholique, 1575–1611 (1952). After such thorough investigation it may seem doubtful whether any further really important discoveries are likely to be made, but within certain limits there is still scope for enquiry, and in the present note I want to discuss briefly an English translation of the Breve compendio, first published in 1612, which was unknown to Viller and Dagens. First it will be necessary to summarise what they say about the early history of the original work.

Type
Articles
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , May 1957 , pp. 4 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1957

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References

Notes

1. Année 12, no.45, pp.44-89, “L’ Abrégé de la perfection de la dame milanaise”. Copy in the Bodleian Library.

2. Année 31, tom. 27, pp. 318-349, “Notes Bérulliennes. La source du ‘Bref discours de l’ abnégation intérieure’”.

3. Published by Desclée, De Brouwer & cie.

4. Revue d'ascétique et de mystique, 1923-24, p.8.

5. Not in STC. Allison & Rogers no.349.

6. Unfortunately it is at present mislaid. The late Pr. C.A. Newdigate S.J. recorded the existence of this copy in his unpublished notes (kept at Farm St.) on Catholic books of the penal times. For the text of the 1612 edition I have used the verbatim transcript made by Augustine Baker in 1629 from a copy then in the convent library at Cambrai. I refer to Baker's work more fully later in this article.

7. It was for this reason placed on the Index in 1703 and only removed at the end of the last century (Viller, p.53).

8. As the only copy is at present mislaid, I have not been able to examine the types and ornaments used. My authority is Pr. C.A.Newdigate who made a special study of the S. Omer press.

9. For a brief account of him, see Newdigate, “Notes on the Seventeenth Century Printing Press of the English College at Saint Omer”, The Library, 1919, pp. 179-190, 223–242.Google Scholar

10. I have discussed these sources in a previous article (Biographical Studies, vol.2, no.3, pp. 189–190).Google Scholar

11. For Hoskins, see Foley, vol.4, p. 392; and CRS., vol.30, p. 14.

12. Allison & Rogers no. 405

13. Allison & Roger no. 32.

14. Allison & Rogers nos.815, etc.

15. por an account of Mary Percy and her foundation, see Guilday, The English Catholic Refugees on the Continent, pp.256, etc.; and Whelan, Historic English Convents of today,, pp. 39, etc.

16. Shelfmark D.4. Serial no.28 in Justin McCann's “Register of Pr. Baker's Writings” appended to his edition of the lives of Baker by Salvin and Cressy (1933). I am deeply indebted to the Abbot of Downside for allowing me to use the manuscript. It is bound in contemporary vellum and is written in the same hand throughout. After the text of the Abridgment (including the second part, entitled “The Ladder of Perfection”) comes An Enquiry about the Author of the Foregoing Treatises of the Abridgment, & the Ladder of Perfection. Composed by the R. F. A.B. Monk of ye H. Order of S. Benedict.

17. The nuns sent from Brussels in 1623 were Dame Prances Gawen, Dame Pudentiana Deacons and Dame Viviana Yaxley (CRS. xiii, p. 1). Baker's informant was presumably one of these.

18. pp. 8-9.

19. Allison & Rogers nos.350, 351.

20. pp. 16-17. “The Ladder of Perfection” forms the second part of the Abridgment and is likewise translated from the French of 1598; it appears in both the 1612 and the 1625 English editions. John Wilson was never a Jesuit, and Mary Percy was not yet an abbess in 1612, but these inaccuracies do not invalidate Baker's evidence.

21. Allison & Rogers no.352.

22. pp.24-25. The “New Edition” is really a reissue of the sheets of the 1625 edition with a cancel title.

23. The only copy known to me is at the British Museum (pressmark: C. 111. a. 16).

24. Viller was aware of Binet's translation in Receuil des oeuures spiriiuelles where Gagliardi's name is not mentioned, and he expresses surprise that Binet does not mention Gagliardi. I take my information about Binet's early career in the Society from Viller's article.

25. Wilson's 1625 edition, pp.3-4.

26. Baker's transcript of 1612 ed., p. 50.

27. Wilson's 1625 ed., p. 194. Italics mine.

28. Baker's transcript of 1612 ed., p. 44.

29. Wilson's 1625 ed., pp. 184-185.

30. Whether he ever saw a copy of Binet's 1612 edition is doubtful, for his knowledge of it is far from precise. He mistakenly calls the translator ‘F. Francis Binet” and he speaks of the work as having been published “About the year 1620”. (Enquiry, p. 10.)

31. So also did his superior. Rudesind Barlow, the President of the English Benedictine Congregation, who gave his approbation to the work, wording it thus: “this Book, Called, An Enquiry, &c may Lawfully be Read; for it Containeth Nothing but a Manifest Discovery of Foul play, and probable Arguments to prove that Truth, after wch it Inquireth”. (Titlepage verso. Dated 20 November 1629.)

32. Allison & Rogers Nos.737.738.

33. p. 58.