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The Jesuits and Devotion to our Lady in the England of Elizabeth I and James I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Extract

The attitude of the Jesuits, as of all Catholic recusants at this time, was conditioned by being a persecuted minority. Maintaining their faith, they were also concerned to win over the persecutors. So Jesuit writings combine counter-attack and apologetic in ways not contradictory but certainly complex. Theirs was a special difficulty. They avoided politics, but many of their confrères on the continent, notably Robert Persons, favoured a military solution since the prevailing régime in England had from the outset rejected any peaceful overture. They relied on the Spaniards for a successful invasion. This never happened. Treason not prospering remained treason. But from about 1601 and the abortive Spanish effort at Kinsale, even the Catholics on the continent realised that there could be no forceful answer to the recusant dilemma.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 2007

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References

Notes

1 Two editions are used here. The earliest, undated, although a date may have been included in the cut-off bottom line of the titlepage, was probably printed at St Omer about 1593; now in the British Province Archives. The second edition, printed at St Omer in 1624, was reprinted by the Scolar Press in 1972 from the copy at Ushaw, with the original additions and omissions.

2 1593, pp. 1, 2; 1624, pp. 34, 35.

3 1593, pp. A2v, A3r; 1624, pp. 4, 5.

4 From ‘A briefe discourse of the devotion of our Lady’: 1593 no pagination; 1624, pp. 12, 13.

5 Cardwell, Edward, Documentary Annals of the Reformed Church of England, vol. 1, Oxford, 1844, pp. 210–49.Google Scholar The quotations are from the Introduction, Nos. i, ii, iii, xiii, xxxv.

6 Lodge, E., Illustrations, 1791, II, pp. 187–91.Google Scholar

7 Waterton, Edmund, Pietas Mariana Britannica, 1879, p. 6.Google Scholar He spent some twenty-six years researching his book. ‘Psalter’ is derived from Psalterium, an instrument of ten strings. Hence its application to the rosary, arranged in decades of ‘Hail Marys’ with a ‘Paternoster’ between each.

8 The Month, 218 (1964), pp. 192–97.Google Scholar

9 1593, A4r/v; 1624, A4r/v and pp. 7, 8.

10 Ibidem,

11 Waterton, op. cit., p. 157.

12 1624, A4r, A5r, pp. 9, 10.

13 1593, B3r/v: 1624, Blv, B2r, pp. 26, 27.

14 1593, p. 5; 1624, pp. 36, 37.

15 1593, pp. 6, 7; 1624, pp. 37, 38.

16 1593, pp. 20,21. The 1593 edition included ‘The maner of distribution of the life of our Saviour and ofour Lady for the Corone of 63 Aves’, pp. 60–66, and other ways of arranging the prayers.

17 1593, pp. 24, 25.

18 1593, p. 115.

19 Ibidem., p. 116. Following quotations pp. 117–31.

20 Hoskins, Roger, Horae Beatae Virginis or Sarum and York Primers with Kindred Books of the reformed Roman Use…, 1901, pp. viixxi.Google Scholar See also White, Helen, The Tudor Books of Private Devotion, Wisconsin, 1951:Google Scholar Butterworth, C. C., The English Primers (1529–1545). Their Publication and Connection with the English Bible and the Reformation in England, Philadelphia, 1951.Google Scholar Allison, A. F. and Rogers, D. M., Biographical Studies, 3, Bognor Regis, 1956.Google Scholar

21 Hicks, L. S.J., The Letters and Memorials of Father Robert Persons. S.J., Catholic Record Society, 39, 1942, p. 216.Google Scholar

22 Ibidem., p. 115.

23 Blom, J. M., The post-Tridentine English Primer, Catholic Record Society, 1982, pp. 168–75Google Scholar for a list of the 42 primers, the number so far known printed between 1599 and 1796.

24 The revised breviary appeared in 1568; the revised Officium Beatae Mariae Virginis in 1571. Cf. Blom, J. M., op. cit., p. 6.Google Scholar Copies of the 1599 edn. from the ‘reformed Latin’ of St Pius V are in Lambeth Palace Library and Downside Abbey. Further editions of the primer were printed at Antwerp for the English recusants in 1604, 1616 and 1621. These were in Latin and English while the primer in Latin with English rubrics was brought out in 1614, 1623 and 1633.

25 1599 edn., Sig. A2.