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The Missing ‘Allen–Persons’ Cases of Conscience
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 February 2015
Abstract
Cardinal William Allen, Robert Persons, S. J. and the Rev. Gregory Martin supervised the production in about 1581 of a discussion of cases of consciences, which were intended for the use by students trained for the English mission at the Venerable English College, Rome. The principal manuscript copy of these cases previously known is missing a final section. This has now turned up in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries of London. This article consists of an introduction to the manuscript sources, the cases and their doctrine; a transcript of the Latin text; and a translation of it into English.
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References
Notes
1 Elizabethan Casuistry, ed. Holmes, P. J., Catholic Record Society, 1981,Google Scholar Introduction.
2 ‘Resolutiones quorundam casuum nationis Anglicanae’, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 565, ff. 16–55v.
3 Willetts, Pamela J., Catalogue of the Manuscripts of the Society of Antiquaries of London (London, 2000), p. 12.Google Scholar
4 My thanks are due to the Society of Antiquaries of London for permission to publish the extract below, and to Mr Adrian James, Assistant Librarian, for his assistance when I visited their library.
5 Sir, Henry Ellis, Catalogue of the manuscripts in the library of the Society of Antiquaries (London, 1816), p. 4.Google Scholar
6 Joan, Evans, History of the Society of Antiquaries (Oxford, 1956), 161–2, 177–8, 189–90, 216–18.Google Scholar
7 Elizabethan Casuistry, pp. 96–8; Society of Antiquaries of London, MS 21, fos. 35v–36.
8 Elizabethan Casuistry, p. 114; SAL, MS 21, fo. 8.
9 Elizabethan Casuistry, p. 69; SAL, MS 21, fo. 9.
10 Evans, History, p. 70.
11 Elizabethan Casuistry, p. 101 (Case II, ii, 3); p. 120 (Case II, ii, 120); SAL, MS 21, fos. 64v–5 (Case III, 5, edited below).
12 Elizabethan Casuistry, pp. 52–3, 54–5 (Douai-Rheims, J2, J5), 63–6, 77, 122 (Allen-Persons, I, 1; II, i, 7; II, ii, 28). Cf. also Holmes, P J, Resistance and Compromise: the Political Thought of the Elizabethan Catholics (recently republished as a paperback, Cambridge, 2009), 81–125;Google Scholar Crosignani, G., McCoog, T. M., Questier, M. (assisted by Holmes, P.), Recusancy and Conformity in Early Modern England (Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2010), esp. pp. 100–110.Google Scholar By far the best introduction to Elizabethan and Jacobean casuistry, both Catholic and Protestant, is still, Elliot Rose, Cases of Conscience (Cambridge, 1975), see especially pp. 71–113, 242–50.Google Scholar
Holmes, Cf. P. (ed.), Caroline Casuistry: the Cases of Conscience of Fr Thomas Southwell SJ (C.R.S., 2012), esp. introduction, pp. xxiv–xxxi, and pp. 67–8,Google Scholar where a case similar to the one under review here is discussed by a casuist in the 1630s.
13 Elizabethan Casuistry, p. 55.
14 Matthew, Sutcliffe, A new challenge (London, 1600), 94 Google Scholar [vere 122].
15 Elizabethan Casuistry, pp. 52–3 (Douai-Rheims, J2); 63–6 (Allen-Persons, I, 1).
16 Thomas, Morton, An exact discovery of Romish Doctrine (London, 1605), pp. 42–4.Google Scholar
17 Elizabethan Casuistry, pp. 55–55 (Douai-Rheims, J2, J5, J6; 63–6, 121 (Allen–Persons, I, 1; II, ii, 27). Some of the issues raised by these cases are also discussed in the 1630s by Thomas Southwell: see Holmes, P., Caroline Casuistry (C.R.S., 2012), pp. 46–7.Google Scholar
18 Elizabethan Casuistry, pp. 63–6 (Allen–Persons, I, 1).
19 Petriburg, M. (Mandell Creighton), ‘The excommunication of Queen Elizabeth,’ English Historical Review VII (1892), pp. 84–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
20 Elizabethan Casuistry, p. 121 (Allen–Persons, II, ii, 27.)
21 Sutcliffe, M., A new Challenge (London, 1600), p. 112;Google Scholar cf. 115–116, 121–2.
22 Richard, Walpole, A brief and clear confutation (1603), 209v–211.Google Scholar
23 Sic, for ‘promissionem’.
24 Sic, for ‘fugiendo’.
25 Sic, for ‘fugiendum’.
26 Sic, for ‘habebat’.
27 This 3-word phrase is first written twice and then one version is crossed out.
28 Sic, for ‘tenetur’.
29 Sic, for ‘putet’.
30 Underlined in original.
31 Sic, for ‘contingit’.
32 At this point the Lambeth MS ends.
33 Sic, for ‘suam’.
34 Sic, for ‘teneor’.
35 Sic, for ‘legitime’.
36 Sic, probably a miscopy of ‘12o no 24o’, see previous reference to Navarre in text.
37 At this point there is a faint ‘n’ (?) in the margin closest to the reference which follows, possibly for ‘nota’.
38 Sic, for ‘petere’.
39 At this point, the copyist inserted by mistake the passage between footnotes 40 and 42 (from 'vllo’ to ‘con’), which was later crossed out.
40 See note 39.
41 Sic, for ‘in’ (reading supplied by the crossed-out section, see note 39.)
42 See note 39.
43 Underlined in the original.
44 Underlined in the original.
45 Sic, for ‘scit’.
46 Sic, for ‘legitime’.
47 Largely obscured by the library stamp.
48 Thomas, de Vio Cajetan, Secunda Secundae partis Summae Sacrae Theologiae S. Thomae Aquinatis, doctoris Angelici cum commentariis R. D. D. Thomae de Vio Caietani (Louvain, 1581), pp. 294 ff., 389ff.Google Scholar
49 Cicero, De Officiis, Book 1, § 7. (Peabody, Andrew P. (ed.), Cicero de Officiis (Boston, 1887), p. 14.)Google Scholar
50 See subsection 5 at the very end of the case.
51 This is the point at which the Lambeth Palace manuscript ends.
52 Martin, ab Azpilcueta, Enchiridion sive manuale confessariorum et poenitentium (Antwerp, 1575), p. 159.Google Scholar
53 Martin, an Azpilcueta, Enchiridion, p. 163.Google Scholar
54 Decretum Gratiani (Rome, 1582), pp. 1691–2 (actually at q. 5).
55 ‘He’ changes again to ‘they’ at this point in the manuscript.
56 ‘He’ changes to ‘they’ at this point in the manuscript.
57 This seems to mean that a priest might be persuaded, by subtle questioning, to agree that the Parliament which agreed to the Prayer Book was thereby shown to be heretical and schismatical. In doing so the priest would also have agreed that the Queen was heretical and schismatical, since she also agreed to the Prayer Book, or perhaps constitutionally since she is a part of Parliament. The translation given above goes beyond the literal meaning of the Latin.
58 The ‘visio pacis’ is the heavenly city, holy city or Jerusalem, and used in an ancient hymn which is in the Breviary. ‘Coelestis patria’ is a phrase used to signify heaven, for example by Saint Thomas Aquinas in the sermon Beata Gens. Quite what riddles on English place-names the casuist had in mind is unclear.