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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
St. Gregory’s was a small college belonging to the English secular clergy founded at Paris in the late seventeenth century. Its main purpose was to enable suitable ecclesiastics who had completed their training at Douai or the other colleges abroad to pursue advanced studies at the Sorbonne before working on the mission in England. Its founders hoped it would serve to produce a corps of highly qualified men to fill the leading administrative and teaching posts in the Catholic Church in England. It survived until 1786 when financial difficulties forced it to close—temporarily, as was at first thought. During the Revolution it suffered the fate of the other English Catholic institutions in France, and it never, in fact, reopened. Among the documents that have survived from its archives is a Register Book covering the whole period of its existence from its first beginnings in 1667 until it closed down over a century later. This Register Book, which records the arrival and departure of students, the stages in their university career, their promotion to holy orders, deaths occurring at the college, and occasional memoranda of events affecting the life of the community, was edited for the Catholic Record Society in 1917 by the late Monsignor Edwin Burton.
1 CRS, pp. 93–160. The manuscript is at AA WZ 81.
2 Memoires de la Société de l’histoire de Paris, tom. 39, 1912, pp. 125–48.
3 The convent Annals, covering the period 1633–1741, are preserved at St. Augustine’s Priory, Ealing. They are currently being edited for CRS. The relevant clergy correspondence is at AA W A32, and the relevant Chapter records are partly in the Ushaw College archives (Old Series, F6) and partly at OBA (Minutes). Fr. Avery’s transcripts are deposited in typescript at AA W.
4 For a fuller account of its history see Allison, A. F., ‘Richard Smith’s Gallican Backers and Jesuit Opponents’, pt. 2, RH May 1989, pp. 254–71.Google Scholar
5 See Avery (Notes), p. 1.
6 Equivalent roughly to £120 sterling at this time. See art.cit. note 4 above, p. 281, n. 69.
7 Art.cit. note 4 above, pp. 271–7.
8 For Montague, see DNB and Gillow, vol. 5, pp. 73–78. Gillow mistakenly calls him O.S.B., presumably because he was Abbot in commendarti of a Benedictine monastery in France. Anst. omits him altogether, perhaps for the same mistaken reason. Montague was a secular priest. He was a member of the Chapter but was strongly opposed to the anti-papalist views of John Sergeant.
9 Anst. vol. 2, pp. 62–64.
9a Thomas, Massey. Anst. vol. 2, p. 213 Google Scholar. He appears to have remained in England after 1661 and to have acted as the Convent’s agent.
10 AAW A32 no. 102.
10a See notes 8, 17, 29.
11 The pistole was a Spanish gold coin in general circulation throughout Europe. The sterling equivalent at this period was about £1. Art.cit. note 4 above, p. 208, n. 66.
12 Richard Lasseis, alias Boulds (1603–68) See Anst, vol. 2, p. 184; and Chaney, E., The Grand Tour and the Great Rebellion. Richard Lasseis and ‘The Voyage of Italy’ in the seventeenth century, 1985, pp. 128–31.Google Scholar
13 John Leyburn (1620–1702), later Vicar Apostolic. See Anst. vol. 2, pp. 195–200.
14 AAW A32 no. 115.
15 Ushaw College Manuscripts. Old Series F/6. 2nd session. 7 May 1667. There is a summary in OBA (Minutes), p. 53. I am greatly indebted to Dr. Michael Sharratt, archivist and librarian at Ushaw, for a photocopy of the relevant entry at Ushaw.
16 OBA Bk. 4, no. 10. For Thomas Godden (vere Tilden) see Anst vol. 2, pp. 321–2. For John Singleton (vere Waddington) see Anst, vol. 2, p. 329.
17 Annals, vol. 1, pp. 50–53. For Paston, Betham, Giffard and Lutton (vere Elrington), see Anst. vol. 3, pp. 160–61; 13–14; 67–75; 55–56. For Lutton see also CRS 63 (1972), Douai College Documents, ed. P. R. Harris, p. 39. The main cause of the troubles at Douai in 1667–68 was George Leyburn’s insistence that his staff should sign a paper declaring their willingness to accept whatever form of government the Pope should decide upon for the Catholic Church in England. See Sharratt, M., ‘Bishop Russell and John Sergeant’, in Ushaw Magazine, June 1979, no. 253, pp. 22–37.Google Scholar
18 Avery (Documents), vol. 2, ff. 26–28. Citing AN Etude Le Roy XI liasse 211. 13 Dec. (n.s.) 1667.
19 ‘… une maison… concistante en cave servant de scellier, six chambres dont cinq à cheminees et grenier en galletas couvert de thuilles, deux chambres et grenier en galetas au dessus, couvert de thuilles [,] une gallere estant au dessus de la porte de ladite maison (couverte d’ardoises) dans laquelle sont les aisances…’
20 The letter is quoted verbatim in the Annals, vol. 1, pp. 53–54. It is there undated but was evidently written sometime between 3/13 December 1667 when Carre bought the house and 8 October 1668 when he made it over as a gift to Paston (see note 21 below).
21 Avery (Documents), vol. 2, ff. 29–30. Citing AN Etude d’Orleans XVX liasse 76. 8 October 1668. Paston had been naturalised French in June 1667.
22 23 April 1672. OBA (Minutes), p. 56.
23 Register Book (CRS 19), p. 109.
24 Avery (Documents), vol. 2, ff. 237–40. 20 Dec. 1685.
25 Annals, vol. 1, p. 55.
26 Annals, vol. 1, pp. 55–6.
27 OBA (Minutes), p. 61.
28 Avery (Documents), vol. 2, ff. 31–34. Citing AN Etude Torinon LXV.
29 Godden came to live temporarily at St. Gregory’s on two occasions, in 1675 and again in 1679, to escape persecution in England (Register Book, pp. 104, 105). As the result of pressure by Montague (Sharrat, art.cit. note 17 above, pp. 27–9), Sergeant had resigned as secretary of the Chapter in January 1668 and his resignation was formally accepted on 14 March 1668 (OBA, Minutes, p. 92). He came to live at St. Gregory’s in 1675 (Register Book, p. 104) but was back in London attending meetings of the Consult in August and September 1676 (OBA Minutes, p. 92). The present document shows that he was back at St. Gregory’s by 1 June 1677. Lutton had surrendered his room at the house in the Rue des Boulangers in January 1675 when he moved into the confessor’s residence at the convent after Carre’s death. (Register book, p. 104).
30 Under a revised constitution of 1674 the convent was no longer governed by an Abbess elected for life but by a Prioress elected every four years. The Prioress was assisted by a Council comprising herself and nine other members of the community. Mary Tredway resigned as Abbess in 1674 and died three years later. (Annals, vol. 2, pp. 88, et seq.).
31 Register Book, p. 104. The entry makes it clear that the 1200 livres from Shelburne’s estate had paid for only a part of the annuities purchased in 1634. An income of 129 livres, 8 sols and 4 deniers would represent the yield (at, say, 6%) on a capital investment of about twice that sum.
32 Bernard, Ward, The Eve of Catholic Emancipation 3 vols, 1911, vol. 1, pp. 218, 255 Google Scholar et seq.
33 Hay, M. V., The Blairs Papers (1603–1660), 1929, p. 12 Google Scholar. A. Bellesheim, History of the Catholic Church of Scotland, tr. D. 0. Hunter Blair. 4 vols, 1887–90. vol. 4, p. 287.
