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The seventeenth-century English and Scottish reception of Francis de Sales’ An Introduction to a Devout Life

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2016

Mary Hardy
Mary Hardy*
Affiliation:
School of Divinity, History & Philosophy, King’s College, University of Aberdeen, AB24 3FX UK. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

St Francis de Sales’ devotional manual, An Introduction to a Devout Life (1609), had a complex but fascinating reception history in seventeenth-century England and Scotland. Collectively, the English-language editions in this century include two translations and, perhaps most interestingly, several reformed editions. It is curious that a post-Reformation, Tridentine Catholic work, written by a French bishop dedicated to converting Protestant ‘Heretiques,’ would appeal to both Catholics and Protestants alike. Most of the seventeenth-century English editions were published abroad in Douai, Paris, St Omer, and Rouen, places that were home to many English and Scottish exiled communities, both lay and religious. Two of the three reformed editions were published in England, evidence of the Introduction’s widespread readership and its importance to seventeenth-century English devotion. Finally, during James II’s reign two Catholic editions were openly published, one in England and the other in Scotland.

Keywords

English recusantsScottish penal CatholicsSt Francis de SalesReceptionAn Introduction to a Devout Life
Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , October 2016 , pp. 228 - 258
Copyright
© Trustees of the Catholic Record Society 2016. Published by Cambridge University Press 

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References

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116 Ibid.

117 Ibid.

118 Ibid.

119 In the third part, the chapter numbers skip from thirty-nine to forty-one on account of removing the chapter ‘Of the honestie and chastitie of the marriage bed.’

120 Sales, An Introduction to a Devout Life (1701), ‘Of the Rise and Progress of Spiritual Books in the Romish Church.’

121 Stopp, A man to heal differences, 86.

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