Porphyry and Eusebius, antagonistic witnesses, agree that one of Origcn’s early tutors was called Ammonius. This was also the name of the tutor of Origen’s younger contemporary Plot in us, and it. has long been the fashion to argue or assume that they were pupils of the same man. Heinrich Dörrie perhaps remains alone in his view that the two men called Ammonius were distinct, a view for which I shall argue in this article, though not entirely on Döme’s grounds. In the first part I shall present the available evidence, and in the second use it to defend Döme’s position against its detractors; in the third part I shall argue that the confusion of the two began in the early Christian centuries, through a mixture of knowledge and pardonable ignorance, and finally I shall advance another candidate, whose credentials for the position of Origen’s tutor have not been adequately examined in modern discussion.

Since the destruction of the Temple the synagogue has been at the heart of every Jewish community. Here the individual could affirm his obedience to the laws (kalakkot) through prayer and ceremony. In this way he sought the salvation of the soul and the resurrection of the body in the messianic age. In addition the community, through the offices of the synagogue, was able to exercise close control over the social lives of all its members, by excommunication if necessary but this was rarely required for ‘the social consequences of nonconformity brought irresistible pressure to bear upon the transgressor’.

It is well known that the Council of Constance (1414–18) was concerned with reform, heresy and – above all – the ending of the Great Schism of the papacy. However, comparatively few realise how many personal and institutional suits were heard at tribunals there. Christopher Crowder has asserted with justifiable exaggeration that more ‘ecclesiastical carpetbaggers’ were in attendance than ‘ecclesiastical statesman’. This article, based on hitherto unused material, is a case study which presents the activities of certain ‘carpetbaggers’ and their agents in some detail. It is offered partly because it further documents Crowder's assertion, partly because it supports his conclusion that judicial procedures at the papal curia in the late Middle Ages operated with great continuity, and partly because it suggests how closely King Henry v could concern himself with the details of ecclesiastical business. It also throws unusual light on medieval English hospitals, especially on alien priory establishments. Furthermore, it exemplifies the inordinate amounts of time, documentation, money and gifts required in order to pursue cases at the papal curia; difficulties stemming from reliance on proctors there; the time lags and other problems related to international correspondence and financial transactions in the early fifteenth century; and connections between ‘carpetbaggers’ and ‘ecclesiastical statesmen’ that sometimes affected curia cases.

Writing from prison during the Marian persecution, Nicholas Ridley praised the elderly Dr Edward Crome to his friend John Hooper, who was incarcerated with Crome. Ridley had heard of Crome's ‘most godly and fatherly constancy in confessing the truth of the gospel’, and declared, ‘For the integrity and uprightness, the gravity and innocency of that man, all England, I think, hath known long ago.’ Ridley also wrote to John Bradford in 1555 that Crome was a ‘fatherly example of patience and constancy, and all manner of true godliness’.

Early modern Ireland defied its English and Protestant rulers and remained largely Catholic. Historians have explained this situation variously: in terms of Protestant feebleness, official indifference or Catholic vigour. Among Protestant failings, scant use of the Irish language has been listed. An attitude to the Irish tongue, at best ambiguous and at worst hostile, can be connected first with English concepts of civility and then with the severe Calvinist theology which pulsed through the Established Church of Ireland in the early seventeenth century, and which, by equating those already Protestant with the elect, justified devoting its sparse resources to them. In contrast, the Catholic Irish, because irredeemably reprobate, together with their language, could be ignored.

The general opinion of historians has been that the East India Company was opposed to the presence of Christian missionaries in India. It is generally held also that when the Charter Act of 813 left the Company with no option but to admit them, its governments in India maintained a fairly consistent posture of religious neutrality. These notions have recently been reinforced by Penelope Carson. But thisignores the Company's policies towards Roman Catholic missionaries. In the eighteenth century the Company welcomed Roman Catholic missionaries. It was at the nvitation of the Bombay government that Italian Carmelite missionaries settled there in 1718. It was at the invitation of the authorities of Fort St George that a French Capuchin mission was established in Madras in 1742. When the Company came into Kerala towards the end of the eighteenth century an Italian Carmelite mission was already established there, with a bishop and two priests. The mission was soon receiving material support from the Company.