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Changing Images of Roman Catholic Religious Orders in the Nineteenth Century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
‘“Camelot-Camelot:” said I to myself “I don’t seem to remember hearing of it before. Name of the asylum, likely.”’ so said Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court. But the irony is that the joke is now on Twain. In examining The Discovery of the Asylum, David J. Rothman has persuasively argued that the American asylum which developed in the 1820s and 1830s served a dual purpose. It would create the correct desirable attitudes within its inmates and by virtue of its success, set an example of right action to the larger society. The well-ordered asylum would exemplify the proper principles of social organisation and thus insure the safety of the republic and promote its glory. My purpose is to suggest that the monastery in Europe served a similar purpose. Europeans faced similar social and political problems to Americans and the rediscovery of monasticism paralleled the growth of American institutions and served a similar purpose in the public arena. In the process a more tolerant and sympathetic attitude towards religious orders emerged.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Studies in Church History , Volume 22: Monks, Hermits and the Ascetic Tradition , 1985 , pp. 351 - 363
- Copyright
- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1985
References
1 Quoted in heading to chapter I, John Fraser, America and the Patterns of Chivalry (Cambridge 1982).
2 The Discovery of the Asylum: Social Order and Disorder in the New Republic (Boston 1971) and his later Conscience and Convenience: the Asylum and Alternatives in Progressive America (Boston 1980).
3 See Use (Hempel) Lipschutz, Spanish Painting [and the French Romantics] (Cambridge, Mass. 1972) esp pp. 205–12 and Allen Staley, The Pre-Raphaelite Landscape (Oxford 1973) p. 14: Keith Andrews, The Nazarenes: A Brotherhood of German Painters in Rome (Oxford 1964): Maria Monk, Awful Disclosures of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery of Montreal (New York 1836); Rebecca T. Reed, Six Months in a Convent (Boston 1835). See R.A. Billington, The Protestant Crusade, 1800–60; A Study of the Origins of American Nativism (Chicago 1964 ed).
4 See Ward, Bernard, The Sequel to Catholic Emancipation, 1830–50, 2 vols (London 1915)Google Scholar.
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6 An excellent summary will be found in W.H.G. Armytage, Heavens Below: [Utopian Experiments in England 1560–1960 (London 1961)] pp. 77–288.
7 See for example my ‘Robert Urquhart, Robert Monteith and the Catholic Church’ Innes Review v. (1980) pp. 57–80: [C. de Montalembert,] The Monks [of the West, 6 vols (London 1906)] 1 p. 127 makes the same point. Also see for example L. L. Richards, ‘Gentlemen of Property and Standing’: Anti-abolition Mobs in Jacksonian America (New York 1970).
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11 Scottish Protestant, 6 September 1851. Also see Basil Hall ‘Alessandro Gavazzi’ in SCH 12, pp. 303–56; R. Sylvain, Clerc Garibaldien, Prêcheur des Deux Mondes: Alessandro Gavazzi 1809–89 2 vols (Quebec 1962) 2 pp. 287–441. R.A. Billington, The Protestant Crusade pp. 413–15 gives details of the tipsy tour and association with ladies of easy virtue at state expense.
12 See for example Emily Faithfull, Three Visits to America (Edinburgh 1884) p. 371; Charles Lyell, Travels in North America, 2 vols (London 1845) I p. 312: J.R. Godley, Letters from America, 2 vols (London 1844) 1 pp. 70–1, 2 pp. 229–37 among others.
13 J.B. Dalgairns wrote a series of lives St. Stephen Harding (London 1844); St. Gilbert (London 1844) and St. Aelred (London 1845). They were very influential in stimulating the foundation of an American Episcopalian monastery in Wisconsin. Clarence Walworth, The Oxford Movement in America (New York 1974 ed) pp. 106–18.
14 The Monks 1 p. 22.
15 I have used the London 1906 edition. There were at least two French, two British and two American editions. See his development through Du Vandalisme et Du Catholicisme dans l’Art (Paris, 1839); Catholic Interests in the Nineteenth Century (London 1852); The Political Future of England (London 1856) and A Debate on India in the English Parliament (London 1858). R.P. Lecanuet’s Life 3 vols (Paris 1899–1902) remains standard.
16 Encyclical letter 17 June 1847 quoted in The Monks 1, dedication.
17 Ibid 1 p. 20.
18 Ibid 1 p. 22.
19 Ibid 1 p. 1.
20 Ibid 4 pp. 338–39.
21 Ibid 5 pp. 86–101 esp. Also I pp. 104–27.
22 Quoted in Christ, Carol, ‘Victorian Masculinity [and the Angel in the House’ pp. 146–62, at 160 in A Widening Sphere: Changing Roles of Victorian Women, ed Martha Vicinus (London 1977)]Google Scholar. On the ideal see Girouard, Mark, The Return to Camelot Chivalry and the English Gentleman (New Haven 1981) esp pp. 198–218 Google Scholar.
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24 Charles Kingsley, Poems (London 1884) carries the full text: Use H. Lipschutz, Spanish Painting, passim. Collinson subsequently spent four years as a Jesuit novice. Robin Ironside, Pre-Raphaelite Painters (London 1948) p. 26.
25 London 1840. Montalembert had researched and written the original work in the midst of his personal search for an ideal wife.
26 C. Kingsley, Poems p. 115, also p. 179.
27 The Scottish Protestant, I Nov, 1851. The penny weekly seems to have been distributed through Saturday night street preachers who invariably precipitated a disturbance in the process.
28 Archbishop Affre 1843 pastoral quoted in The Monks 1 pp. 77–8. Paul Thompson, William Butterfield (London 1971) pp. 29, 36–9: A.M. Allchin, The Silent Rebellion: Anglican Religious Communities, 1845–1900 (London 1958) and P.F. Anson, The Call of the Cloister: Religious Communities and Kindred Bodies in the Anglican Communion (London 1964) suggest the growing wide appeal of monastic life.
29 J.M. Davidson, The Old Order and the New, (London n.d.) p. 7. Also see W. Cobbett, History of the Protestant Reformation, 2 vols (London 1829 ed) I Letters I, 5, 6 and 7 unpaginated: P.E. Dove, The Elements of Political Science (Edinburgh 1854) p. 117 and his The Theory of Human Happiness (London 1850) pp. 41–4.
30 See Knight, William, Some Nineteenth Century Scotsmen (Edinburgh 1903) pp. 221–45 Google Scholar and Norman, and MacKenzie, Jeanne, The First Fabians (London 1972) esp p. 180 Google Scholar; Davidson, Thomas, The Philosophical System of Antonio Rosmini-Serbati (London 1882)Google Scholar; Leetham, Claude, Rosmini (London 1957)Google Scholar.
31 Davidson, T., History of Education (London 1900) p. 260 Google Scholar.
32 Davidson, T., ‘Antonio Rosmini’ Fortnightly Review N.S. 30 (1881) pp. 553–84.Google Scholar
33 quoted in W.H.G. Armytage, Heavens Below p. 329. A somewhat overpowering character he held similar critical social views to his brother although he remained hostile to socialism. Cf. Ernest Rhys, Everyman Remembers (London 1931) p. 133; J.M. Davidson, The Gospel of the Poor (London 1896) and his vigorous nationalist tract Leaves from the Book of Scots (Glasgow 1914) and The Annals of Toil (London 1899).
34 See the considerable correspondence between T. Davidson, and W. James 1881–1900 in the W. James collection Houghton Library, Harvard University.
35 8 Nov 1902, in The Journals of Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson, 1879–1922, 2 vols ed R. Cobden-Sanderson (London 1926) 2 p. 39.
36 Ibid I p. 277; 2 pp. 39–40, 52, 66, 80–83. Also see Lionel Lambourne, Utopian Craftsmen: The Arts and Crafts Movement from the Cotswolds to Chicago (London 1980).
37 Scudder, Vida, Socialism and Character (London 1912) p. 67.Google Scholar She was active in the settlement house movement as well as Professor of English at Wellesey. Also see Addams, Jane, Twenty Years at Hull House (New York 1910).Google Scholar
38 See Ruskin, John, ‘Valle Crucis’, in his Works, ed E.T. Cook and A. Wedderbum, 40 vols (London 1903-12) 33 pp. 205–254;Google Scholar Blackwell, E., Essays on Medical Sociology, 2 vols (London 1902) 1 p. 166;Google Scholar Richter, Melvin, The Politics of Conscience: T.H. Green and his Age (London 1964) p. 30;Google Scholar Armytage, W.H.G., Heavens below pp. 289–384.Google Scholar It is worth noting that monasticism’s new image paralleled the development of modern planned communities from the 1840s. See Creese, W.L., The Search for Environment: The Garden City Before and After (New Haven 1966)Google Scholar and Dorley, Gilliam, Villages of Vision (London 1975)Google Scholar. Monasteries also illustrate the development of Catholic economic thinking in Le Play and others. See the survey in Diamant, Alfred, Austrian Catholics and the First Republic: Democracy Capitalism and the Social Order, 1918–1934 (Princeton 1960) pp. 3–69.Google Scholar