The success of the Counter-Reformation in Ireland following the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy was a remarkable achievement. Between 1618 and 1630 Rome made a staggering nineteen episcopal appointments in a kingdom that was ruled by a Protestant king. Documenting the achievements of the initial period only paints half the picture, however. The implementation of the Tridentine reforms and the thorny issue of episcopal authority brought the religious orders into a head-on collision with the secular clergy. This protracted dispute lasted for a decade, most notably in the diocese of Dublin where an English secular priest, Paul Harris, led a hostile attack on the Franciscan archbishop, Thomas Fleming. The longevity of the feud, though, owed at least as much to the intervention of Lord Deputy Sir Thomas Wentworth as it did to the internal tensions of the Catholic Church. Despite Wentworth’s influential role, he has been largely written out of the conflict. This article addresses the lacunae in the current historiography and argues that the lord deputy’s interference was a decisive factor in exacerbating the hostilities between the secular and regular clergy in early seventeenth-century Ireland.

Since Augustine, western medieval thinkers have largely identified ‘simplicity’ as the most fundamental feature of the divine nature. Although the western tradition of thinking about God has often been regarded as relatively continuous, I will demonstrate in this paper that a separate line of thought developed amongst early thirteenth-century Franciscan thinkers. This new tradition stressed God's immensity or infinity. In doing so, I will argue, it instigated a fundamental shift in the way of conceiving the nature of God that holds profound promise for reconciling factions in systematic theology today, particularly between classical theists and panentheists.

The fourteenth-century Kingdom of Aragon enjoyed a reputation as a haven for religious dissidents, doubters, heretical refugees and malcontents. This is particularly true of those fleeing the upheaval that the Franciscan Order experienced early in the century, as debates over the nature of poverty within the order created serious conflicts within communities, between friars and superiors, and between the order and the papacy. These visitors operated at the highest levels of the royal court, as has been well documented in the recent surge of interest in figures such as Ramon Llull and Arnald of Villanova. But the effects were also felt in rural communities, arousing suspicion among local bishops. Court proceedings and other documents reveal the pervasive atmosphere of doubt and suspicion that focused on several Franciscan houses in the diocese of Barcelona as late as the middle of the fourteenth century.