The Persistence of Catholicism

This volume collects previously published studies, now thoroughly updated and revised, with the aim of exploring the religious and political complexities of early modern English Catholicism from the mid-sixteenth through the late seventeenth centuries.

Together, these essays analyze the residual presence of Catholic culture within the larger narrative of English history, using the work of such writers as William Shakespeare, John Donne, and Dame Gertrude More, as well as a range of non-literary evidence, to interpret the varieties of religious experience and the multiple ways in which they related to contemporary audiences and readers. Including the “seigneurial” Catholicism of the upper classes, the popular survival of traditional religious practices, and the different colonial solutions to the problem of religious toleration, this account opposes the oversimplified “Whig” interpretation of English history with the complex  forces of a changing political landscape.

Catholic culture had a remarkable persistence in the period and the lived experience of English Catholics varied widely. In its many incarnations, Catholicism remained an important cultural and demographic presence troubling the narrative of English history. Despite the control the government sought to exercise over religious belief, individual Catholics, who negotiated various forms of social functioning, survived beyond this period to emerge finally as a significant, and tolerated, minority within English society.

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations

Introduction

CHAPTER ONE
What Counts as Early Modern English Catholic Writing
CHAPTER TWO
In Defense of Idolatry: Catholicism and the Protestant Assault on the
Sensuous in Early Modern England
CHAPTER THREE
Religion, Secularity, and Shakespeare
CHAPTER FOUR
Shakespeare and Catholicism
CHAPTER FIVE
Shakespeare, Papal Temporal Power, Regicide, and Tyrannicide
CHAPTER SIX
Donne’s Conflicted Anti-Catholicism in His Sermons
CHAPTER SEVEN
Saintly Idiocy and Contemplative Empowerment: The Example of Dame
Gertrude More
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Intolerability of English Catholicism in the Early Modern Era

Bibliography
Index