Professor Eric Ives, RIP

You might remember that I reviewed Professor Eric Ives' book The Reformation Experience recently on this blog. Turns out that this book will be his last (unless he has a work close enough to completion for posthumous publication): he died on the 25th of September at age 81. This obituary comes from the BBC History Magazine online edition:

Eric Ives OBE, a leading Tudor historian and contributor to BBC History Magazine, has died. He was 81 years old.

Ives was emeritus professor of English history at the University of Birmingham and an expert on the Tudor period. He wrote a number of books across a long career, with perhaps his most famous work, Anne Boleyn, published in 1986. His most recent publication, The Reformation Experience, was released earlier this year.

Author and historian Suzannah Lipscomb said: "Professor Eric Ives's death is a sudden and profound loss to the historical community. He was a brilliant historian and one of the leading lights of Tudor history: his work on Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey is unsurpassed (and I say this even as one who disagreed with him on some points of interpretation!). It is deeply sad that The Reformation Experience will be his last book. But, even more importantly, he was also an exceptionally warm, kind, generous and courteous man. He will be greatly missed."

Blessed John Henry Newman: "To Be Deep In History . . ."

"To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant", wrote Blessed John Henry Newman, and that has proven true for historian Edward Norman, according to the Catholic Herald.

Dr Edward Norman, the historian and former Canon Chancellor [one of the canons of the cathedral who has a particular responsibility for matters of education and scholarship, often acting as the cathedral librarian and archivist] of York Minister, will be received into the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham on Sunday.

In an article for this newspaper, Dr Norman explains the reasons for his decision to become a Catholic.

He argues that Anglicanism has “no basis for its authority” as its confession “varies from place to place and person to person”. He says: “At the centre of Anglicanism is a great void.”

He adds: “The Church of England provides a masterclass in equivocation; it also, however, is the residence of very many good and faithful Christian people who deserve respect – for their perseverance in so many incoherent spiritual adventures.

“To leave their company is a wrench; to adhere to the Catholic faith is to join the encompassing presence of a universal body of believers in whose guardianship are the materials of authentic spiritual understanding… I have immense gratitude.”

According to a spokesman for the ordinariate, the former Reith lecturer will be received into the ordinariate on Sunday following a “profound intellectual and spiritual journey nurtured and enabled by the Anglican tradition”.

The spokesman said: “Preserving those gifts and enriching them with the peace and communion offered by union with the successor of Peter is the most natural course of action for Anglicans who have a genuine desire for Christian unity.

“We are delighted to welcome Edward Norman, whose considerable academic standing bears witness to the seriousness with which he has taken this decision.”

Please note his irenic and beautiful tone, matched by the Ordinariate spokesman: it's the founding of the Anglican Church that Dr. Norman finds lacking, not the men and women who seek to follow Christ within its structure. His comments about the variations in Anglican teaching reminded me of Newman's Loss and Gain and Charles Reding's cry, "Who wants my obedience?".

I found his book The English Catholic Church in the Nineteenth Century to be a model of historical writing, and said so in this Amazon.com review:

This is a very clearly written narrative of the history of the Catholic Church in England, wearing its scholarship lightly. Norman traces the achievements (Emancipation, rebuilding, conversions, education, integration) and the conflicts (between Ultramontanists and Cisalpines, between personalities, and over important issues like university education for the laity) with balance and wisdom. He does focus on the great men who led the Church or contributed to those achievements and conflicts; I wish Norman could reissue the book with greater representation of the ordinary Catholic, lay or clerical, during the era. He begins by highlighting their anonymous and heroic contributions to the growth of the Church in England during the century, but their names should be mentioned and their stories told. 

St. Bruno and the Carthusian Order

I have often posted about the Carthusian Order and its English Reformation martyrs on this blog. Today we celebrate the feast of the order's founder, St. Bruno of Cologne:

Born in Cologne around 1030, he begins studying at the school of the Cathedral of Reims at an early age. Made a "doctor", Canon of the Cathedral Chapter, he is made the Rector of the University in 1056. He was one of the most remarkable scholars and teacher of his time "a prudent man whose word was rich in meaning."

He finds himself less and less at ease in a city where scandal has little affect towards the clergy and the Bishop himself. After having fought, not without success, against this disorder, Bruno feels the desire of a life more completely given to God alone.

After an attempt at a solitary life of short duration, he enters the region of Grenoble, of which the Bishop, the future Saint Hugues, offers him a solitary site in the mountains of his diocese. In June 1084, the Bishop himself leads Bruno and six of his companions in the primitive valley of Chartreuse, where the Order eventually gets its name from. They build a hermitage, consisting of a few log cabins opening towards a gallery which allows them access to the communal areas of the community -- church, refectory, and chapter room -- without having to suffer too much from intemperate conditions.

After six years of a pleasant solitary life, Bruno is called by Pope Urban II to the service of the Holy See. Not thinking of being able to continue without him, his community first thinks of separating, but it allows itself to be convinced to follow in the life that he first formed. Advisor to the Pope, Bruno is ill at ease a the Pontifical Court. He only lives in Rome for a few short months. With the Pope's blessing, he establishes a new hermitage in the forests of Calabria, in the south of Italy, with a few new companions. There he dies 6 October 1101.

I note this on the website: "Liturgical celebration does not have any pastoral intent. This explains why those outside the Order are not admitted to participate at the offices or the Mass celebrated in the churches of our monasteries. Because of our call to solitude, visits are limited to the family members of the monk (2 days a year) and to those who feel called to our life, whom we call retreatants."--so when St. Thomas More spent any time with the Carthusians of the Charterhouse of London, it would have been as a retreatant. Note also how much Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Audley, at al, were interrupting the solitude of the Carthusians.

There is a Charterhouse in England today: St. Hugh at Parkminster (make sure you have the sound turned on your computer; the site comes with chant!) It was founded in 1873 and the house originally had two houses from the Continent to accommodate. Their site includes a gift shop, with this book about the Beauvale martyrs of the English Reformation.

The English Reformation Today: Episode Ten!

Today's topic is The Long Eighteenth Century for English Catholics after the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 until the first Catholic Relief Acts of 1778 and 1791. During this period, Catholics were really at their lowest point since Henry VIII's Break from Rome in 1534. They were but a small minority, they had no national center at Court (as they had throughout the 17th century with the original Stuarts), and in Enlightenment England, with the Broad Church mentality of the Church of England, they weren't really even worth persecuting!

I'll start with the story of James II's reign, his attempts to bring about religious freedom through an Act of Indulgence, and the invasion of England by the Dutch, invited by Members of Parliament and the Church to keep Protestantism safe in England from James and his Catholic son and heir. Then the story has two narratives--the new Stuarts, William and Mary, then Anne, and the Parliamentary acts that prevented Catholics from even being near the throne: no Catholic monarch, no Catholic spouses allowed; while the old Stuarts, James II and his heirs in French exile, led invasions in Ireland and Scotland, attempting to regain the throne, especially when the Hanoverian dynasty came to England.

I'll describe how the Latitudinarians took over leadership of the Church of England when the High Church Anglicans lost power, especially after the Non-Juror movements meant the loss of some of the better bishops, including an Archbishop of Canterbury and two great spiritual writers, Thomas Ken and William Law. All of this history, of course, is laid out in the narrative of Chapter 9 of Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation.

As for Catholics, as I mentioned, they were at the lowest point in their history, but there are a few high points:

Richard Challoner is one of the heroes of this era: as Vicar Apostolic, he worked to remind Catholics of their heritage in England. He completed the great work of gathering details about the martyrs of the 16th and 17th centuries which would be the basis on their causes for canonization in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Alban Butler wrote his great Lives of the Saints, still a basic work of hagiography.

Fathers George Leo Haydock and John Lingard were born near the end of the 18th century and in the next century, they would produce great intellectual works. Father Haydock would write and edit a great Biblical Commentary, while Father Lingard would produce a great history of England that would redress some historical errors of the Whig version of history, paving the way for full emancipation of Catholics in 1829.

The Catholic Relief Acts of 1778 and 1791 will wrap up this episode, including the horror of the Gordon Riots, provoked by the first easing of restrictions on Catholic worship. I welcome all listeners of Radio Maria US to my blog, whether you're listening on one of their radio stations or on line or through one of their apps. I invite you to call in with questions and comments toll-free at 866-333-MARY(6279). Just a reminder, too, that podcasts of previous episodes of The English Reformation Today are available on the Radio Maria US website. Next week: Emancipation at Last! and four important dates: 1829, 1845, 1850, and 1870.

You Can't Make This Up!

For the first time since Henry VIII broke away from Rome and set the English Reformation on its course, a Catholic Mass has been celebrated in Beverley Minster, according to The Catholic Herald:

The first Mass celebrated by a bishop since the reign of Henry VIII has taken place in Beverley Minster.

The Mass marked the 50th anniversary of a local Catholic primary school named after St John of Beverly.

Bishop Terence Drainey of Middlesbrough celebrated the Mass, which was attended by teachers, students and their families.

“It was a very great privilege to be able to celebrate Mass in a place which has been a focus of prayer and worship for hundreds of years,” he said. “St John of Beverley is a major figure in our Catholic and English cultural history. He is the second patron of our diocese as well as being the patron of the Roman Catholic school in Beverley whose anniversary we were celebrating.”

St. John of Beverley was really a royal saint--King Henry V urged devotion to the saint after his victory at Agincourt! Henry VIII ordered his shrine destroyed in 1541, but his bones were found again in 1664 and reburied with a new shrine.

Revolutionary England, Almost

 

Frank McLynn writes about seven times when England could have experienced a complete revolution--somehow passing over the Civil War and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He includes the Pilgrimage of Grace and the Jacobite uprising (the '45) among the seven. As Nigel Jones comments in this review, the premise is a little weak, and the selection might be questionable:

 

It is axiomatic in British history that this country – unlike many European neighbours – does not ‘do’ revolutions. This assumption is at least arguable. If the Civil War of the 1640s, resulting in the quasi-legal killing of a king, and his replacement by a military dictatorship with millennial overtones, was not a revolution, then the term has no meaning. Ditto the 1688 ‘Glorious Revolution’. Yet according to Frank McLynn, neither of these upheavals constituted a true revolution, which, he argues, Britain has never experienced.

His book focuses on seven moments when he claims Britain came closest to “the possibility for overthrow of a regime and a drastic change of direction politically, economically, socially”: the Peasants’ Revolt, Jack Cade’s 1450 rebellion, the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536, the Civil War, the 1745/6 Jacobite uprising; the Chartists of the 1840s, and the 1926 General Strike. . . .

The examples McLynn lumps into his revolutionary sack are questionable: if the Pilgrimage, why not the Prayer Book or Kett’s rebellion? And if Chartism, why not the era of Peterloo and the Cato Street conspiracy? This is also very old-fashioned history, with heroes and villains praised – or more frequently damned – featuring Henry VIII, Cromwell and (bizarrely) Stanley Baldwin in a rogues’ gallery of tyranny.

As to why Britain avoided revolution, McLynn discounts such theories as its insular isolation, its small professional army, the popularity of its modern monarchy, or the myth that its people were less violent than their continental counterparts (before the 18th century the reverse was the case). He identifies a few factors as crucial: Britain’s early industrialisation; its acquisition of an empire to export its surplus workforce; and finally the preference for gradualist reformism to revolutionary activism, exemplified by the popularity of Methodism over Marxism.

Whenever I think of book about revolutions, I think of Susan Dunn's Sister Revolutions: French Lightning, American Light, published in 2000:

The American and French revolutions presented the world with two very different visions of democracy. Although both professed similar Enlightenment ideals of freedom, equality, and justice and set similar political agendas, there were also fundamental differences. The French sought a complete break with a thousand years of history; the Americans were content to preserve many aspects of their English heritage. Why did the two revolutions follow such different trajectories? And what lessons do they offer us about democracy today? In lucid narrative style, Dunn captures the personalities and lives of the great figures of both revolutions, and shows how their stories added up to make two very different events.

I completely agree with the assessment of this reviewer: "Everybody should read this book. It offers a lively education in a small package. Then, if there's time, reread Federalist 10 and 51, as well as Simon Schama's book Citizens. What the French took from the Americans, Lord Acton once wrote, "was their theory of revolution not their theory of government — their cutting but not their sewing.""


Not Insane Enough

Per Mark Helprin, in the Wall Street Journal:

Should you be insane enough to want to make a living in this cultural climate by writing fiction that is neither politicized, confessional, nihilistic, sexualized, sensationalist, nor crafted with the vocabulary and syntax of Dick and Jane, here are some suggestions.

I am NOT insane enough, but his next paragraph stings:

Never write in a café, especially in Europe. Ever since Hemingway, this has been the literary equivalent of what in mountain climbing is called the "tech weenie" (that is, someone who cannot get a foot off the ground but is weighed down with $10,000's worth of equipment). Literary skill, much less greatness, cannot be had with a pose, and exhibitionism extorts the price of failure. Also, have pity on the weary Parisians who have wanted only a citron pressé but have been unable to find a café where every single seat is not occupied by an American publicly carrying on a torrid affair with his moleskin.

I don't write in moleskin journals, but I have sat with coffee and water in a Parisian cafe writing away, describing my adventures of the day--and paying for it, too, Mr. Helprin (the cafes charge more for sitting at a table, inside or outside, than if you just stand at the bar--which is where most of the Parisians drinking citron presses congregate). Once, in L'Elephant du Nil in the Marais, a gentleman asked me about some things to see in the Marais while his wife used the WC. I told him about the Place de Vosges, the Carnavalet Museum, BHV, and Rue Rosiers. He complimented me on my English! So I think crazy American writers are not the only ones scribbling away in Parisian cafes.

Helprin does give some more useful advice:

In short, a pen (somehow) helps you think and feel. And although once you find a pen you like you'll probably stick with it the way an addict sticks with heroin, it can be anything from a Mont Blanc to a Bic. The same for paper. There are beautiful, smooth, heavy papers, but great works have been written on ration cards, legal pads and the kind of cheap paper they sell in developing countries—grayish white, almost furry, with flecks of brown and black that probably came from lizards and bats that jumped into the paper makers' vats.

Your most important tools will be your honesty, labor, courage, practice, luck and utter concentration. Inspiration can be magnificent. Handel wrote his "Messiah" cooped up in his room for two weeks. No one saw him, and his meals were allegedly slipped under the door. (Either it was a very strange door or he survived on fruit leather and matzah.) Then again, Voltaire—"On Sunday I was seized by inspiration"—wrote "Phèdre" in six days flat, a play that made his audiences weep not from emotion but because they had to sit through it.

"The Dream of Gerontius", Elgar's Oratorio

Edward Elgar's oratorio based on Blessed John Henry Newman's poem, The Dream of Gerontius premiered on October 3, 1900 at the Birmingham Music Festival in an unfortunately disastrous performance. Since then, however, it has been performed and recorded often. My favorite recording is the one conducted by John Barbirolli with Janet Baker as the Guardian Angel.

In 2000, its centennial was celebrated by many performances in Great Britain and here in the USA. There was quite a controversy when a music critic in California stated that one would have to be a Catholic to appreciate the content of the work--he could judge the artistic and performance merits, but not really be engaged by the words and music. Some queried whether he would say the same for Mozart's Requiem or Beethoven's Missa Solemnis?

Blessed John Henry Newman wrote The Dream of Gerontius in 1865 to wide-ranging praise, even from non-Catholics (e.g., William Gladstone)! It obtained real notoriety when a copy of the poem was found among the belongings of General "Chinese" Gordon after his death in Khartoum with pencilled margin notes. From the text (with various settings) come two hymns: "Firmly I Believe and Truly" and "Praise to the Holiest in the Height"!

On a personal note, I can never think of "The Dream of Gerontius" without remembering Heather Muller, a beautiful young woman who played the role of the Angel in a dramatic reading of the poem at a Newman School of Catholic Thought held at the Spiritual Life Center here in Wichita. The late Sister Madeleine Kisner, ASC expertly excerpted the text for performance, the opening act on a program with Professor Regis Martin on "Newman and the Four Last Things". Heather was murdered by the infamous Carr brothers in December of 2000.

Tolkien's The Hobbit at 75

Corey Olsen netted a Wall Street Journal article titled "The Grown-Up Pleasures of 'The Hobbit'" proposing that "J.R.R. Tolkien's classic book, celebrating its 75th anniversary, isn't just for kids" in the September 21 issue:

'The Hobbit' turns 75 this week, an occasion that will cause many to fondly reflect on their childhood memories of the adventures of Bilbo Baggins. "The Hobbit" remains widely respected as a children's book, but too often it is overlooked by adults. It tends to remain locked into the category of "juvenile literature," and even serious fans of J.R.R. Tolkien sometimes neglect it when they grow up and move on to "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Silmarillion." But Tolkien's first published novel is a much more sophisticated book than it often gets credit for, and it richly rewards adult rereading.

Professor Olsen's guide to The Hobbit has been published to coincide with this anniversary, and Houghton Mifflin sent me a review copy. I enjoyed reading his study of Tolkien's first novel because Olsen holds to the text, explicating the signficance of events, songs, characters, and even Tolkien's decisions as an author. One of the most crucial issues about The Hobbit is that Tolkien rewrote the scene of Bilbo's encounter with Gollum and the hobbit's acquisition of the Ring after he wrote The Lord of the Rings trilogy to make the character of Gollum more consistent and the nature of the Ring more important.

Olsen's two themes in this study are Bilbo's two ancestral legacies, Baggins and Took, and how they influence his behavior during his stint as the professional thief in the dwarves' mission and adventure, and the importance of the songs sung by the dwarves, the elves, the goblins, and Bilbo himself.

Bilbo's staid, homebody Baggins side means that he often frets and complains about the inconveniences of travel, while his more adventurous Took background leads him to go on the journey in the first place. Olsen demonstrates how Tolkien builds on these two aspects of Bilbo's character in his development from tag-along to leader.

Olsen highlighted the importance of the songs in the WSJ article: "The songs in "The Hobbit" aren't merely verses embedded in the story; they are carefully designed to capture the voices and illustrate the attitudes of their singers." Olsen's efforts to interpret these songs might sometimes slow down the action of the summary, but they uncover many insights into the often monosyllabic, onomatopoeic verses of Middle-Earth and their singers.

Olsen does not ignore the crucial issue of "eucatastrophe", Tolkien's term for the sudden, happy reversal of an event into something good. As Tolkien said in "On Fairy Stories",

The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous “turn” (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially 'escapist', nor 'fugitive'. In its fairy-tale—or otherworld—setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.

As the publisher notes, "Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" is a fun, thoughtful, and insightful companion volume, designed to bring a thorough and original new reading of the The Hobbit to a general audience. Professor Corey Olsen (also known as the Tolkien Professor) will take readers on an in-depth journey through The Hobbit chapter by chapter, revealing the stories within the story: the dark desires of dwarves and the sublime laughter of elves, the nature of evil and its hopelessness, the mystery of divine providence and human choice, and, most of all, the revolutions within the life of Bilbo Baggins. Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" is a book that will make The Hobbit come alive for readers as never before."

Professor Olsen also publishes podcasts and other material as "The Tolkien Professor" here. As a former English literature student, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. If you like close reading and analysis of text that illuminates your experience of literature, you will also enjoy this book.

Martyrs and Recanters: The Chichester Martyrs

On October 1, 1588, three Catholic priests were on their way to martyrdom in Chichester, drawn on a hurdle to Broyle Heath. The day before, September 30, four Catholic priests had been condemed to death by hanging, drawing, and quartering--but only two of these Catholic priests were martyred on October 1.

So often when we tell the story of the Catholic recusants and the Catholic priests of that recusant era, we emphasize the heroic faithfulness of those who suffered and died.

Today's story reminds us that some who faced the crisis of life and death chose to recant their Catholic faith and avoid martyrdom.

Father Edward James and Father Ralph Crockett had been arrested on April 19, 1586 and held in prison in London for more than two years without trial (from April 27, 1586). After the failure of the Spanish Armada, these imprisoned Catholic priests were prime targets of the English government for vengeance and punishment. Fr. James and Fr. Crockett were tried in Chichester along with Father John Oven and Father Francis Edwardes, found guilty and sentenced to death, but Fr. Oven took the Oath of Supremacy and was reprieved.

Then on October 1st, at Broyle Heath, Fr. Edwardes took the Oath of Supremacy and was reprieved--Fr. James and Fr. Crockett refused to recant and the butchery of their execution was carried out, after they first absolved each other on the scaffold.

Pope Pius XI beatified the two martyred priests in 1929 and today is their feast day.

According to an article in the January 1857 issue of "The Rambler," the journal Blessed John Henry Newman briefly edited two years later, there is little information about what happened to John Oven and Francis Edwardes after October 1, 1588--they may have been kept in prison for a time in case they recanted their recantation or sent into exile. It does not appear that they received any preferment from the Church of England or the state.