"Bloody Mary"

An article in First Things by Stephanie Mann about how recent biographies have reassessed the brief and tragic rule of the first reigning Queen of England, Mary Tudor. To quote:

Even without the debate about the burnings, was this reign just an interlude in the history of a nation destined to be Protestant? Was the restoration of Catholicism in England doomed from the start—and not just because Mary and Cardinal Pole just didn’t have enough time? That is the harder question to answer....

The crucial issue for the success or failure of her reign was whether she had a Catholic heir to succeed her. Since she did not, Elizabeth succeeded to the throne and dismissed all of Pole’s bishops save one. As Elizabeth ignored her last will and testament, historians ignored Mary’s circumstances, forgot her efforts and achievements and she gained a nickname she might not deserve. But she and Cardinal Pole left a legacy beyond the fires of Smithfield: an underground counter-reformation Catholicism in England, supporting the faithful and ready for revival again—even if it had to wait almost 300 years.

Women in Asia

From one extreme to another.

A Plague Upon Your Town

The Black Death in Renaissance France. According to the meticulous research of Renaissance scholar Julianne Douglas:

Although the incidence of bubonic plague, the infamous "Black Death" of the fourteenth century, slowly decreased over the course of the Renaissance era, plague was still very much part of sixteenth century life. Outbreaks of plague occurred sporadically throughout Europe, following the movement of goods from port to port and of soldiers returning home from war. Edinburgh suffered a bout of plague in 1529, as did London in 1537-39 and 1547-48; Paris, where outbreaks were frequent, suffered a particularly virulent one around 1564. In 1570, 200,000 people lost their lives to plague in the vicinity of Moscow; Lyon lost 50,000 individuals in 1572; in 1576, 70,000 inhabitants of Venice succumbed. Plague during the sixteenth century was largely confined to cities and towns. Outbreaks usually occurred during the summer months, when rat fleas are most active. Death came quickly to victims: 80% of those infected died within five days.

In the course of my research on plague in the sixteenth century, I came across a small book entitled Deux ans de peste à Chalon-sur-Saone, 1578-79 [Two Years of Plague in Chalon-sur Saone, 1578-79], published in 1879 by Marcel Canat de Chizy, the town archivist. The book provides a fascinating account, culled from the town's historical record, of how the municipality dealt with a particular outbreak of the disease. Interesting to me was how the care of the sick became a community effort, motivated both by Christian charity and the more self-interested desire to limit the extent of the contagion.

(More HERE)

Wine Guide

The holidays are upon us. Celebrate with a good wine and some tips from a connoisseur.

Marie-Antoinette and the Theater

Toronto artist Gabriela Delworth is having a fête in honor of Marie-Antoinette. One of the first installments in the series is a post about the Queen's love of theater.

(Photo: Marie-Antoinette's papier-mâché theater at Trianon)

Edmund Burke: An Ambiguous Conservative

He stood for both the ancien régime and classical liberalism. (Via Serge) To quote:

At the same time, there is no denying that Burke would have had nothing but scorn for the notion that we could loose ourselves from our fundamental human obligations by writing them off as something historically contingent. Bromwich reminds us that the same Burke who penned the Thoughts also held that our “social ties and ligaments … in most cases begin, and always continue, independently of our will” and that society is a partnership “not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.” Bruce Frohnen’s essay on Burke and human rights offers a way of reconciling these apparently conflicting aspects of Burke. On the one hand, Burke held that all men “have a right to the fruits of their industry; and to the means of making their industry fruitful. They have a right to the acquisitions of their parents; to the nourishment and improvement of their offspring; to instruction in life, and to consolation in death.” On the other hand, he emphasized that the manner in which these rights get their determinate content is conditioned by particular historical and cultural circumstances and that any responsible defense of these rights must be sensitive to these circumstances. Prudence rather than abstract theory must guide the defender of human rights, and reform rather than revolution must be his program.

English Recusants

Christine explores the artifacts left by English Catholics who had to hide their Faith in the days of persecution. To quote Hilaire Belloc:

The English Reformation was the most important European event between the conversion of the Roman Empire and modern times. It was the most important because upon it the unity or break-up of Christendom depended. It is of especial important to Englishmen because it is by far the greatest event in the story of their country; but it is of still greater importance to Europeans as a whole, because of England had not been torn away from the unity of Christendom that unity would be intact to this day. It was the loss of England which determined the whole affair. Because of that loss Europe ultimately fell into two camps, the Protestant culture on the one hand, and the Catholic culture on the other.... It was through the Reformation that the dissolution of Europe came and that chaos of which we are now suffering the last, and perhaps mortal, effect.

--From Hilaire Belloc's introduction to Brian Magee's The English Recusants: A Study of the Post-Reformation Catholic Survival and the Operation of the Recusancy Laws

American Espionage

The spies of the Revolutionary War. To quote George Washington:

The necessity of procuring good Intelligence is apparent & need not be further urged -- All that remains for me to add is, that you keep the whole matter as secret as possible. For upon Secrecy, Success depends in Most Enterprizes of the kind, and for want of it, they are generally defeated, however well planned & promising a favourable issue.

The Mystery of the Rosary

Here is another guest post by author Stephanie Mann, who reviews Nathan Mitchell's The Mystery of the Rosary. According to Mrs. Mann:

Although I found some of the terms that Mitchell uses off-putting and too technical (reframing, re-imagining, reinventing, renegotiating etc) and his repetitious analysis of Caravaggio's paintings (especially "Madonna di Loreto") rather irritating, overall I have to give his work four stars. The book rewards careful and thoughtful reading.

He builds a strong argument for understanding the sixteenth century responses of the Roman Catholic Church to the Protestant Reformation, whether referred to as the Counter-Reformation or the Catholic Reformation, as more complex than uniform and organized programs and processes. By examining grassroots Marian devotions like the rosary, confraternities, and other means of meditation on the life of Christ (Caravaggio paintings or The Mystical City of God by Mary of Agreda), Mitchell demonstrates that Catholic believers in the period following the "dividing of Christendom" as Dawson calls it, embraced Catholic orthodoxy often by adapting those devotions to deeper understandings of Catholic worship, doctrine and discipline.

It is too bad that the publisher could not provide plates for the Caravaggio paintings described throughout the text. With access to the internet, I found all of them of course, but I think artwork should be included in the book when the author analyzes it to make his argument. Caravaggio's idiosyncratic way of presenting the child Jesus, Mary, St. Anne, St. Matthew or other saints in his artwork demonstrates Mitchell's argument that the Counter-Reformation/Catholic Reformation was not a monolithic movement of reform. Caravaggio includes dirty feeted pilgrims and buxom, balanced Madonnas in his works, which often offended viewers because they departed from the accepted iconography of Mary and the saints. And yet he is revealing a deeper understanding of the saints.

The chapter examining the use of the Rosary in sixteenth century England, when Catholics could not openly practice their faith, was particularly illuminating. Because they had no churches in which to worship and only seldom were able to receive the Sacraments, especially Holy Communion, Catholics used the Rosary as a focus for Eucharistic devotion and devout self-offering. Meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary does not require beads, so if beads weren't available or even too dangerous to possess, the faithful were still able to practice this devotion. It allowed Catholics in England to maintain church teaching about the Incarnation, Passion and Resurrection of Jesus as a form of catechetical devotion while reflecting on the Sacraments they SHOULD receive but weren't able to because of government persecution. When English Catholics did possess rosary beads, they were certainly emblematic of being a Catholic. In the 18th Century, as Parliament began to remove some of the restrictions on Catholics, Richard Challoner's "Garden of the Soul" provided more liturgical and sacramental devotion and guidance, but the Rosary continued as an identifying emblem of a Catholic, even in the United States during the 19th Century .

Finally, Mitchell discusses the Rosary in post-Vatican II context, framing his discussion around the term 'kitsch' to understand the endurance of the Rosary even as devotions outside of Mass and the Sacraments were often discouraged in the years following the Council. In spite of that discouragement, or even because of it, the Rosary has remained a favorite devotion among Catholics as diverse as Garry Wills and Mother Angelica, per Mitchell.

This is sometimes a rather cumbersome but more often a very illuminating examination of the Rosary and the Catholic Church's response to the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century and beyond.

Sleeping with the Saints

Jane Austen's final resting place. Her stone at St. Swithin's Cathedral reads:

In Memory of
JANE AUSTEN,
youngest daughter of the late
Revd GEORGE AUSTEN,
formerly Rector of Steventon in this County

She departed this Life on the 18th of July1817,

aged 41, after a long illness supported with

the patience and hopes of a Christian.

The benevolence of her heart,
the sweetness of her temper, and
the extraordinary endowments of her mind

obtained the regard of all who knew her and

the warmest love of her intimate connections.

Their grief is in proportion to their affection

they know their loss to be irreparable,
but in their deepest affliction they are consoled

by a firm though humble hope that her charity,

devotion, faith and purity have rendered
her soul acceptable in the sight of her

REDEEMER.

My Other Novels

I am delighted that since the publication of Trianon and Madame Royale about a decade ago, people are still reading and enjoying them. Here is a review of both books from Cross of Laeken. Matterhorn contradicts the criticism the novels have sometimes received, that the characters are too pious and idealized, saying:

I have read several reviews claiming the books are too religious and/or over-idealize the protagonists. I only want to say that the devout faith of Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette and Madame Royale is well-documented, and it would not be realistic to ignore or downplay the role of Catholicism in their lives. Nor do I think the royal family are over-idealized. Their spiritual journeys are presented as hard and painful and they struggle with human failings along the way. Against his conscience, for instance, the King signs the Civil Constitution of the Clergy under duress, an action he later bitterly repents. Before maturing gracefully into a noble wife and mother, Marie-Antoinette is portrayed as a kind, charming, but imperfect young girl, apt to be headstrong and rash. Marie-Thérèse's rigidity and refusal to compromise the divine right of kings, coupled with her cold manner (although these are understandable results of her early traumas), contribute to alienating many from the cause of the Catholic monarchy. Nonetheless, the fact remains that she, like her parents, ultimately attains a high degree of spiritual heroism.

Religion may not be a part of some contemporary lives but it certainly played a part in the lives of many historical characters. To ignore or downplay the faith of characters in a historical novel is to destroy the integrity of the characters as well as thwart an authentic representation of the past.