Recusant researchers reassemble at Oxford

Catholic history since the Reformation is a growing area of keen scholarship, writes L. Gooch
THE BUILDING of Downside Abbey; the battle of books between Sir Thomas More and Christopher St Germain; the beginnings of Catholic elementary education in England; the career of Philip Berry, rector of the English College, Valladolid; and the social ideas of Dr and Mrs Thomas Low Nichols:— these are some of the topics on the agenda of the 25th conference on Post-Reformation Catholic History of England and Wales, which meets in Oxford from Tuesday to Friday next week.
In 1958, A. F. Allison of the British Museum and D. M. Rogers of the Bodleian Library arranged the first conference at St Ann's College Oxford. That conference has met every year since.
Besides providing a forum for the presentation of formal papers, a key aim of these conferences is to bring together those interested in the history of English Catholicism for an informal exchange of information and discussion of new ideas. The conferences are attended by a very mixed group — clerical and lay, old and young, amateur and professional. Furthermore, over the years the conference has attracted increasing international and interdenominational participation.
The conference invariably includes a visit to a house of Catholic interest; last year Bishop Mullins celebrated Mass at Milton Manor to mark the Challoner bi-centenary and this year the conference visits Baddesley Clinton.
The continuing success of this conference testifies to the vitality of Catholic historical studies in Britain. The Catholic Record Society, under whose auspices the conference is held, has sustained a remarkable publishing programme since its foundation in 1904. The society has issued over seventy volumes of transcripts of a wide variety of documents, including the registers of old Catholic missions, diaries, letters, autobiographies, legal, court and official papers, records of seminaries, colleges, and convents, and accounts of the secular and regular clergy.
These volumes represent a unique collection of primary source material essential for a proper understanding of the history of the English and Welsh Catholic community. In addition, the society issues a series of monographs in which well known scholars present indepth studies of recusancy over a prolonged period in a particualr area.
In May this year, the society's journal Recusant History embarked on its sixteenth volume. The aim of the journal is to publish material that will lay the foundations of a general history of Catholicism in the British Isles. Its contents include articles covering a wide variety of subject-matter from different centuries, and has won recognition as a serious periodical which is increasingly quoted as an authoritative source.
Some articles of prime recusant interest also have a significance which might, at first sight, seem remote from the history of English Catholicism. For example, Recusant History has published important articles on literature, architecture and the lives of artists and statesmen, drawing from such diverse disciplines, as political and diplomatic history, social demography, sociology, the arts and the history of science.
Although the CRS is the oldest and largest English Catholic historical society, a number of local societies flourish and are engaged variously in research, visiting and the publication of journals; and in Scotland the Innes Review is published by the Scottish Catholic Historial Association.
Manuscripts and documents held by dioceses, parishes, religious houses and families are the raw materials of history, but concern has been mounting in recent years over damage to, or even loss of irreplaceable papers.
In 1979 the Catholic Archives Society was therefore formed to promote the care and preservation of all archival material of the church in the UK and Ireland. The CAS has held four conferences and met this year at Spode House. This conference and the journal Catholic Archives are welcome and valuable additions to the historiographical scene.
Clearly, popular and academic interest in British Catholic history has grown considerably since the inception of the Oxford conference — recusancy is now accepted as an integral part of national and local historiography and a subject that requries expert and objective treatment. No longer are Catholic historians concerned exclusively with English martyrology or the vicissitudes of the first Elizabethan era (important as they are), but are turning their attention to the relatively uncharted period from 1700 on the Enlightenment, industrialisation, urbanisation, .emancipation and on to the Irish immigration and beyond.
British Catholicism, discriminated against and ostracised as it was, nevertheless produced a substantial body of literature and art, and made its own contribution to technological and social change that no political, social or cultural history of these islands can legitimately ignore.
Indeed, studies of postReformation British Catholicism now appear regularly in almost every contemporary historical periodical in the country quite apart from the specialist Catholic journals. There is a recognition that the Catholic body was something more than a group of decaying gentry of marginal significance in the life of the nation — but, exactly how much more is yet to be fully understood, and it is the task of the CRS and CAS, in print or in conference, to provide the materials on which to base a firm judgment.
It is pleasing to report that British Catholic historical studies are in such a flourishing condition. In celebrating the Silver Jubilee of the CRS Oxford conference, it is not difficult to envisage a similar celebration for its Golden Jubilee in the year 2007.
A list of Catholic historical societies in the UK can be obtained from the author at 12 Melbourne Place, Wolsingham, County Durham. (Please send SAE).