Lest We Be Damned: Practical Innovation and Lived Experience Among Catholics in Protestant England, 1559-1642 (Religion in History, Society and Culture-Outstanding Dissertations, 6)

429 Pages·2003·2.69 MB·English

by  Lisa McClain

RELIGION IN HISTORY, SOCIETY,
AND CULTURE
Edited by
Frank Reynolds
and
Winnifred Fallers Sullivan
The University of Chicago, Divinity School
A ROUTLEDGE SERIES
RELIGION IN HISTORY, SOCIETY, AND
CULTURE
edited by Frank Reynolds & Winnifred Fallers Sullivan
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5. HEAVENLY JOURNEYS, EARTHLY CONCERNS
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LEST WE BE DAMNED
PRACTICAL INNOVATION
AND LIVED EXPERIENCE
AMONG CATHOLICS IN
PROTESTANT ENGLAND,
1559–1642
Lisa McClain
Routledge
New York & London
Published in 2004 by
Routledge
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New York, NY 10001
www.routledge-ny.com
Published in Great Britain by
Routledge
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www.routledge.co.uk
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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
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Copyright © 2004 by Taylor & Francis Books, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalogmg-in-Publication Data
McClain, Lisa, 1965–
Lest we be damned: practical innovation and lived experience among Catholics in
Protestant England, 1559–1642/by Lisa McClain.
p. cm.—(Religion in history, society & culture; 6)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-415-96790-2 (alk. paper)
1. Catholics—England—History—16th century. 2. England—Church history—16th cen
tury. 3. Catholics—England—History—17th century. 4. England—Church history—17th
century. I. Titles. II. Series.
BX1492.M37 2003
282’.42’09031–dc21
2003014634
ISBN 0-203-50499-2 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-57915-1 (Adobe eReader Format)
For Doug, Anna, and Will
Contents
Series Editors’ Foreword vii
Acknowledgments ix
List of Figures xi
List of Abbreviations xii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 “Knitting the Remnants”: Catholic Challenges 19
and Priorities in Protestant England
Chapter 2 A “Church” without a Church: English 59
Catholics’ Search for Religious Space
Chapter 3 Using What’s at Hand: English Catholic 86
Reinterpretations of the Rosary
Chapter 4 Reclaiming the Body: Receiving the Benefits of 116
the Mass in the Absence of Priests
Chapter 5 Lawyers, Jailbirds, Grocers, and Diplomats: 150
Catholic Options for Piety and Community in
London
Chapter 6 Katholik Kernow: Catholics of Cornwall 183
Chapter 7 “Border of Wickedness?”: Catholics in the 217
Northern Shires
Chapter 8 From the Old Comes the New. Catholic Identities 250
and Alternative Forms of Community
Conclusion 290
Notes 295
Select Bibliography 389
Index 404
Series Editors’ Foreword
RELIGION IN HISTORY, SOCIETY, AND CULTURE BRINGS TO A
WIDER audience work by outstanding young scholars who are forging
new agendas for the study of religion in the twenty-first century. As
editors, we have two specific goals in mind.
First, volumes in this series illuminate theoretical understandings of
religion as a dimension of human culture and society. Understanding
religion has never been a more pressing need. Longstanding academic
habits of either compartmentalizing or ignoring religion are breaking
down. With the entry of religion into the academy, however, must come
a fully realized conversation about what religion is and how it interacts
with history, society, and culture. Each book in this series employs and
refines categories and methods of analysis that are intrinsic to the study
of religion, while simultaneously advancing our knowledge of the
character and impact of particular religious beliefs and practices in a
specific historical, social, or cultural context.
Second, this series is interdisciplinary. The academic study of
religion is conducted by historians, sociologists, political scientists,
anthropologists, psychologists, and others. Books in the series bring
before the reader an array of disciplinary lenses through which religion
can be creatively and critically viewed. Based on the conviction that the
instability of the category itself generates important insights, “religion”
in these works encompasses and/or informs a wide range of religious
phenomena, including myths, rituals, ways of thought, institutions,
communities, legal traditions, texts, political movements, artistic
production, gender roles, and identity formation.
In this, the sixth book in the series, Lisa McClain provides an
engrossing narrative about the struggle of a religious community to
survive in the face of a powerful, state-supported effort to destroy its
inherited sense of identity and to eradicate its influence. The story that
McClain recounts occurs in England during a time when Protestant
viii
reformers, strongly supported by the monarchy, sought to forcefully
impose their version of Christianity on a population that included a
significant Roman Catholic component.
In the story itself, McClain focuses attention on the popular side of
Catholic religion. She describes the creative partnership of the lower,
pastoral clergy with the engaged segment of the laity as the locus of
innovation through which the Catholic community was able to maintain
and adapt its liturgical practice on the one hand and its inherited sense
of identity on the other. At the same time McClain artfully evokes an
appreciation for the kind of lived experience that she associates with
ordinary believers and practitioners who combined a firm commitment
to their Catholic heritage with a practical flexibility that enabled them to
adapt to a radically changed religio-political order.
As editors we are pleased to include within the Religion in History,
Society, and Culture series a book that brings a fresh perspective to a
familiar topic—early modern Catholicism—using the new theoretical
and methodological approaches being developed by cultural historians
and historians of religion.
Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, The University of Chicago, Divinity
School Frank Reynolds, The University of Chicago, Divinity School
Acknowledgments
THIS BOOK COULD NOT HAVE BEEN COMPLETED WITHOUT
THE AID OF numerous professional colleagues, friends, and family
members who supported me throughout the various phases of the
process. Thank you in particular to Brian P.Levack and Ann W.Ramsey
whose guidance and commentary have proven invaluable. I also extend
my appreciation to those scholars who have reviewed parts of the work
at various stages of the process and from whose learned advice I have
benefited immeasurably: Myron Gutmann, Alison Frazier, Christopher
Ellison, Shelton Woods, Todd Shallat, Charles Odahl, Sharon Arnault,
Geoff Clayton, Rob Stephens, Clayton Whisnant, Paul Hagenloh, and
Andrew McFarland. My thanks to Fr.David Wettstein for his insights
into the relationships between clergy and laity. In the editing stages of
this book, the aid of Frank Reynolds, the series editor, and of Doug
Sims proved invaluable.
I would also like to extend my appreciation to the various institutions
whose assistance made the completion of this study possible: Boise
State University for the time to write provided by a Faculty Research
Associateship, the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation for the
Charlotte W.Newcombe Dissertation Fellowship, the Philanthropic
Educational Organization for the P.E.O.Scholar Award, and the
University of Texas for the Bess Heflin Endowed Fellowship and the
David Bruton Fellowship.
Professionals at many archives in the U.S. and the U.K. also justly
deserve acknowledgment for their advice and ability to retain a sense of
humor throughout my investigative quest, in particular Pat Fox and the
staff at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University
of Texas at Austin, and also the archivists at the British Library, the Public
Record Offices at Kew, Truro, Chester, and Newcastle, Durham
Cathedral, York Minster Library, Chester City Archive, and the National
Archives of Scotland, as well as the staff at the Borthwick Institute,