From Persecution to Emancipation: Eng Catholicism C.1530-1850

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Barring its brief restoration under Queen Mary I, Catholicism in England was proscribed for nearly 300 years following Henry VIII's break from Rome. Two loose but bitterly opposed schools of historiography subsequently grew up surrounding the story of English Catholicism, one seeing it as the story of heroism in the face of state brutality, the other as a tale of fifth columnists within the nation. However, recent decades have witnessed an intense level of research into English Catholicism that has challenged prevailing views and revealed how much work remains to be undertaken on its ‘hidden' community. This course will reflect that scholarship, highlighting themes still prescient for the modern day, such as freedom of conscience; loyalty to the nation state versus that to a supranational authority like the papacy; and the effect feelings of being suddenly dispossessed and disenfranchised have on a community.