Reformation Divided: Catholics, Protestants and the Conversion of England

by Eamon Duffy

Published to mark the 500th anniversary of the events of 1517, Reformation Divided explores the impact in England of the cataclysmic transformations of European Christianity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The religious revolution initiated by Martin Luther is usually referred to as 'The Reformation', a tendentious description implying that the shattering of the medieval religious foundations of Europe was a single process, in which a defective form of Christianity was replaced by one that was unequivocally benign, 'the midwife of the modern world'. The book challenges these assumptions by tracing the ways in which the project of reforming Christendom from within, initiated by Christian 'humanists' like Erasmus and Thomas More, broke apart into conflicting and often murderous energies and ideologies, dividing not only Catholic from Protestant, but creating deep internal rifts within all the churches which emerged from Europe's religious conflicts.

The book is in three In 'Thomas More and Heresy', Duffy examines how and why England's greatest humanist apparently abandoned the tolerant humanism of his youthful masterpiece Utopia , and became the bitterest opponent of the early Protestant movement. 'Counter-Reformation England' explores the ways in which post-Reformation English Catholics accommodated themselves to a complex new identity as persecuted religious dissidents within their own country, but in a European context, active participants in the global renewal of the Catholic Church. The book's final section 'The Godly and the Conversion of England' considers the ideals and difficulties of radical reformers attempting to transform the conventional Protestantism of post-Reformation England into something more ardent and committed. In addressing these subjects, Duffy shines new light on the fratricidal ideological conflicts which lasted for more than a century, and whose legacy continues to shape the modern world.

Genres: History, Religion, Nonfiction, Theology, Catholic, European History, Christianity

446 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 23, 2017

About the author

Eamon Duffy is Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Cambridge, and former President of Magdalene College.

He describes himself as a "cradle Catholic" and specializes in 15th to 17th century religious history of Britain. His work has done much to overturn the popular image of late-medieval Catholicism in England as moribund, and instead presents it as a vibrant cultural force. On weekdays from 22nd October to 2nd November 2007, he presented the BBC Radio 4 series "10 Popes Who Shook the World" - those popes featured were Peter, Leo I, Gregory I, Gregory VII, Innocent III, Paul III, Pius IX, Pius XII, John XXIII, and John Paul II.

Reviews

[Autumn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not entirely sure what Duffy is trying to do with this one. It begins as an examination of a couple of the major personalities of the counter-reformation in England and moves on towards a more general overview of the English Catholicism of the period. The title, the introduction, and the actual content of the book appear to be doing different jobs. While I do appreciate Duffy's attempt to rescue Catholicism from its Protestant detractors in history (even if he does stretch it a bit in his partisan zeal), this book feels less like a major contribution and more like a place to stick research that didn't make it into his other works. That said, I thought his chapter on the conflicts between secular clergy and monastic houses was excellent.

[Toby · Rating 2 out of 5]

With this collection of essays Eamon Duffy takes us into the byways and backwaters of the Reformation (the Reformation in this instance extending into the early Eighteenth Century). This means that for most readers of the book, the information and stories contained within will be only scantily known. This may be a good or a bad thing. Overall I found my concentration struggled with substantial parts of the book as I simply wasn't interested enough in what he had to say.

The book is in three parts. Part 1 is a discussion of Thomas More and humanism, which is well-written and enlightening. Duffy tries to take on Hilary Mantel's brutal portrait of More and return More to the sensitive humanist that previous generations saw him as, rather than the sexually troubled torturer. He recognises that this task might be a vain one.

Part 2, which I struggled with, is made up of a number of chapters on recusancy, the priestly mission to England and the college at Douai. At times it felt repetitive and there simply wasn't enough there to engage me.

Part 3 takes us beyond the sixteenth century reformation into the world of Richard Baxter and George Fox. This was much more interesting and I would have enjoyed more on them, although we are now out of Duffy's main area of expertise.

In short, this volume feels like a counter punch to Diarmaid MacCulloch's selection of essays "All Things New" published the year before, but MacCulloch writes with more verve and his subjects (to me, at least) were of more interest. I suspect this volume has been published by a mainstream publisher purely on the strength of the author's name. I couldn't imagine such an esoteric selection of essays being published by Bloomsbury otherwise.