English Catholic Community, 1570-1850 Book

The culmination of a generation of research by many scholars, this, the first systematic study of the Roman Catholic community in England between the reign of Elizabeth I and the late nineteenth-century Irish immigration, fills a notable gap in the history of England.Bossy provides a study of the internal history of the community, its geography, numbers, religious behavior, social structure, and ecclesiastical institutions. He rejects the common view that the community declined between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, and demonstrates that, on the contrary, it experienced a slow but steady development, culminating in a period of early nineteenth-century maturity and vigor.The English Catholic Community, 1570-1850 is, doubtless, the most comprehensive account of the internal history of any nonestablishment religious community in England during this period. Much more complete and methodical than previous studies, written from a largely sociological standpoint, the book presents the history of the Catholic community within the context of the whole of English history and within its religious groupings in particular.John Bossy provides the basis not only for a new understanding by Catholics themselves of their past, but provides for the just reassessment by historians of the community's particular role in English history.Read More