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In 1534 an act of parliament was passed which declared that ‘the King's Majesty justly and rightfully is and ought to be the supreme head of the Church of England, and so is recognised by the clergy of this realm in their Convocations.’ With the passing of the Act of Supremacy, over a thousand years of tradition was broken and the Roman Catholic Church in Britain was outlawed. Over the course of the succeeding centuries, Catholics in Britain experienced persecution, oppression, emancipation. From the nineteenth century onward, as Britain gradually became a modern liberal democratic state, rights were gradually restored to Catholics in Britain. This course traces this journey with a particular emphasis on ‘history from below,’examining the ways in which great social and political changes were experienced by ordinary Catholics on the ground.
Week 1
The break with Rome was a significant geo-political event but its ripples were felt at the atomic level of English society: in the cultural and social lives of rural people living in small villages. This week we will examine the effects of the reformation as experienced by the villagers of Morebath in Kent.
Week 2
By the seventeenth century, England and English culture was all but defined by its antipathy towards Catholicism. Anti-Catholic bigotry came to a head in 1678 as rumours of a so-called Popish Plot against the English crown spread. This week we will examine the experience of Catholics in England during the Restoration period, from the vantage point of one Jesuit priest: Claude Colombiere.
Week 3
In 1778, Parliament passed the Catholic Relief Act. This act repealed a small proportion of the laws which had been enacted to restrict Catholic participation in public life over the course of the preceding two centuries. This move in the direction of tolerance sparked public outcry and periodic rioting during the last decades of the eighteenth century. We will be looking at this era in English history as described by Joseph Berington, a priest and documentarian of the period.
Week 4
The movement for full Catholic emancipation gained impetus in Britain during the nineteenth century thanks in part to the rise of the Liberal Party. The Catholic hierarchy was re-established with the elevation of Cardinal Wiseman in 1850 and at the same time, Churches and schools for the education of Catholic children were beginning to appear across the country. In 1851, the country was gripped by another story of the nefarious influence of the Catholic priesthood involving the large bequest left by a French miser for the foundation of a Catholic school in Somers Town. In the fourth week of our course we will be examining the story of Catholic emancipation and the experience of ordinary Catholics through the lens of the ‘Metairie v Wiseman’ court case.
Week 5
During the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Catholic Church in Britain was transformed by the influx of migrants from Ireland. In particular, urban Catholic communities swelled in size and changed in character. In the final week of the course we will examine the rise (and fall?) and Irish-Catholicism in Britain, drawing ona range of documentary evidence and first hand accounts from across the country.
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Aidan is a tutor in Social and Environmental Justice stream. He completed his PhD at the Divinity Faculty of the University of Cambridge in 2018. During his doctoral studies he ran as a Parliamentary candidate for the Green Party. He is the author of two academic books: Jewish Christians in Puritan England (2020) and Israelism in Modern Britain (2021). Between 2020 and 2022 he worked as a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at St Mary's University in London.
