A Content Analysis of English Catholic Books, 1615-1714

A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH CATHOLIC BOOKS, 1615-1714 Thomas H. Clancy, S.J.* The present state of bibliographical studies of English Catholic writings in post-Reformation Britain allows us to make some generalizations about the course of Catholic literature in English in the seventeenth century. The two volumes of The Contemporary Printed Literature of the English CounterReformation between 1558 and 1640 by the late Antony Allison and David Rogers have been well received.' The revised edition of my own English Catholic Books 1641-1700 has about 18% more items than the first edition.2 For the eighteenth century we have English CatholicBooks 1 701-1800 by Dr. Jos Blom and his team.5 Our sense of the term "English Catholic Book" is that first devised by Allison and Rogers. "For our purposes the word 'English' covers the four languages of the British Isles . . . Other works written by Catholics [in other languages] are included only if they were printed—or if they claim to be printed—in England ."4 We have chosen to analyze the content ofbooks published from 1615 through 1714. Some have called 1615 the close of the "real" Elizabethan age. From their writings we know that most seventeenth-century English Catholics did not like to look back to the days of the Armada and the Gunpowder plot. They rarely discussed this part of their history. After 1615 the number of Catholics executed for their religion decreases sharply. By 1615 most of the Catholic heroes ofthe Elizabethan age had passed from the scene.The year 1714 is a good place to stop because it is the end ofthe Stuart era.After that date there are new char- "Father Clancy is archivist of the Jesuit Archives in New Orleans. 1A. F.Allison and D. M. Rogers,Vol. 1: Works in Languages Other than English (Brookfield ,Vermont, 1989);Vol. 2: Works in English (Brookfield,Vermont, 1994).Abbreviated as ARCR 1 and 2. Original ed. Chicago, 1974; revised ed. Brookfield,Vermont, 1996. 3E Blom,J. Blom, F. Korsten, G. Scott, English Catholic Books 1 701-1800. ?? their original Catalogue of Catholic Books in English . . . 1558-1640 (Bognor Regis, 1956P p. iii. I have not considered in the present article those items in ARCR 2 which are no longer extant or any of the items in ARCR I except those transferred from the 1956 Catalogue, i.e., numbers 360, 366, 677, 678. 258 BY THOMAS H. CLANCY, SJ.259 acteristics of English Catholicism in the age of Richard Challoner, who was ordained in 1716. In order to see the trends in English Catholic publishing we have divided our century in five-year periods except for the years 1685-1689 during the reign of King James II, when the number of Catholic books multiplied rapidly. During the whole century we count 1,955 Catholic books published. Of these 425 or 22% appeared in the years 1685-1689. Therefore, in order not to totally distort the charts and graphs we have divided these five years into four periods: 1685, 1686, 1687, 1688- 1689. This gives us a total of twenty-three periods. The first chart [Figure 1] shows the number of books produced in each of the twenty-three periods. Note that except for the four periods mentioned in the previous paragraph all figures are for five years. If production were evenly distributed each period would have something over eighty-three books. We notice that the below-average periods are 1625-1629, 1635-1639, 1640-1644, 1645-1649, 1665-1669, 1675-1679, 1680-1684, 1685, and all five periods from 1690. The rises and dips in the pre-1640 period are consistent with other factors in the history of English Catholics. There was a relatively easy period for Catholics in the years 1615-1624,when KingJames I was trying to make a Catholic match for his son, Prince Charles, first with Spain and then with France. In order to improve the overseas image of England the penal laws were considerably relaxed. During the next four years things tightened up considerably. In addition, the English war with Spain, which ruled most of Flanders, where English Catholic printers had established their businesses,made it difficult to...