The media is the main source of ideas about history, and especially the history of the Church. Books such as Q and The Name of the Rose and films such as Kingdom of Heaven and Elizabeth: The Golden Age, amongst myriads of others, can be powerful vehicles for misinformation and negative bias. Given that most people have neither the time nor the interest to sit down and read real history books, as opposed to watching a film or reading a novel, there is always a market for short, authoritative but accessible works which can both present real history and thus counter such misinformation. This collection of pamphlets from CTS are precisely such works. They tackle head on some of the most controversial aspects of Church history and while never avoiding the mistakes made and sins committed by those involved, they put their subjects into context and provide what might be, for some, surprising information and analysis. They are all excellent, and written in an engaged but non-polemical style.
Fr Jerome's work on heresy begins by making the very reasonable point that all societies censure and punish certain sorts of behaviour, and that such behaviour stems from certain erroneous ideas. He gives theories of racial superiority and the system of apartheid as one example among others. Given that the Christian Church is a real society it has had to deal with ideas and behavior which threatened the saving truths upon which it is built. It is not the purpose of the work to examine the best way of dealing with heresy, but to establish its reality and then divide it into several distinct but related categories. Thus the rest of the work deals with heresies concerning; the nature of God, the nature of Christ, Salvation, the nature of the Church. The final section is entitled A Compendium of all the Heresies: Modernism, where Fr Jerome explains Pius X's views. He concludes that Truth matters and that the proper response to untruth is ‘not anger but sorrow and patient explanation … ’
Fernando Cervantes' work, while it opens with the origins of the Papal Inquisition, deals largely with the Spanish inquisition. This is reasonable enough, as this is what most people mean when they talk about ‘The Inquisition’. The most important point here is that it was a royal institution, albeit authorized by the Papacy and staffed by churchmen. While decrying such royal policies as the expulsion of the Jews in 1492 and the later expulsion of the Moriscos, Cervantes shows that the Spanish Inquisition was not fuelled by racial and ethnic hatred, but a desire, shared by most European countries of the time, for religious unity (p. 34). The Inquisition itself, especially after 1484, was stringently overseen, and inquisitors acting illegally or over-zealously were duly removed and punished. It had no authority over Jews or Muslims. He also points out the facts that many Conversos supported the establishment of the Inquisition, that Spain was spared the witch-burning crazes so prevalent in Northern Europe, since the Inquisition did not regard witchcraft as a reality, and that Galileo considered moving to Spain as the Inquisition and Spanish academic establishment roundly endorsed his scientific theories. This is a superb corrective to the continuing popularity of the ‘Black Legend’, drawing on Dr Cervantes' own work and also the expertise of Henry Kamen, the leading anglophone historian of the Spanish Inquisition.
Raymond Edwards' pamphlet gives the European background and then an overview of the Reformation in England from the time of Henry VIII to the Gunpowder Plot. He highlights the unpopularity of the various measures, the ruthless enforcement of Royal authority, popular resistance, and the damage done to the social fabric throughout the period. He concludes, for example, about the reforms of Edward and Elizabeth, ‘the damage done to education and provision for the poor was enormous’ (p. 71). Mary Tudor is also given a much more even and just treatment than she normally receives. This is an excellent presentation which deftly incorporates the important, recent, revisionist history of the period.
The central thesis of Fr Anthony Meredith's pamphlet is that there is, despite all the contingencies of history, an authentic continuity between the ecclesial body founded by Jesus of Nazareth, and the Church as it emerged during and after the reign of Constantine. It is, in fact, a refreshing statement of what most ordinary (and many extraordinary) Catholics have always believed. Starting with Constantine, Fr Anthony works back to the time of Christ and looks at the various cultural, political and religious contexts from which the Church grew. A little more emphasis on the continuities with Second Temple Judaism would have been welcome, but this does not detract from the expected clear and scholarly account. Major figures such as Ignatius, Marcion, Cyprian and Origen are discussed. The work is a wonder of clarity and concision, considering the vastness of the chronology and material.
Professor Riley-Smith's work is another masterpiece of concision and clarity. Particularly worth reading are the crucial pages 3–10, where the current popular attitudes to the crusades are analysed and given a genealogy. The image of a brutal, backward society, expanding in a proto-imperialist-colonialist way into North Africa and the Near East is one that was born in the West. One notable description is the Enlightenment image, popularized by Sir Walter Scott, of Saladin as ‘a type of liberal European gentleman in faux-oriental clothing’ (p. 4). As far as Islam as a whole was concerned, the Crusades had resulted in a happy victory, and were largely forgotten about, as was Saladin. In the 1890's as part of the Pan-Islamic movement, Islamic historians found it helpful to utilize both the negative and the positive, though equally inaccurate, Western theories of the Crusades and turn them against the West. The foundation of the State of Israel gave further impetus to the interpretation of the Crusades as a form of Imperialism. The rest of the work is a clear and ‘myth-busting’ account. Most of the Crusaders were sincere and pious, who expended huge amounts of personal and family wealth to go on crusade, not to mention the personal danger involved. Many survivors returned, rather than settle in the Holy Land. The main problem with the venture was structural; the only institution with legitimate authority to launch a crusade, the Papacy, subsequently had no influence over how it was conducted. This gave the more hysterical or cynical elements in every crusade room to unduly influence the enterprise. This excellent pamphlet has a very useful timeline as an appendix.
This series is an excellent achievement of CTS. These works are valuable to a wide range of readers, from 5th or 6th year secondary history or religious studies students to the interested general reader. Given that a major source of ill-informed anti-Catholic bias is often the Catholic clergy, they should be recommended reading in seminaries and houses of formation, as well as for on-going clergy formation. As Prof. Riley-Smith puts it, ‘One might add that there is little point in apologizing for something if you do not know what it is’ (p. 10). Above all, they present a trustworthy, expert treatment of their subjects, and while one might disagree with particulars, one cannot deny that they are trying to present a truthful account and an authentic analysis, adhering to the canons of academic historical research.
