Thesis (Ph. D.)--Catholic University of America. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 123-124) and index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Notre Dame, 2007. / Thesis directed by Chris Vanden Bossche for the Department of English. "July 2007." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 226-236).

Thesis (M.A.)--Duquesne University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Abstract included in electronic submission form. Includes bibliographical references (p. 120-126) and index.

The growth of popular protestantism and the increased demands of Irish Catholicism were two nineteenth century developments which would not take place without conflict. The high Churchmanship and Toryism of Wesley coupled with Methodist experiences in Ireland ensured that Wesleyans would not support concessions to the Irish Catholics. The remarkable numerical growth of Methodism in England only highlighted its apparent failure in Ireland when confronted by a surprisingly resilient Catholicism. Most religious and social conflicts have political ramifications and this one was no exception. Battle lines were dram over three important questions. Were Roman Catholics entitled to the same political, rights as everyone else? What were the relative responsibilities of Church and State in the provision of education? What was to be the fate of protestantism in Ireland when it was in such a hopeless minority? In all of these questions Methodism and Roman Catholicism found themselves on completely opposite sides. As with later non-conformists the Wesleyans could not accept that what was theologically and morally wrong could ever be politically right. In response the Irish Catholics could appeal to the government for change in a country where the religion of the majority was politically and socially in subjection to the religion of the minority. Methodism's allies were the Established Church and the Tory party, and both let them down. In the disappointment of political failure over the Maynooth Bill the Wesleyans reaffirmed their belief in religious methods by participating in the Evangelical Alliance. In spite of short term successes Methodism's political objectives were not achieved and participation in public affairs often produced connexional disharmony.

To the Englishmen of the sixteenth century the structure of the universe seemed clear and logical. God had created and ordered it in such a way that everyone and everything had a specific, permanent place which carried with it appropriate duties and responsibilities. Primary among these requirements was obedience to one's betters, up the Chain of Being, to God. Unity demanded uniformity; obedience held the universe together. Within this context, the excommunication of Elizabeth Tudor in 1570 both redefined and intensified the strain between the crown and the various religious groups in the realm. Catholics had become traitors, or at least potential traitors, with the stroke of a papal pen.

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This thesis is about anti-popery in early modern England, how its meanings and political uses in printed literature changed in response to the dramatic developments of the Thirty Years' War. I contend that the languages of anti-popery, though structured by binary oppositions, were being used to express complex, multifaceted views about Catholic states in the 1620s and 1630s. The new perspective that this research offers is two-fold. Firstly, it asserts that anti-popery was an active and flexible tool of English Protestant debate about foreign affairs. 'Popish' tyranny, variously embodied in the Counter-Reformation papacy or Habsburg imperialism, was a malleable concept that adapted its meanings and associations with the political circumstances. Our early modern subjects were capable of separating anti-Catholic beliefs about idolatrous worship from political questions of how to identify, and combat, the threat of papal tyranny. Thus, this thesis argues that a greater range of irenic attitudes towards relations with Catholic powers were circulating than previously thought. Secondly, this thesis argues that several different anti-papal languages were operating alongside, and in competition with, one another in early Stuart political culture. As a fluid set of tropes, associations and prejudices, anti-popery had different meanings for different authors and incorporated a range of political and religious agendas. Anti-popery, therefore, was not simply a tool of Puritan opposition to the non-interventionist policy of the Stuarts, but, I argue, was also compatible with a more moderate or conciliatory attitude to Catholic states, including Habsburg Spain. The printed debates of the 1620s and 1630s expose the tensions that existed between competing ideas about the nature of the external popish threat. By 1635 and the reversal of Protestant fortunes on the Continent, these competing anti-papal ideas were exposing the tensions within England about the nature of its Protestantism, and thus helped precipitate the Civil Wars.

This work examines the anti-Catholic bias of Jacob Burckhardt as he employed it in the Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. A biographical chapter examines his early education in the Lutheran seminary and the influence of his educators at the University of Berlin. The Civilization is examined in three critical areas: Burckhardt's treatment of the popes in his chapter "The State as a Work of Art," the reform tendencies of the Italian humanists which Burckhardt virtually ignored, and the rise of confraternities in Italy. In each instance, Burckhardt demonstrated a clear bias against the Catholic Church. Further study could reveal if this initial bias was perpetuated through later "Burckhardtian" historians.