Transubstantiation and the cult of Corpus Christi became crucial Counter-Reformation symbols which were assigned an even more significant role during the process of Catholic renewal from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century. Practices outside Mass, such as pilgrimages, processions, and prayers in front of the consecrated host flourished, in particular, in early modern Bavaria. The former Duchy of Bavaria has generally been regarded as the archetypal ‘confessional' state, as the Bavarian dukes from the House of Wittelsbach took the lead in propagating the cult of the Eucharist. They acted as patrons of Baroque Catholicism which was presented to the public as an obvious visual marker of Catholic identity. This study therefore investigates how the Eucharist was popularised in the Catholic duchy between 1550 and 1750, focusing on three major themes: pilgrimages, confraternities, and the Corpus Christi procession. This study does not, however, approach the renewal of Catholicism in terms of a top-down process implemented by the Wittelsbach dukes as a method of stately power and control. Rather than arguing in favour of a state-sponsored piety imposed from above, this work explores the formation of Catholic confessional identity as a two-way-process of binding together elite and popular piety, and emphasizes the active role of the populace in constituting this identity. This is why this investigation draws primarily on research from local archives, using a rich body of both textual and visual evidence. Focusing especially on the visual aspects of Catholic piety, this project works towards an interdisciplinary approach in order to understand the ways in which Eucharistic devotion outside Mass was presented to and received by local communities within particular visual environments.

In recent decades historians have documented the nature and impact of religious violence within French Catholicism during the French Wars of Religion (1562-1629). My dissertation introduces the question of religious nonviolence within French Catholicism in this era by examining the religiosity practiced and promoted by Francois de Sales (1567-1622). By interpreting the words, actions, and impact of this clergyman across three different contexts - the mission field of the Chablais, in lay spiritual counseling, and in the Order of the Visitation- this research presents a fresh perspective on the nature of Catholicism in early modern France and an important historical case study of the possibilities and limits of moderation in a society reeling from religious extremism.

The early modern period of a time of religious renewal and upheaval that resulted in a wealth of new religious orders, particularly those for women. During this period of change, Catholic women responded to the threat of Protestantism by adapting the convent to their own needs. One of the most successful orders for women was the Congregation of the Visitation, founded by Jeanne de Chantal and François de Sales. The history of the Visitation tends to focus on de Sales rather than its cofounder de Chantal. This thesis attempts to reconcile this omission, detailing de Chantal's ability to demonstrate and enact her authority through the mode of letters. In doing so, this paper enters into a conversation on religious revival in the early modern period by illustrating the porous nature of the early modern convent and the role women had in shaping early modern religiosity. / History

In his most popular prose work, Mary Magdalens Funeral Teares (1591), English Jesuit Robert Southwell adapts the Mary Magdalene tradition by incorporating the meditative practices of St. Ignatius Loyola coupled with the Petrarchan language of poetry. Thus, he creates a prose work that ministered to Catholic souls, appealed to Protestant audiences, and initiated the literature of tears in England. Southwell readapts the traditional image of Mary Magdalene for a Catholic Early Modern audience by utilizing the techniques of Jesuit meditation, which later flourished in the weeper texts of Richard Crashaw and George Herbert. His vividly imagined scenes also employ the Petrarchan and Ovidian language of longing and absence and coincide with both traditional and mystic early church writers such as Bernard and Augustine. Through this combination, Southwell’s Marie Magdalens Funeral Teares resonated with Catholics deprived of both ministry and the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. These contributions solidify Southwell’s place as a pivotal figure in the religious and literary contexts of Early Modern England.

This thesis examines the missionary work of the Italian Capuchin Lorenzo da Brindisi. Renowned in his own day as a preacher, Bible scholar, missionary, chaplain, and diplomat, as well as vicar general of his Order, Lorenzo led the first organised, papally-commissioned Capuchin mission among the non-Catholics of Bohemia in the Holy Roman Empire from 1599 to 1602, and returned there, again under papal mandate, from 1606 to 1613. This thesis examines Lorenzo’s evangelistic and polemical activities in Central Europe in order to shed light on some of the ways the Capuchins laboured in religiously divided territories to confirm Catholics in their faith and to win over heretics. The introduction explains, principally, the thesis’s purpose and the historiographical background. Chapter one provides a brief biographical sketch of Lorenzo’s life followed by details of his afterlife. Chapter two examines his leading role in establishing the Capuchins’ new Commissariate of Bohemia-Austria-Styria in 1600, and specifically its first three friaries in Prague, Vienna, and Graz. Chapter three treats his preaching against heresy. Chapter four focuses on how Lorenzo, while in Prague, involved himself directly in theological disputations with two different Lutheran preachers. The first dispute, with Polykarp Leyser, took place in July 1607, and dealt with good works and justification. The second, with a Lutheran whose name is not known for certain, and which occurred in August 1610, concerned Catholic veneration of the Virgin Mary. Chapter five analyses the Lutheranismi hypotyposis, Lorenzo’s literary refutation of Lutheranism following additional contact with Polykarp Leyser in 1607. The conclusion considers briefly the effectiveness of Lorenzo’s apostolate and closes with a review of the thesis as a whole.

Early modern English Catholic eschatology, the belief that the present was the last age and an associated concern with mankind’s destiny, has been overlooked in the historiography. Historians have established that early modern Protestants had an eschatological understanding of the present. This thesis seeks to balance the picture and the sources indicate that there was an early modern English Catholic counter narrative. This thesis suggests that the Catholic eschatological understanding of contemporary events affected political action. It investigates early modern English Catholic eschatology in the context of proscription and persecution of Catholicism between 1558 and 1603. Devotional eschatology was the corner stone of individual Catholic eschatology and placed earthly life in an apocalyptic time-frame. Catholic devotional works challenged the regime and questioned Protestantism. Devotional eschatology is suggestive of a worldview which expected an impending apocalypse but there was a reluctance to date the End. With an eschatological outlook normalised by daily devotional eschatology the Reformation and contemporary events were interpreted apocalyptically. An apocalyptic understanding of the break with Rome was not exclusively Protestant. Indeed, the identification of Antichrist was not just a Protestant concern but rather the linchpin of Reformation debates between Catholics and Protestants. Some identified Elizabeth as Jezebel, the Whore of Babylon. The Bull of Excommunication of 1570 and its language provided papal authority for identifications of Elizabeth as the Whore. The execution of Mary Queen of Scots was a flashpoint which enabled previously hidden ideas to burst into public discourse. This was dangerous as eschatology and apocalypticism was a language of political action. An eschatological understanding of contemporary events encouraged conspiracy. The divine plan required human agents. Catholic prophecy and conspiracy show that eschatology did not just affect how the future was thought about but also had implications for the present. This thesis raises questions about Catholic loyalism which other scholars have also begun to challenge. Yet attempts to depose or murder the monarch was not the only response which could be adopted. Belief that one was living in the End also supported what this thesis terms ‘militant passivity’. Martyrs understood their suffering as a form of eschatological agency which revealed and confirmed the identities of the Antichrist and the Whore. The Book of the Apocalypse promised that they would be rewarded at God’s approaching Judgement and the debates of the Reformation would be settled by the ultimate Judge. As martyrs came to symbolise the English Catholic community, it came to understand itself eschatologically. This thesis argues that acknowledging the eschatological dimensions of Catholic perception and action helps us to re-think the nature of early modern English Catholicism.

What did it mean to be a Catholic elite in Protestant England? The relationship between the Protestant crown and its Catholic subjects may be examined fruitfully through a study of an individual and his world. This thesis examines this relationship through the example of Sir Thomas Tresham, who has often been seen as the archetypal Catholic loyalist. It is argued that the notion of Catholic loyalism must be reconfigured to account for the complexities inherent in the relationship between Catholics and the government. The duty to honour the monarch's authority was bound up with social and national sentiment, but it often accompanied criticisms of the practice of that authority, and the ways in which it encroached on personal experience. Intractable tensions lay behind expressions of loyalty, and this thesis travels in these undercurrents of cultural, social, religious, and political conflict to investigate the nuanced relationship between English Catholics and English society. Political resistance as classically understood - actions which directly opposed and undermined government policy - risks the exclusion of culture and identity, through which resistance was redefined. It is argued that Tresham's participation in elite activities became vehicles for resistance in the Catholic context. Book-collecting, reading, and the donation of books to an institutional library are framed as forms of resistance which countered the spirit of government legislation, and provided for the continuation of a robust tradition of Catholic scholarship on English soil. Through artistic and architectural projects, Tresham found ways to participate in elite culture which were not closed off to him, and in which Catholicism and gentility could sit side by side. These activities were also avenues for resistance, whereby the erection of stone testaments to Tresham's faith defied the government's attempts to redefine Englishness and gentility in Protestant terms, to the devastation of Catholicism. These artistic works combined piety, gentility, and resistance, and, together with Tresham's two Catholic libraries, they were to be his legacy.