The political influence of British Catholics in First World War Britain has been a neglected aspect of British history. This thesis aims to address this deficiency by focusing precisely on the political role played by leading Roman Catholics in Britain during the conflict. This work concentrates on leading Catholic clergy, laymen and the British Catholic press. It demonstrates that the majority of leading Catholics were guided by an excessive nationalism which had two consequences. Firstly, British Catholics supported the war effort and the British government almost unquestionably. Secondly, most leading Catholics failed to give their full support to the Pope and repudiated his efforts to facilitate a negotiated peace. The thesis is based upon research into a wide array of primary material located in archives in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It depends heavily on the private correspondence of the Catholic hierarchy and leading Catholic politicians and publicists. In addition, it includes a survey of the Catholic press of the period, since it manifested the relationship between the leading Catholic clergy and laity, and the rest of British society. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis examines narratives of the events called ”The War of Religion in Kvistbro”, a violent turmoil that erupted in Närke, Sweden 1843. The events involved persons connected to the Shouter Movement, a pietist inspired revivalist movement, and governmental officials who were ordered to arrest a preacher.A narrative analysis based on a model inspired by Labov and Chatman, is used for examining contemporary local newspaper Nerikes Allehanda's and the revivalist historian E. J.Ekman's narrations of the events. The theoretical framework of this thesis is founded on Charles Tilly's theory of collective violence, and James C Scott's theories of hidden transcripts and weapons of the weak.The results of the analysis indicates that there are three main understandings of the events within the empiric material: a religious framing, a medical framing, and a socio-political reading. The socio-political reading of the narratives implies that the concepts medicine as control, social antagonism, and gender-coded aspects of conflict, emerge from the material.

Au début du XVIe siècle la ville de Montpellier était encore médiévale. Les murailles, "commune clôture", étaient le symbole de son pouvoir, de sa justice; mais elles étaient aussi l'objet de lourdes charges financières.Dans cette ville de Montpellier différents groupes se côtoyaient. Les uns, la noblesse ancienne et rurale, avaient perdu de l'influence au sein du consulat. Les autres, les petits nobles de robe, issus de la bourgeoisie marchande, progressaient. Ils connurent un fort essor avec la création de la cour des Aides, en 1467, et avec la création de la chambre des Comptes, en 1523. Ils accaparèrent les charges de premier consul, rachetèrent les droits de justice au clergé, aux seigneurs locaux, et finalement, dirigèrent la ville. / At the begining of the 16th century, the town was still medieval, the walls, "common fences", were the symbol of its power, of its justice, but they were also the object of heavy financial charges.In the town of Montpellier, different groups were mixing. Some of them, old rural nobility, had lost influence in the consulship. The others, small nobility from the petty merchant vourgeoisie, were increasing. The knew a strong rise with the creation of the court of Aides in 1467 and with the creation of the house of Accounts in 1523. They withheld the charges of first consul, bought the right of justice from the clergy and the local lords, and finally ruled the town.

Le terme de guerre de religion apparaissait déjà sporadiquement à la fin du XVIe siècle. Il se trouva de façon accrue dans les imprimés de l’époque de la Guerre de Trente Ans. Cependant, une discussion élargie sur ce phénomène ne s’établit qu’au seuil du XVIIIe siècle. La guerre de religion ne devint qu’à cette époque-là un mot-clé politique. L’idée de guerre de religion ne gagna son importance historiographique que dans le débat politique contemporain. Le but de cette étude est de répondre à la question de savoir comment s’est établie une conception, comment est née une image historique (Geschichtsbild), comment enfin a été délimitée l’époque de la guerre de religion. La présente étude se restreint aux trois foyers de conflits confessionnels essentiels pour le débat sur la guerre de religion : la France, l’Angleterre et le Saint-Empire Romain Germanique. Elle s’élargit en même temps à l’échelle européenne en étudiant l’influence décisive qu’eut la perception des dernières grandes guerres de Louis XIV. Aussi bien la Guerre de Neuf Ans que la Guerre de Succession d’Espagne furent perçues comme des guerres de religion. La propagande imprimée de Louis XIV et des alliés ses ennemis y contribua largement en cherchant à rendre légitimes leurs politiques respectives. Ainsi la France et les guerres de Louis XIV eurent-elles un rôle déterminant dans la discussion sur la guerre de religion – qui paraissait impensable sans la personne et la politique du roi de France. Le lien entre guerre de religion et politique internationale aboutit à l’européanisation du débat sur la guerre de religion. / The notion of religious war emerged for the first time at the end of the 16th century. The use of this term increased immensely during the time of the Thirty Years’ War via printed media. Yet, a widespread discussion of the phenomenon only started towards the end of the 17th century. War of religion became a constant political keyword. The idea gained its historiographical importance through its usage in the actual political debate. The aim of this research is to question the development of the concept of religious war, the underlying perception of history and the labelling of an era with this term. The thesis will confine itself to three territories where in the late 17th and early 18th century examples of confessional conflicts were intertwined with the debate on religious wars: France, England and the Holy Roman Empire. The scope of the study is, nevertheless, widened to the European arena by examining the decisive influence the last wars of Louis XIV had on the perception of religious wars. In fact, both the Nine Years’ War and the War of the Spanish Succession were perceived by contemporaries as wars of religion. The printed propaganda of Louis XIV as well as that of his allied enemies contributed largely to this perception by legitimising their respective politics. Thus, France and the wars of Louis XIV had a shaping role of the discussion on religious wars. In sum, the connection of confessional conflicts, international politics and the personality of the French king led to the Europeanisation of the debate on religious war.

Parish clergy and religious change in Prague's diocese from Council of Trent till the end of the 17th century The religious change that happens in Bohemia in the 17th century has no equivalent in the Europe at this time: the whole country, where Catholics were in a very minority, comes back to the roman Church. This evolution is here seen from a very prosaic point of view: how lay people live this change, and so how acts the parish clergy in this matter. Conversion's strategy, at the end of the Council of Trent, was to permit the use of the chalice to the laity. The consequence of this permission was a very hazy situation in the parishes, but Holy See did nothing before the battle of White Mountain, and after the battle, he suppressed chalice, mainly for pastoral reasons. During the Thirty years War, the kingdom is the place of a general reform, which has its origins in the catholic missionary movement of the beginning of the century and in the political theories of this time. Bohemia is strongly marked by the war that acts as a catalyst; at the same time political and religious authorities were lacking. The inhabitants, usually just formal Catholics at the beginning, convert themselves more and more deeply during the 17th century. The eldest, who remembered the non-Catholics services, died during the...