Bossy J.-counter-Reformation and Catholic Europe

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The Past and Present Society

The Counter-Reformation and the People of Catholic EuropeAuthor(s): John BossySource: Past & Present, No. 47 (May, 1970), pp. 51-70Published by: Oxford University Presson behalf of The Past and Present Society

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THE COUNTER-REFORMATIONND THEPEOPLEOF CATHOLICEUROPE*AN ENGLISH HISTORIANWANTING TO UNDERSTANDWHAT HAPPENEDTOthe popularreligionof CatholicEurope n the age of the Counter-Reformation asfirst o freehimself roma latentassumptionhattheonly personwhosereligious utlook ndbehaviour reworthknowing

* The original sketch for this paper was presented to the Past and Presentconferenceon "PopularReligion" in I966. A slightly shortenedversion of thepresent text was readas a paper to the Ninth Irish Conferenceof Historians nlMay 969, and I am grateful to the Irish Committee of HistoricalSciences forconsenting to its publicationhere. I have used the following abbreviationsnthe notes:-AdamBorromeo, ActaBorromeo, Pastorum

instructionesCanons and DecreesDelaruelle

FerteGrosso-MellanoJoin-LambertLe Bras, lEtgdesMarcilhacyPerouasRoncalli, AttiToussaertVinot-Prefontaine

P. Adam, La vie paroissialeen France au XIVe siecle(Paris, I964)Acla ecclesiaemediolanensis,d. F. Borromeo, 2 vols.(Milan, I599)S. Caroli Borromaei . . pastorum instructiones, ed.E. Westhoff (Munster, I846)Canons ndDecrees f the Councilof Trent,ed. and trans.H. J. Schroeder St. Louis/London, I94I, repr. I960)E. Delaruelle, E.-R. Labande and P. Ourliac, L'Egliseau tempsdu GrandSchismeet de la crise conciliaire,nHistoire de l'Eglise depuis es origines usqu'a nos jourseds. A. Fliche, V. Martin, et al., xiv, part2 (I964)Jeanne Ferte, La vie religieuse dans les campagnespArlsien71es, I622-95 (Paris, I962)M. Grosso and M.-F. Mellano, La controriformaellaarcidiocesi i Torino,3 vols. (Rome, I957)M. Join-Lambert, "La pratique religieuse dans lediocese de Rouen sous Louis XIV", Annalesde Norman-die, iii (I953), pp- 247-74Gabriel Le Bras, Studes de sociologiereligieuse,2 vols.(ParlS, I955-6)Christiane Marcilhacy, Le diocese d 'Orleans sousl 'episcopatde Mgr. Dupanloup: sociologiereligieuseetmentalites ollectivesParis,I962)Louis Perouas, Le diocesede la Rochellede I648 a I724.?sociologie t pastorale (Paris, I964)Stti della visita apostolicadEiSan Carlo BorromeoaBerganzo,575, ii, part3, ed. A. G. Roncalli[later PopeJohn XXIII] (Florence, I957)Jacques Toussaert,Le sentiment eligieux n Flandrea lafindu Moyen Age (Paris,Is65)J. Vinot-Prefontaine, "Sanctions prises dans l'anciendiocese de Beauvais contre les refractairesau devoirpascal",Revued'histoire e l'Eglisede France,xlv (I959),pp. 76-83


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52 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 47about is, taking the word in a wide sense, the nonconformist. Thisinstinct may help to explain why, at least among historians, littleattention has been paid in the British Isles to the work undertaken,chiefly in France, by the school of "religious sociology" inauguratednearly forty years ago by the canon-law historian Gabriel Le Bras.lFor this has been above all concerned to investigate the popularreception of a particularlypure example of Christianity conceived asacceptance of an externally enacted code of behaviour. Those whohave practised n it have, to say the least, presented a body of evidencefar too imposing for historiansto ignore. I do not know whether theywould agree with the conclusions I have drawn from their work, andthey might find these somewhat "Anglo-Saxon" in their drift; but Iam sure that two schools of inquiry so similar n object and so differentin approachmust both be enriched by confrontationwith one another.To the ordinarypopulation, and particularly o the ruralpopulation,of France and Italy-with whom, I must add, I shall be here almostexclusively concerned what the Counter-Reformation eally meantwas the institution among them, by bishops empoweredby the councilof Trent to enforce it, of a system of parochial conformity similar incharacter to that which the contenlporary Church of England wasseeking to impose, though much more comprehensive in its detail.The faithful Catholic was to attend Mass every Sunday and holy-dayin his parish church. He was to receive the Church's sacraments,other than confirmation, rom the hands of his parishpriest, who wouldbaptize him, marry him, give him extreme unction on his deathbed,and bury him. He would receive the eucharist at least once a year,at Eastertide, and with the same regularity the priest would hear andabsolve his sins in the sacrament of penance.2It may be thought perverse to describe the Counter-Reformationashaving invented this code of religious practice, since most of theenactments which went to make it up had alreadybeen in force in thepre-reformationChurch and the council of Trent explicitly added to

1 See in particularLe Bras, lGtudes, hich reprints his original manifesto ofI93I, vol. i, pp. I-24, and partly recapitulateshis Introduction l'histoirede lapratiquereligieuse azFrance,2 vols. (Paris, I942-5). For more recent develop-ments, see his "L'historiographie ontemporainedu catholicisme en France"in MelangesPierreRenouvin Paris,I966), pp. 23-32, and the periodicalArchivesde sociologie eligieuse,ounded by Le Bras and the late E.-G. Leonard. Thereis a convenient short guide in F. Boulard, Premiers tinerairesen sociologiereligzeuseParis, I955).

2 The most important Tridentine decrees relating to popular religion andbehaviourare in Canonsand Decrees,pp. 305 (catechism),423-4 (discipline ofthe Mass), 454-60 (marriage), 65 (catechizingof children),467 (instruction)484 (images and saints' days), SI6 (duelling): English translations, pp. 26,I50-2, I83-90, I95, I97-8, 2I6, 25I.


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THE COUNTER-REFORMATIONND THE PEOPLE 53them only in the case of matrimony.3Yet, by applyingLe Bras'smethods of investigationso far as possible to pre-reformationreligiouspractice and it is significanthatthey cannoteasilybe soapplied JacquesToussaert has made it highly probablethat,whateverhestateof legislation,he peopleofwesternEuropeulfilledtheirparochialdutiesin so spasmodica manner hat it is hardtobelieve heyhad anyclearsenseof parochial bligation t ll.4 Themoral of his story is perhapsnot, as Toussaertseemsinclined toconclude,hatthepeasants ndweavers f fifteenth-centurylandershadnoreligion,butthattheChurch f the lastmedieval enturieswasnot in actual act a parochially-groundednstitution. The disciplin-arysignificancef thecouncilof Trentandof twocenturies factivityon the partof the Catholichierarchyay in theirdeterminationhatit shouldeffectually ecomeso grounded:hat the code of parochialobservancehouldbe madewatertight nduniversallynforced. Thisdid not requiremuch newlegislation, ut called or a decidedlynewattitude o old legislation:hatthis attitudeexistedmay,more thanfrom anythingelse, be gathered rom the concernwhich council,bishopsandpopessharedwithauthoritieslsewheren Europe, hatparish lergy houldkeepanaccurate ecordof the acts n question nregisters f baptisms,marriages,urials, ists of Easter ommunicantsand status animarum. 5 Armed with these weapons, Counter-Reformation ishopswere far betterequipped o enforcea codeofuniformparochialpractice,just as historiansare to estimateitsobservance;all soundingsconfirmthat, towardsthe end of theseventeenth entury,aftera hundredandfiftyyearsof effort, t wasbeing all but universallyobserved n all parts of westernEuropesubject to their unimpededjurisdiction) nd continuedto be soobserveduntilthe fall of the ancien regime.6

3 Cf. T. M. Parker,"The Papacy,CatholicReformand ChristianMissions"in R. B. Wernham(ed.), New CambridgeModNern istory, iii: The Counter-ReformationndPriceRevolutionCambridge, 968)) p. 44.4 Toussaert, esp. pp. I22-204; cf., for England,the preamble to the secondAct of Uniformity, I552 in G. R. Elton, The TudorConstit2wtionCambridge,

960) pp. 396 f5 Trent requiredmarriageregisters, and made a ratheroff-handreferencetobaptismalregisters (Canonsand Decrees,pp. 455, 456; I84 f., I86); the fullseriesof fiveregisterswasimposed by the papacy n I6I4: Enciclopediaattolica,vii (Vatican City, I95I)) pp, I3I2-3. Cf. the English Injunctions f I538, inH. Gee and W. J. Hardy, Documentsllustrative of EnglishChurchHisto^y(London, Ig2I?, p. 279; and see P. Laslett, in E. A. Wrigley (ed.), 24n Intro-duction o EngllshHistoricalDemographyLondon, I966)) p. 4, for an interestingcomparisonbetweenEnglishand Frenchregisters.n Le Bras,lEtudes,, 275 f.; Perouas,p. I62. The same emergesfrom all thesimilarstudieswhich will be citedbelow, e.g. Join-Lambert,p. 272. E. Le RoyLadurie, LespaysansdeLanguedoc, vols. (Paris, I966)) pp. 65I f., 890, shows,here, some fallingoff afterabout I740; cf. below,n. 64.


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54 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 47I doubt if historians have measured the importance of this silentrevolution in altering the social climate of Catholic Europe from what

it had been at the beginning of the sixteenth century, or in distingllish-irlg it from that of adjacent countries where it did not occur.Anglican bishops were, to be sure, trying to do much the same thingat much the same time, but just when their continental counterpartswere beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel, they sustaineda devastating setback. Those who opposed them would not havethanked historical demography for revealing that they had helpedEnglishwomen of the late seventeenth century to conceive illegitimatechildren at three times the rate of the French; bllt this seems to havebeen one consequence of their efforts.7 I can see no way of Sndingout whether English and French habits had differed in this respectbefore the Reformation, but it seems unlikely that they had; if theyhad not, the disparity would testify to the work of the Counter-Reformationepiscopate, and help to illustratetheir success in the fieldof parochial observance, the social implications of which I want nowto explore.

II


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THE COUNTER-REFORMATIONND THE PEOPLE 55modernity.9 This wasnot simply a matterof duelling, houghthecouncilof Trent egislated igorously gainst t, andshoweda propersense that it was here dealingwith a collective,not individual,disorder.0 Therangeofproblemsnvolvedn thisconflictwaswide,and the habits which the Counter-Reformation as seeking toeradicatewerltdeep:there s a lotto be saidfor theviewthatthegreatobstacle o Tridentineuniformitywasnot individualbacksliding rProtestant esistancebut the internalarticulations f a society inwhichkinshipwas amost mportantocialbondandfeud,in howeverconventionalized form,a flourishingocialactivity.1l Persuadingthe wholepopulation f a parish o assemble egularlyn its parishchurchor to communicateogetherat Easterprovedoften enoughbeyond hepowersof theclergy. If I mayuse anexamplerommid-sixteenth-centuryorthumberland,ernardGilpin,araremissionaryin territoryeeminglyunevangelizedincethedaysof SaintCuthbertnfound it impossible o get the bordererso hearhis sermons,notbecause hey did not wishto listen,but because o enterunderthesameroofasmembers f a familywithwhichone'sownhada disputewasto violate heruleswhichalonecouldmaintainomesort of orderin so benighteda countryside;12llustrations f the sameproblemcould, I am sure, be drawnfrom any uplandregion of Europe.AlessandroSauli,returni1lgs bishopto his nativeisle of Corsicafromthe Counter-Reformationeartlandf BorromeanMilan, oundthatbeforehecouldgetonwithTridentineeform e hadtoset onfootfraternities evoted,with whatcan havebeenonly a verymarginalsuccess,to eliminatingeud on the island.13 In Piedmont,visita-tionsof the latesixteenth enturywerecontinuallyevealing arisheswherepeoplehadnotcotxleochurchormade heirEaster ommunionbecauseof socialhostilitieswhichmightormightnotbe embodiedn

9Cf. A. G. Dickens, The Counter-Reforwnatio?London, I968), p. 54;Jacob Burckhardt,The Avilisation of the Renaissancen kaly (London, I95Iedn.), pp. 265-8 nonethelessan importantpassage in this context.Loc. cit. above,n. 2.lliacques Heers, L'Occidentaux XIVe et XVe siecles: aspectseconomiqueset sociaux "NouvelleClio",Paris, I963), pp. 299 ff., is anadmirable,and so faras I know unique, discussionof the state of kinshiprelationsin late-medievalEurope. See also ibid., pp. 8I f.; and some generalremarks n R. Mandrou,Introductio7zla Francemoderne,SOO-I640 (Paris,I96I), pp. II2 f.12 M. H. Dodds (ed.), Northumberland ountyHistory,xv (Newcastle-on-Tyne, I940), p. 3I2. Gilpinwasnot a Catholic.13 F.-J. Casta,Evequeset curescorsesdansla traditionpastoraledu conciledeTrente, I570-I620 (Ajaccio, I965), p. II0. For Borromeo, see Pastoruminstructio1los,ap. xii, p. SI: nos. 6 and 9 of the sins specially to be preachedagainst. Cf., for England, the second of Cranmer'sprefatory nstructionstothe communion services of I549 and I552, in Liturgiesof Edward VI, ed.J. Ketley (ParkerSociety,Cambridge, 844), pp. 76, 265, also 87, 274.


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56 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 47litigation; parish priests, who were often enough party to suchhostilities themselves, responded unwillingly to pressure from aboveagainst what seemed to them legitimate social custom.l4 Here, nodoubt, mannerswere a little more civil than in Corsicaor Northumber-land; but though it may have taken a less dramatic form than there,the situation recurs even in the most settled and prosperousregions ofagrarian Europe, and all the way through the seventeenth century.It was in the village of Clichy, then just outside Paris, and in I67In thatChristophe Nicolas failed to go to his parish church for a whole yearbecause "he could not bear to see (ne pouvaitpas voir)another manof the parish with whom he was at enmity (contrequi l avait de lahaine),and last Easter he preferrednot to make his Easter duties thanto be reconciled to him'';l5 inquiry into such village feuds was stillhigh on the agenda of eighteenth-century bishops.l6 By this timethe problem had generallyassumed a more sophisticatedform: variouscases fromMeventeenth-century France indicate that people wereprepared to turn up at Mass at the same time as their social enemies,but would not go to confession, since this would signify unilateraldisarmament, and so were unable to receive communion at Easter.lvThe Counter-ReformationChurch was, of course, doing nothing newin taking up the task of reconciling or suppressing feud; what seemsparticular o this period is that the motive of imposing Christianethicson social behaviour had lost ground to the motive of imposingconformity in religious observance.Here the Church had been enjoiniIlg a positive obligation wherekinship morality might enjoin a negative one; in those acts of religionassociated with birth, marriageand death the relation was usually theother way about. The council of Trent, in particular, enacted amatrimonialcode which ran counter to the collectivist and contractualtraditions of kinship moralityby invalidatingmarriagesnot performedin public before the parish priest, insisting on individual liberty in thechoice of partners,and affirming hat marriagescontracted by minorswithout parental consent were valid, though not lawful.l8 It led inconsequence to a vigorous attack on the traditional and extra-sacramental espousal or fiangailleshich had maintained into the

14 Grosso-Mellano, ii, pp. 207 f., 238, 240, 246; iii, p. 202. Likewisefrom another part of northern Italy, Roncalli, Attz;pp. I28-9. In the Actaecclesiaemediolanensis,p. 766-7, Borromeo allowed curates to permit post-ponementof Easterduties "so as to allow time for peace-making".15 Ferte, p. 3I8; for otherpartsof France,Perouas,p. I6I, n. 7 *Join-Lambertp. 272; Vinot-Prefontaine,pp. 78 f.16 Le Bras,Studes, , p. 57.17 Vinot-Prefontaine,pp. 78 f. - Ferte, pp. 3I8-9.18 Canons ndDecrees,p. 454-60, I83-90: decree Tanzetsi.


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THE COUNTER-REFORMATIONND THE PEOPLE 57sixteenthcentury the contractualmarriage-theoryllustrated, orexample, n the Anglo-Saxonaw-codes.l9 In Normandy,n I600,fiangailleserestill a bindingcontract, ementedby exchange f giftsor passage of money and precedingthe church marriageby aconsiderableime; it was still widely considered,even by canonlawyers, o beentirelyproper hatthe couple hould hareabed in themeantime. A century ater, with the disappearanceffiangaillessa distinctcontract,Trent and the principleof parochial onformityhad achievedone of its most importantvictories over kinshipsolidarity.0It was not possible for the Counter-Reformationo take suchdecisiveactiorl verbaptism, ince to maintainxlfant aptismwas tomaintaingodparentsand,as the traditionalEnglish term"gossip"moreprecisely xpresses,he institution f godparentsmpliesa verystrong view of collectivesolidarity n mattersof salvation. Therewas, perhaps s, a closerelationbetween he roleof godparents t abaptismand the need of kinsmen o assemble o as to celebrate headventof a new memberand assume heir obligations n its behalf.Ecclesiastical nd secularauthorities,at least since the fourteenthcentury,hadbeen tryi1lgn theinterestsof publicorder o restrict heattendance at such occasions;1 the Church of the Counter-Reformationnified heseprecedentsnto ageneral ode. It insisted,notonly onparochial aptism,but on a baptismwhich ollowedbirthwitha rapiditywhich eft littleor notimefor anassembly f kin; fromthe sixteenthcentury hree days wasthe maximumdelay permittedby diocesan ndprovincialynods,and in France he seculargovern-ment of its own accordlater reduced this to twenty-fourhours.Duringthe eighteenth enturypractically ll childrenwerebaptizedwithin the longerperied, abouthalfwithin the shorter.22 I do not

19 D. Whitelock (ed.), English Historical Documents,vol. i, c. SOO-IO42(London, I955), pp. 359, 43I.20 PierreChaunu, '


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58 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 47suppose that this preventedpeople from having their relations nwhen their babieswere born; but it must have done a good deal toweaken he connectionbetweensuch collectivecelebrations nd thebaptismal eremony, nd to emphasize hat one entered he Churchas an individualand not as a memberof a kin-group. When itreduced he legalcomplement f godparentso one, or at mostto oneof each sex, the council of Trent aimed a similarblow at popularinstinct;23by claiming o submit them to minimumstandardsofirlstruction,ehaviour ndreligious ractice,he Counter-ReformationChurch nvolved tself in a spirited onflictwith fainilies,who took tfor granted hat the cheice of godparentswas entirelyup to them.At Labruyeren the seventeenth-centuryeauvaisis,whenthe parishpriestrefused o baptizeon these grounds, he parents ockedhim upin the sacristyand christened he child themselves.24 Moretroublearose from attempts o impose quatificationsf age, since familiescommonlydemanded he admissionas godparentsof very youngchildren; he clergyof the archdiocese f Parishadto be contentwitha minimumage of seven or eight, and were unable o enforcea rulethat a godparent hould have made his or her first communion.'@This pressurewould seem to have derived rom a family nstinct obind togethermembers f the samegeneration cross he boundariesof the single household;and though it had other motives n eithercase, he Church esisted t, as it resistedmultiplicationf godparents,precisely or this reason.Onemightpursue he sameconflict nto the arenaof the burialandthe funeralwake;but since, at least n soInepartsof the British sles,this is a fairly arniliar roblem26, shallventure o take t for granted,andproceed o considerhow the Coullter-Reformationhurch opedwithone of the characteristicnstitutions f medieval opular eligion,the fraternity. T his was of course an artificialkin-group, andmembershipmightgovernbehaviourn the primary cts of religion,just as naturalkinshipdid. But firaternities ere principally ctivein the secondary ield of"devotion":they drewtheir strength roman unsolicitedresponseof popular eeling to particular eaturesof

23 Canons ndDecrees,p.456, 85; cf. referencesabove, n. 2I.24 Casta, Gveqmest cures orses,p. I07 f.; Ferte, p. 302; Perouas, p. 275;Vinot-Prefontaine, . 8I. Cf. Adam, p. I05: the synod of Soissonsof I403 onlyrefused to allosr as godparents people excommunicated, interdicted, notbaptized or confirmed.45 Ferte, pp. 300 f.; cf. Adam, p. I05 the fifteenth-century tatutes, quotedhere, specificallyexclude from restrictionschildren who were close enough kinto the baptisee br no extra problems about marriage to be created by the"spiritualrelationship".26 Sean ()Suilleabhain,IeSishWake=4musemelltsCork, 967).


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THE COUNTER-REFORMATION ND THE PEOPLE 59Christianmythologyor the Christian ife. Voluntaryassociations,usually ocal or professiorlaln recruitment,hey possessedofficers,fundsand a constitution; hey maintained salaried lergyand oftennad independerltchapels. :Duringthe later middle ages, theyconstituted omething ike analternativemodelof the Church, n thesense both that they seem to have recruiteda majorityof thepopulation,and that, in contrast to the formal hierarchy, heyembodied he traditionof kinshipand communal olidarity,whoseinstincts hey brought o bearon the problemof salvation.27 Theymayveryoftenhaveexpressedhese nstincts n acrudeandmaterialis-tic form, and it is probablyrue that by the sixteenthcentury heymainly served as societiesfor mutual secularbenefit and regularentertaintrsent.But what exposed them to the thunders of theCounter-Reformationhurchwas as much heindependence f theirorigiils ndstructure stheRawsn theiruslderstandingf Christianity;now, for the firsttinze, heywerebrougiltundera rigorous egimeofepiscopalauthorization nd supervision.In this matteras in most others, he activityof CharlesBorromeoasarchbishop f Milan roln 564 to I584 wasamodel or generationsof bishops. Like his colleague n Turin, 13orromeo elieved thatdiocesesshould resemble"well-organized rmies,which have theirgenerals,colo1zels nd captains",28nd much of his Scta EcclesiaeMedioSaensis, he legislativemodel of the Counter-Reformationepiscopate,was concernedwith bringingthe Milanesefraternitieswithinan all-embracing ierarchicalcheme. So, for example,hisstatlltesprovided or the incorporationnto a singlediocesan raternityof all localfraterrsitiesevoted o the eucharist, ndretnodelledheirconstitutions in a hierarchicalsense. 9 Cetltralizedfraternity-federations of this nature proliirated dl lringthe Counter-Reirmation; it invented o describe hem the term "archconfrater-rlity", which exposes to view the underlying conflict betvveenbrotherhood nd discipline. There was also room for conflict inthis field betneen clericalandlay clites, since the cooperation f the

The fundamental eneral reatmentof the subject s Le Bras,"Les confrerieschretiennes", n St?cdes, ii, pp. 4I8-62; br their role in late-medieval churchand society, see Delaruelle, pp. 666-93, and Heers, L'Occidealt aux XIVe etXYe siecles: aspects economiqueset sociau., pp. 308-I3. See also Adam, pp. IS-79, where a group of fraternity tatutesare reprodllced; hose of the fraternityofSt Nicholas of Guerande(ibid., pp. 50 ff.) are particularlyexplicit about thccharacterof the fraternityas 2n artificXalin-grous.28Archbishop Carlo Broglia, in Grosso-Mellano, ii, p. 2I6.-9 Borromeo,Acra, pp. 896-9, on Federico Borromeo,nephew and successorto Garlo n the see of Ntilan, s^emy own "Postscript" o H. O. Evennett, TheSpirit of the CoLltlter-Rerselatzon (Cambridge, I968), p. I3S, and the article ofP. Prodithere cited, n. 3. Cf. Grosso-Mellano, ii, pp. 202, 2Io, etc.


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60 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 47latterwas essential f the formsof lay initiativewereto be respected:in this spirit, Borromeo scribed he idea of his super-fraternityothe "principalpersonages,officials and noblemen" of Milan.30Where herewas genuine ay itlitiative, s in the best knownexampleof the super-fraternity,he FrenchCompagniezl res-saint acrementfounded n the reignof Louis XIII, this provedunwelcome:despitethe Company'shigh tnoral tone and aristocratic ackground, hebishops smelledcompetition nd had it suppressed.3l The secularelite wasalwaysan ambiguous llyfor a programmef diocesan rderand parochial niformity, ndone of the chiefobjectsof the Counter-Reformation ierarchyn dealingwith fraternities asto ensure hatthey shouldnot formcentresof religious ractice ompetitivewiththeparish. "Weexhortandwarnall fraternityme1nbers", roteMichelColbert,bishop of Macon, in I668, "that going to Mass in theirfraternities . . in no way exempts them from attendanceat theirparochialMass; they must learn . . that they are parishionersirstand confreresfterwards".32 f, as is morethan likely,bishops ooka less rigorous attitude to forms of spiritual self-determinationparticularo the nobility, hey wereentitled o ask he nobility o keepout of a problemwhichdid not concern hem.

In the end fraternitieseased o be an obstacle o uniformparochialobservance,because hey ceased to exist. During the seventeenthcentury herewerestillpartsof the Catholicwestwherenewoneswerespontaneously merging;but, in a climateso discouragingo theirspiritualvalue and social ndependence,hey could not be expectedto thrive,and n the eighteenth entury heywent nto a galloping nduniversal decline.33 Whatever ts formal continuities,a Churchwithout hem was a very differentnstitution romthe Churchof thefifteenth entury.The purposeof all this negative ctivitywasto divertall streams fpopularreligion nto a single parochial hannel;but this would dolittlegoodso longas the popular ttitude o the parish nd ts premisesremainedwhat it had been up to the sixteenthcentury. It seemsunclearhow widely the medievalparishwas felt to be, in itself, acollectivityof the kirldI llave been describing; here was surelyagood deal n the view whichconservativehurchmenn England riedto conveyto their Puritancritics, hat it servedas a mechanism ywhich tensions accumulated etween these communities ould be30Borromeo, cta,p. 896.31V.-L. Tapie,La FrarzceeLouisXIII etdeRichelieuParis,952), pp. 350 f.32 Le Bras,Studes, i, p. 458, n. 5.33 Perouas, . 50I; Le Bras, Etudes,i, p. 637; , p. 63.


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THE COUNTER-REFORMATIONND THE PEOPLEreleased at special moments of ritual festisrity.34 In either case theindispensable location for these was the parish church. To theCounter-Reformationhierarchy such collective manifestations weresuspicious in themselves, improper in buildings reserved for acts offormal religious observance, and as occasions of saturnalianlicenceincompatible with the regular discipline of life which these acts wereintended to promote. The parishwakes and church-alesof Englandhad their counterparts all over Europe: the wake, vigil or veille wasa general assembly of the parish, male and female, in or about thechurch, during the night preceding a notable feast; its most familiarsurvival is All Souls' Night, the equivalellt of Hallowe'erl, whichreproducedon a more comprehensivescale the licence appropriate othe family funeral wake.35 Wakes had been attracting clericalcriticism well before the sixteenth century: the fourteenth-centurypreacher Nicholas of Clamanges was as clear about their heathenorigins and as convinced of their sca1ldalous haracteras any Puritan."On such nights some dance in the very churcheswith obscenesongs,others play at dice, with oaths denying God and cursixlg of thesaints".36 Medieval bishops had legislated against them, but it isobvious from the visitation reports of the sixteenth and seventecathcenturies that they had not been very successful, and perhaps theyhad not tried very hard. In this as in other fields the Counter-Reformationsucceeded in making its legislation work. The parishwakeseems to have been effectivelysuppressed, irlthe sense tllat suchoccasions ceased to find a home in the parish church, withdrew toalternativeaccommodation,and lost theirintegral f ambiguousrelationwith the ceremonies of the Christianyear.37Suppressed likewise was the slightly more decorous church-ale orparochialbeanEeast, ommonly held in church after the beatingof theparish bounds at Rogationtide, or on Maundy Thursday or GoodFriday to celebratethe conclusion of Lent.38 With these feasts, andespecially with the latter, it was often hard to distinguish thesacramental liturgy from dinner. Maundy Thursday was after alla commemoration of the Last Supper; and a parish which had

34 Christopher Hill, Society and Puritanismin Pre-RevolutionaryEngland(London, I966 edn.), p. I92; cf. Toussaert,pp. 295-3IO, 326.35 Grosso-Mellano,ii, pp. 250, 257; iii, 227; Perouas, p. I72; Adam, pp.264 f.; Join-Lambert,art. I04 of the visitationquestionnaire f I687, pp. 260 f.;Ferte, pp. 332-336 Adam, pp. 266-7.37 An idea of the process may be got from comparingGrosso-Mellano, iip. 277; Join-Lambert,p. 269; and Marcilhacy,pp. 278-g.38 E.g. Ferte, p. 337; Grosso-Mellano,i, p. 2IO. Cf., for the Englishchurch-ale, Hill, Society andPuritawlism,p. I90 ff.


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62 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER7reconstituted ne partof the gospelstoryby a washingof feet mightreasonably o on to partakeof cakesand ale.39 Good Fridaywasa popularday orfraternityeatsg nd t wasnot urlknownor brethren,aiStero*nmunionn EasterSunday, o sit down n church o a sliceofPaschal amb.40 At communiontselE, he ban on reception n botkinds may or may not have beeIl universally ffective,but it wascommon,perhapsusual,for those communicatirlgt Easteror atherfeasts to receivewine, in return or a contribution, n the groundsthat this was to wash their rnouthsout.41 All this may shed somelight on the eucharistic xperiments f sixteenth-centuryeformers;it certainlyaccounts or the rigidity n this IrXatterf the Counter-ReformationChurch,obsessedwith the problemof distinguishingliturgicalromnon-liturgical,ndconvincedhat church-feasting as,as Borromeo aid, "indecent nd contrary o Christian iscipline".42By the later seventeenth entury,eatingand drinking, ike dancing,gaming and ritual obscenity,had everywherebeen expelled fromchurches,eavingbehind hemthe reverent ilencewhichmayalreadybe felt in the visitationenquiryof a bishop of Rouen: "Do peopleassemble oo near the church o chat when there are persons nsidetrying o say their prayers?"43

IIISadas it maybe, it is no doubt ruethatthe emergence f a modernCatholicismdepended on elirninatingmost of these elements ofpopularparticipation,nd arguablehat realprogresswas impossibleuntilhabitsof uniformparochial bservance adbeen nstilled. Thisin itself was, of course, an ambiguousachievement. A code ofuniformreligiouspracticemight foster interiorChristian aith and

behaviour n milliorss f Catholics; t might equallywell substituteone form of externalconstraint or another. In trying to find outwhat actuallyhappenedwe have, I believe, WQ essenvial OiiltSobear in mind: first, that a transitiorlrom medievalChristianity:omodernCatholicismmeant,on the popular ront, turningcollectiveChristians nto iIldividualones; and secolld, that tI1e attempt toachievethis transitionwas very commorlly failure,as is obviousfrom the widespread ollapseof popular eligion n CatholicEurope39 Toussaert, p. 333; Grosso-Alellarlo,ii, p. 225.40 Roncalli, Atti, pp. I3, I 5 .41 Toussaert, pp. I6I ff.; Grosso-Mellano, i, p. zo6.48 Borromeo,Acta, p. 902.4 3 Join-Lambert,p. z60: questionnaire,no. I I 3.


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63HE COUNTER-REFORMATIONND THE PEOPLEat the fall of the ancien regime.44 I think we shall be most likelytounderstand he problemswhich faced the Counter-Reformationrits morepositiveside if we startby lookingat the article n the codeof religiousplacticewhich could most naturally erve as a vehicleof. .nterlor c. lange.The histeryof the sacrament f penance of "confession" isfor fairlyobviousreasonsa ratherobscure ubject,and very ittle hasbeen writtenabout t relevant o this period.45 Nevertheless thinkit is clear hat the popularpractice f confession nderwent rofoundchangesat this time, quite apartfrom the greaterregularitywithwhich t was resorted o. For one thing, the Counter-Reformation,apparentlyn the personof Borromeo,nvented he confessional-box.Medieval confession, if spontaneous, ook place in a variety ofcircumstances, ut usually in public or setni-public n church; ifinspiredby illnessor impending eath, t naturallyookplaceat home.The secondcase, f Flanders s anything o go by, seems o havebeenaboutas common sthe first.46 In practice,t wascloser o Cranmer'sC'ghostlyounsel,advicearldcomfort"47han to the anonymouseapin the dark familiar n more modern times; and this change ofenvironmentmpliesa change n what the sacramentwas really eltto be for. The ordinarymemberof the medievalChurch eems tohave looked to confessionmairllyas a rnediator etween an overtoffence, particularlyone involving violence, and overt acts of"satisfaction". It was,that s to say, morea social hana privateact,carried strong undertones of composition-theorywhich becameovertones n the practiceof indulgences,and could be felt even byclericalcomrnentatorsot necessarily o involve interiorsorrow orthe offencecommitted. In its ovvnway, the Counter-ReformationChurch ook to heart Luther'sobjectiorshat the scriptural hrase,"penitentiam gite", to which it appealed or justification f thetraditionalpractice,did not mean "do penance",but "repent".48The councilof Trent defined hat, apart ronl the act of confessionitself, both contrition nd satisfactionwereessential o the validityofthe sacrament; ut it evidentlywished o transfer ttention romthesecond to the first, and remarkedon the importance f offencesagainstthe last two Commandments, hich do not concernovert

44 The indispensable ntroduction o this subject s Le Bras's"Cartereligieusede la France rurale", n Studes, i, p. 324.45 But see Delaruelle, pp. 656-64.46 Dictionnaire dCe roir cattonique, v, ed. R. Naz (Paris, I944), p. 63;Delaruelle, p. 660, n. 26- Toussaert, pp. Io4-22.47 Liturgiesof EdzvardVI, pp. 82, 274.48 R. H. Bainton, Here I Stand (New York, I955 edn.), p. 67.


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64 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 47acts but dispositions of the mind.49 Since the sixteenth centuryconfession has been primarily concerned with the interior man, andthe "satisfactory" element has correspondingly retreated into thebackground. Here again Borromeo was a sign of the times with hispastoral instructions that absolution should be refused or delayedwhere there was not felt to be true repentance. Fortified by hisexample, the clergy began to go in for the novel practice ofrefusing absolution in these circumstances, and there arose inseventeenth-century France the special pastoral technique of post-poning absolution, associated with the Jansenists and underlying theargument about frequent communion.50 The early Jansenists, atleast, were probably quite faithful to the ends of Tridentine reform;but the discipline by which they proposed to achieve them wasincompatible with universal and uniform religious practice. Youcould scarcely coinbine a Jansenist discipline with a universalobligation of annual Easter confession and communion; and Vincentde Paul was no doubt drawing on his own more intimate experience ofthe popular mind when he said that, if the clergy applied it, peoplewould simply refuse to come to these sacraments at all.5l Beyonda certain point, the Counter-Reformationhierarchy had to settle forquantity rather than quality in confession; as a bishop of La Rochellecomplained in the I660S: "The tribunals of confession have neverbeen so thronged with people, and there have never been so few realchanges of heart".52Dilemmas of this kind, which were numerous, arose in partfrom the miserable state of popular religious instruction; withoutdramatic mprovements in this field, habits of church attendance andsacramental practice would never express more than what Le Brashas termed a "sheep-like conformism". 3 The medieval Church hadno machinery for catechizing children; if it thought about the matterat all, it may perhaps have assumed that rudimentary nstruction wasa job for parents; otherwise children received as much or as little

49 Dictionnairede theologie atholique, ii, eds. A. Vacant and E. Mangenot(Paris,I908), pp. 9I2, 9I8 5.; cf. Delaruelle,p. 66I.50 Borromeo,Pastorum nstructiones,p. II9-22; Perouas, pp. 282 f.; Ferte,

p. 3I9. The argument about "frequent communion" may be approachedthroughthe studies of J. Orcibalcited in my "Postscript" o Evennett, Spirit ofthe Counter-reformation,. I40, n. 2.51 J. Laporte,La doctrine Ceort-Royal: la morale) i (Paris,I952), pp. 232 f.;P. Coste, Monsieur Vincent,3 vols. (Paris, I93I), iii, pp. I73 f. For laterinfluence see, e.g., Marcilhacy,p. 288.42 Perouas, p. I62.53 See below, n. 64-


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65HE COUNTER-REFORMATION ND THE PEOPLEenlightenment s everybody lse.o4 The council of Trent gesturedrather nconclusively owardsmaking he instructionof childrenaconstitutive lementof the code of religiouspractice;55 hatbishopsmadeof this was a duty upon parishpriests o catechize he childrenof their parishon Sundayand feast day afternoons, nd a duty uponparents o send heirchildren o be so catechized.56These obligationswere, on either side, more easily imposed than accepted;happily,a great deal of privateenterprise,much of it eventually mbodiedin religiousordersand the like, had alreadybeen put into religiousinstruction ince the earlysixteenthcentury.57 This was inevitablymore effective n towns than in the countryside, nd it was, onceagain,Borromeowho harnessed o the purposesof the ruralparishthe existing dea of a fraternity evoted o the religious nstruction fchildren. He requiredsuch "Schools of ChristianDoctrine" -"School"here meaning raternity, s in Venice to be erected neveryparish ubject o his visitation, ave hema hierarchicaltructure,and set them to workat the organizing nd runningof what, if hislegislationhad been universally pplied,would have been large andminutely egulatedSunday chools-except that they functioned nfeast days as well as on Sundays-under the supervisionof theparochial lergy.58 One maywell askhow closely he parishSundayafternoon n ruralLombardy orrespondedo the grandconceptionof Borromeo's onstitutions,but on paper anywayby I600 these"Schools" formed a uniformnetworkcovering much or most ofnortherr; taly. It was anotherhalf-century efore Frenchbishopshad got anything ike so far; but afteraboutI650 all Frenchdiocesesseem to have had legislation mposingcatechism s a duty on parishpriests and parents. Despite the usual resistance, in some itcertainly became universal practice. In others it was patchilyenforced: thirdof the children n the dioceseof Rouenwerestill notgettingany religious nstruction boutI700, and theremayalso have

04 Perouas, pp. 272 f.; Delaruelle, p. 665* P. Broutin, La reforme astoraleenFrance au XVIIe siecle: recherchesur la traditionpastoraleapres le conciledeTrente,2 vols. (Paris, etc., I956), i, p. 49.55 Canonsand Decrees, p. 465, I96.06 Borromeo, Acta, p. 7 first provincial council of Charles Borromeo

I565; Grosso-Mellano, ii, pp. 229, 230, 249, 257. Cf., for England, HillSociety and Puritanism,p. 448 attitude of ArchbishopLaud.57 Enciclopediacattolica, iii, pp. IIIO f.; Evennett, Spirit of the Counter-

reforrnation, p. 84-5.58 Borromeo, Acta, pp. 6I, 795, 845-95; cf. T. M. Parker, "The Papacy,Catholic Reform and ChristianMissions" (cited above, n. 3), p. 65. For theintroductionof the system through Borromeo'svisitations,as papal delegate, ofother dioceses, see, e.g., Roncalli, Atti, passim,e.g. pp. 3I2, 3I6.


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66 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 47been some general falling-back in the eighteenth century.59 But allin all, and over a period of a century and a half, it seems fairly clearthat the vague injunctions of the council of Trent had achieved in thismatter a high degree of practicalrealization.In Germany from soon after the middle of the sixteenth century, inItaly from somewhat later, in France from a good deal later still, mostof the children of Catholic Europe were, in the modern phrase,"learning their catechism": memorizing the contents of, though notof course actually reading, specially designed little books constructedin question-and-answer orm. The models for these books were thesixteenth-century Catechisms of the Jesuits Canisius and Bellarmine,much indebted to Luther, and in general use in Germany and Italyrespectively;60 n accordancewith their more independent traditions,many French bishops composed or had composed their own.Exposure to them, even at their least inspired, was bound to mean areal mutation in the popular understandingof religion; yet they werea dubious introduction to a truly individual Christian life. LouisPerouas, who has investigated the catechisms of the diocese of LaRochelle, shows that, after a more imaginativestart, they had come bythe beginning of the eighteenth century to consist, on the doctrinalside, of scholastic formulae designed to fill out a logical pattern and,on the practical side, of a set of chilling moral imperatives, presentedas "the duties of the Christian religion" and evocative of theenlightened despots, even of Napoleon.61 It may well be thatsomething like this was inevitable; there is certainly somethingparadoxical about trying to promote individual Christianity bycompulsory legislation, and Counter-Reformation atechism may not,all told, have done much more than superimpose a mental auto-matism on the behavioural automatisms of the code of externalpractice. Yet this is perhaps a condition of any educational process,rather than a particular failing of the Counter-Reformation, and Ithink we need to ask more specifically how it managed to achieve, onso impressive a scale, the contrary of what it intended. One strikingattempt to solve this problem has been made.Whatever ambiguities may have been embedded in the use of the

69 Le Bras, "ttat religieux et moral du diocese de Chalons au dernier sieclede l'Ancien Regime", in lEtudes,, pp. 63 f.; Perouas, pp. 272 ff., 379 ff.; Join-Lambert, pp. 260, 266 f.; Marcilhacy,pp. 239 f.6?The examples I have used are Catechismus etri CanisSi in German),andDottrinaChristiana ell' . . . Rob.Bellarmino both edns. Augsburg,I6I4). SeeJ. Brodrick,St. Peter Canisius London, I935), pp. 22r-52, and his TheLife andWorkof . . . CardinalBellarmine, vols. (London, I928), i, pp. 389-99. For theDutch catechismof Louis Makebliide,also a Jesuit, see Toussaert, p. 69.

81 Perouas, oc. cit. (above, n. 59); cf. Enciclopedia attolica, ii, p. III2.


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67HE COUNTER-REFORMATION ND THE PEOPLEcatechism s an initiationnto the Christian eligion, here s no doubtabout he part t played n promoting rimary ducationn backwardcount1*ysides.Visualaids mightconveysomesort of understanding;but whatwas an illiterate eally o comprehend f the formulae e wasasked o recite or the sacraments e was required o receive?"Theprocess of diffusinga certain amount of basic understandinguncertain savoir)", to quoteEmmanuelLe Roy Ladurie, he historian nquestion,"is inseparableromthe processof teaching he rudimentsof Christian doctrirse".60Besides, since French bishops wereunwilling to give even the guarded concessionto the fraternalprinciple which Borromeohad made with his "Schools", it wasnecessary o help out the hard-worked riestby having n the parisha schoolmaster ho, as in a backwoods illageof Languedoc,wouldbe found "veryusefulfor teaching eligion,how to pray,and for thecatechism". So, in the diocese of Montpellier,anotherepiscopalColbertwas busy at the end of the seventeenth entury omplement-ing the catechismof Sundays and feast days with a networkofparochial choolmastersivingweekday chooling o at leastthe malechildrenof the better-offend of ruralsociety; by I704 there was aschoolmastern everyparishand one child was gettingsome kind ofeducation or every wo or threefamilies n the diocese.63This, in Le Roy Ladurie's iew, is enough n itself to explain hemisfiringof the popular Counter-Reformationn France: it wasobliged o promote ducation, nd in promoting ducation endedtoabolish tself. He bringsa certainamountof evidence o show thatthe spreadof educationwas, in the courseof the eighteenth entury,so modifying he mentalityof the less remotepartsof ruralFrancethat, while the requirements f religiouspracticewere being mostmassively ulfilled, he outlookand ambitions f the populationweresettlingmoreand morefirmlyon the thingsof this world.64 This isa most important uggestion, nd there s obviously omething n it;but the implication hat Catholicism nd education re incompatible

6 E. Le Roy Ladurie,Les paysansde Languedoc, vols. (Paris,I966), p.649and in generalpp. 647-52, 882-6. Cf. M. Venard, "Une histoirereligieusedansune histoiretotale", Revued'histoire e l'Eglisede France, iii (I967), p.46.63 Le Roy Ladurie, op. cit., pp. I29, n. 7, and 649- also P. Aries, CenturiesofChildhood, rans. R. Baldick (London, I962), pp.288-94, 305.64 Le Roy Ladurie, op. cit. pp.65I f., 890. Le Roy Ladurie associatesthischange of outlook with evidence of declining religious practice (cf. above

n. 6); I should myself be inclined to associate it with the "conformismemoutonnier"described by Le Bras in the diocese of Chalons, art. cit. (aboven. 59), pp. 64,68. In both regions religious ndifferencehas been predominantsince the nineteenth century: see I e Bras's 'sCarte religieuse de la Francerurale", n Studes, i, p. 324.


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68 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 47seemsalittlea priori, and Stheyoftenproved oill eighteenth-centuryranceI shouldbe inclinedto blamethe sociologicalweaknessofridentineCatholicism:ts incapacityo provide,withinthe rigidrameworkof parochialconformity, he channelsand organsofutonomousparticipation hich hemedievalChurchhadfosterednuchprofusion. Thedeclineoffraternities,helackofcongregationaltructures,wereobviouslyof great mportance; ut neither n itselfuitereachesheheartof thisparticularmatter,ortrulyaccountsorhecommonbutelusive ensethat,allthirlgs onsidered,hemedievalhurchmadefor life andthe Counter-Reformationhurchagainstt. I havetriedto suggest hatwhatmadethe medievalChurchonhepopularplanea real, f ignorant ndmisguided, ommunity,wastsadmission f the kin-group,natural ndartificial, s a constituentlementn its life;where heTridentineChurch trikesmeashavingostdamaginglyailedwas in its reluctanceo admitthe nuclearamilyr householdon the sameterms.This maybe felta surprisinguggestiono make,considering owrominent position has been occupied in modern Catholicpolegeticsy propagandaabout the social rights and spiritualmportaIlcef the family. Buttherewaslittleprecedentorthis inhectivityof the Counter-Reformationierarchy,n whom theotionf the nuclearfamily as an autonomousentity inspiredndifferencer distaste. There seems to be no reference o theamilia,n eitherof its senses, nthedecrees f thecouncilof Trent;6heouncil enacted only two reformswhich affectedit, aboutarriagendcatechism, ndboth,if anything,diminishedherightsfarents ndtheindependencef thefamily. Hallnted,t maybe,yartoonsof the domestic Luther, the Counter-Reformationierarchyeemsto havetaken t forgranted hathousehold eligionasseed-bedof subversion. It therebyurnedts backonamove-enthich,while t mighthaveanti-sacerdotalimplications,wasbyoeans inherentlyunorthodoxor Protestant,and under thenfluencef the Christian umanists adbeenmakinga gooddealofrogressn earlysixteenth-centuryEurope.6 Tridentine egisla-iongainst he celebrationf Mass n private lousesmay,perhaps,65Not counting the term "filiis familias", which appears in the decreeametsi:a710nsndDecrees,. 454.6ee especiallyRichardWhitford,A zverkeor housholdersLondon, I533,etc.);ictionary ofNationalBiography,xi (I900), pp. I25-7, shouldcorrect hempressionhich may be given by Hill, Society ndP2jritanism,p. I50, 446,hathitfordasnot an orthodoxCatholic. See in generalAries,Centuriesfhildhood,p. 339-4I5, which does not howeverdealwith the levels of societyiscussedere.


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THE COUNTER-REFORMATION ND THE PEOPLE 69only have inconveniencedhe upper classes;but the object his wasunderstood y most of the Counter-Reformationierarchy s beingintended o secure, hat all parishmembers houldattendon all daysof obligation singleparochialMass, showedequaldisregardor theworkingsof households argeand small, and was for that and otherreasons ntirely mpracticable. In the end, by forcing he hierarchyto duplicateMassesandevento allow or an elementof representativeattendance,he households f CatholicEuropegained or themselvesa minimal tatus n determininghe patternof religiousobservance;but in this atmosphere positivesense of the spiritualvalue of thehousehold could not grow. 7 Complaint that the Counter-Reformation hurchdid not encourage omesticbible-reading ouldno doubt be utopian; t is nonetheless bvioushow largea gap wasleft by its absence,andnothingeffectivewas devised o take ts place.Canisius'sCatechismdoes include forms of householdprayer,butBellarmine's oes rlot,nor, so far as I can see, do any of the FrenchCatechismsof the seventeenthcentury. Borromeo's nstructionsshow, here and there, a desireto encourage amily eveningprayersandsimultaneousxaminationf conscience,68ut this wassomethingwhichappears o haveplayedno part n his pastoral isitations. Nordoes it appear n those of his emulators,hough hey showed nterestin otherhouseholdmatters, ike wherepeopleslept.69

In the Franceof the SecondEmpire,BishopDupanloup ook theview that the family had been so corruptedby irreligion hat thecatechism-classmust be made o serveas a substitute.70 Though itprofessedo be teaching ubmissiono parental uthority,he Counter-Reformation ierarchy ctedon similarassumptions. In so acting tdivorced he growth of the individual rom the environmentmostlikelyto foster t, and caused,I believe, ts educativeprogrammeomisfire. It also demonstratedhat there was something ntrinsicallythe matterwith its idea of the Church:a conviction hat all problems

G7 Canonsatld Decrees,pp.423, 5I; Adam, p. 248; Le Bras, Gtudes,, p. 277and n. 5; Ferte, pp. 269-70, 285-6- Marcilhacy, pp. 320, 333. Cf. the finepassage n Whitford,A werke or housholders,i. D iii-2, providing or domesticconvenience";For od is there present where he is duely and devoutly served"-and Hill, Societya?d Puritanism, . 447.68 Catechismms erri CanisSi cited above, n. 60), pp. I25 ff.; Borromeo,

Pastorum nstructiones,p. I43-4 and Acta, pp. 899 f.69 Grosso-Mellano, iii, p. 277; Casta, Eveqtces t cures corses, p. I08- cf.Adam, p. 96. Note Whitford's comment on the difficulties ofpractising.domestic piety when sleeping three in a bed: A werke or hozxsholders,ig. b i-2.70 Marcilhacyt p. 245.


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7o PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 47could be solved by compulsory legislation was here most evidentlyfalse. Domestic participation could not be legislated for. That itwas, in effect, legislated against is the one feature of the code ofreligious practice which I should without hesitation put down to panicabout Protestantism. I hope I have coInmunicated my belief thatthe bishops of the Tridentine Church have more positive achieve-ments to their credit than they are often allowed: from the parishregisterto the primaryschool they were Iayingmany ofthe foundationsof the modern state, and perhaps they have as good a claim as EnglishPuritanism to have "eradicate[d] habits which unfitted men for anindustrial society''.7l Yet their failure of nerve at this crucial pointis enough in itself to justify those who have maintained, againsta good deal of objection, that the term Counter-Reformation hasa necessaryand respectableplace in the language of modern European

-. lstory.Queen'sniversityJ,elfast ffohn ossy

71 Hill, Societyand Puritanism,p. I88. It will be obvious that Hill's chapterxiii ("The Spiritualisation f the Household")has been much in my mind whilewriting the two concludingparagraphs f this paper- cf. my own "Character fElizabethan Catholicism", first published in Past and Present no. 2I (AprilI962), and repr. in Trevor Aston (ed.), Crisis n Europe, 560-I660 (London,I965)5 ppw 224 ff