From Repatriation to Revival

Attention paid by historians to the post-Reformation history of the English and Welsh Catholic community has hitherto focused predominantly on the sixteenth, seventeenth and nineteenth centuries: comparatively little attention has been paid until recently to the eighteenth century, to the effects of the French Revolution and to the period prior to the restoration of a Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales in 1850. When one turns to the history of the English Benedictine Congregation, the existing historiography for the period from the French Revolution to the mid-nineteenth century is thin. For this reason alone, this substantial new study by Dom Alban Hood, of Douai Abbey, Woolhampton, near Reading, a reworked and much-developed version of a doctoral thesis, is a welcome addition to the literature. Written by a member of the English Benedictine Congregation, this new book has the merit of great objectivity: it is emphatically not an ‘insider’s’ history. The author successfully detaches himself from the tradition to which he belongs and, by means of careful scholarly analysis, provides a valuable contribution to an under-researched period of ecclesiastical history. An excellent introduction sets the scene and provides a helpful overview of the existing historiography surrounding the subject. Thereafter, the eight main chapters of the book, and a short, concluding ninth chapter, draw on a vast wealth of archival material in England and in Rome and analyse the multifarious challenges and opportunities facing the English Benedictines between 1795 and 1850

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