Semester
Summer
Date of Graduation
2023
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Type
PhD
College
Eberly College of Arts and Sciences
Department
History
Committee Chair
Matthew Vester
Committee Member
Kate Staples
Committee Member
Max Flomen
Committee Member
Michele Stephens
Committee Member
Christopher Carlsmith
Abstract
This dissertation examines the impact and influence of a portion of the early modern Jesuit seminary network within the narrative of the Counter Reformation. Following the rise of Elizabeth I, a significant number of Catholic recusants fled England to take up residence in a series of schools spread across Europe with the intention of completing their education and later contributing to the efforts to preserve Catholicism in their homeland. This dissertation argues that these schools played a significant role in the course of the “English Mission,” contributing to its conception, escalation, and eventual collapse in the late sixteenth century. Despite the unified vision for the reconversion of England shared across these schools, divisions within the varied factions of the Catholic response to Elizabethan Protestantism, as well as within the Jesuit seminaries themselves, led to divided approaches to the English Mission’s conduct. As a result, reconversion efforts proceeded haphazardly, and they gradually intensified to the point of violence and crusade against Elizabeth and her realm before the Mission collapsed following the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. Even in the waning years of Elizabeth’s life, the main organizers of the seminary network and the English Mission continued to call for Elizabeth’s removal from power; however, new developments in European political theory turned the major European powers away from England and left the remaining recusants with little support in their efforts. By the time of Elizabeth’s death, the English Mission had failed as a result of internal divisions and an inability to reconcile with the shifting nature of early modern political thought on the part of the administrators of the continental seminary network.
Recommended Citation
Volman, Cole, "Losing my Religion: Contextualizing Continental Catholic Seminaries in the Elizabethan Reformation, 1558-1603" (2023). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 12075.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/12075