English Convents in Catholic Europe, c.1600-1800

James E. Kelly is Sweeting Fellow in the History of Catholicism at the Department of Theology and Religion, University of Durham. He was a member of the 'Who Were the Nuns?' project, and Principal Investigator of the 'Monks in Motion' project, both funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. He is co-editor of publications including Early Modern English Catholicism: Identity, Memory and Counter-Reformation, c.1570–1800 (2017) and The English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800: Communities, Culture and Identity (2013).

• Introduction; 1. Recruitment: familial and clerical patronage; 2. Embracing enclosure; 3. Material religious culture; 4. Financing the conventual movement; 5. Liturgical life: relics and martyrdom; 6. Networked: the convents and the world of Catholic exile; Conclusion.

'Many contemporaries regarded enclosed convents as major spiritual, intellectual and even ideological statements about the nature of true religion. In the context of the changes of religion in England from the mid-sixteenth century onwards, the setting up of English convents in exile was a serious public intervention in the post-Reformation Church. This book draws on an impressive array of archival sources about these convents, and comprehensively and authoritatively reinstates them in the modern-day historiography of the British and European Reformation and Counter-Reformation.' Michael Questier, Research Chair, University of Vanderbilt, Nashville