Christianity

Tudor Edwards describes how the austere order of Trappists in Normandy was driven by the French Revolution to seek refuge in Switzerland, Austria and Russia.

Christian legend transformed St James, the Galilean fisherman, into a death-dealing crusader knight. Stephen Clissold describes how pilgrims from all over Europe, wearing his symbolic scallop-shells, have come to visit the splendid shrine that has been raised above his tomb.

C.R. Boxer profiles the learned and pious Duchess of Aveiro, a proud and forceful member of the Iberian aristocracy, who devoted her wealth to the propagation of the Gospel overseas.

Alan Wharham describes how the tithing system, by which the Anglican Church took a regular share of the hard-working farmer’s produce, was not finally abolished until 1936.

Since Tudor times, and for four centuries, the observance of the Sabbath was strictly enjoined by Government regulation.

Richard Dale investigates the mysterious death of Richard Hunne in Lollards Tower at Old St Paul’s, one of the most notorious episodes of the English Reformation.

Stephen Usherwood describes the Oxford Movement, the revival of the Catholic faith in England, and the hostility that both aroused.

Lord Balfour, then Foreign Secretary, announced that he viewed with favour a national home for the Jews in Palestine. I.T. Naamani examines the philosophical writings of a remarkable British statesman.

K. Theodore Hoppen describes how the victory of the ultramontanes in 1870 meant that for a considerable time the largest Church in Christendom adopted an attitude hostile to the modern world.

The Vatican Council now in session, writes John Raymond, faces many issues very different from that which dominated its predecessor nearly a century ago.