English Catholic Historians and the English Reformation: 1585-1954

For almost 400 years, Roman Catholics have been writing about the English Reformation, but their contributions have been largely ignored by the scholarly world and the reading public. Thus the myths of corrupt monasteries, a ’Bloody’ Mary, and a ’Good’ Queen Bess have established themselves in the popular mind. John Vidmar re-examines this literature systematically from the time of the Reformation itself, to the early 1950s, when Philip Hughes produced his monumental Reformation in England.

John Vidmar OP has taught History at the Ohio Dominican College, Providence College, and at the Dominican House of Studies, where he served as Associate Professor, Academic Dean, Acting President and Prior. He has lectured extensively at the Smithsonian Institution (a History of the Popes, a History of the Reformation, a History of Religious Orders, and the English Christian Literary Revival of the Twentieth Century). His present position is at the Priory of Saint Thomas Aquinas at Providence College, Rhode Island.