Book Review: The Stripping of the Altars

      The Stripping of the Altars is a historical book about the vibrant Catholic life of England and how it was viciously stripped away. Its author, Eamon Duffy, was “Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Cambridge” and he has written several other historical works such as Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes and The voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village.[1] Duffy proves to have an extensive background in English history and the Stripping of the Altars is a work in which his far reaching knowledge is put on full display. Through the reading of this book readers come to see that the Catholic faith was by no means decadent in Medieval England, but rather full of life and that it was through continuous persecution that England would lose its grip on its Catholic heritage. 

                

      The introduction of the work clearly establishes that Duffy had two tasks. The first of which was “to explore the character and range of late medieval English Catholicism, indicating something of the richness and complexity of the religious system by which men and women structured their experience of the world.”[2] Secondly, he hoped to “tell the story of the dismantling and destruction of that symbolic world.”[3] Duffy starts his first task with a chapter on liturgical seasons and signs in which he describes sacred ceremonies, places, and times held by the Catholic Church in England. After this there are numerous examples given as to how Catholics learned and lived out their faith. These consisted of the Catholic faithful being obligated to know the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Apostles Creed. That they were also taught the Ten commandments, Christ’s dual summary of these commandments, the seven works of mercy, the seven Sacraments, as well as both the seven great virtues and vices all of which allowed for the people to live true Christian lives.[4] Special devotions to particular saints and holy images such as the Passion of Christ were also shown to be common among the English people. Frequent reception of the Sacraments and acknowledgement of the afterlife were yet another way in which the English proved to be truly alive in their Catholic faith. Truly, England had been wholly Catholic for centuries and “every village had its Church.”[5] Ultimately, Duffy shows that there were no signs of an imminent loss of the Catholic faith in medieval England.
   
      However, Duffy shows goes on to show that such a thing was to happen starting with the tumultuous reign of Henry VIII who broke with the Pope in Rome and took control of the Catholic Church in England. Under his reign the firmest opposition to his newly taken authority would be weeded out and ultimately killed. Monasteries and convents would be closed down and taken by the state. In time Catholicism would fall more and more to the way side as English authorities would continue to place sharp restrictions and burdens on those who held onto their Catholic faith. Priests would be hunted down and killed along with those who helped hide and support them. Under future monarchs, such as queen Elizabeth, going to protestant services would become mandatory under pain of fines and only a few would have the resources as well as the will to resist the newly made protestant regime. For the first time since Pope Gregory the Great had sent St. Augustine to convert the people he had punningly said were “non Angli, sed Angeli” the Catholic faith in England was almost wholly snuffed out.[6]

      Indeed, by the end of the 1570s, less than 50 years after the submission of the clergy act, the hurt done to the Catholic Church in England and the spread of Protestantism was so great that “a generation was growing up which had known nothing else, which believed the Pope to be Antichrist, the Mass a mummery, which did not look back to the Catholic past as their own, but as another country, another world.”[7] As bleak as the picture painted in the book may be, the Stripping of the Altars is a great historical work for anyone interested in learning the truth of how the Catholic faith was lost in England. The second edition of this book was used in this review and it may be obtained for as cheap as 25$ online at Yale University Press.

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[1] Duffy Eamon, The stripping of the Altars (2^nd Addition. Hong Kong: Yale University, 2005)

[2] Ibid, p. 1

[3] Ibid

[4] Ibid, p. 53

[5] KNOWLES, M. D. "England, The Catholic Church in." New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., vol. 5, Gale, 2003, (Gale Virtual Reference Library, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CX3407703676/GVRL?u=23009&sid=GVRL&xid=ddd5f4e8.) (Accessed 8/13/19)

[6] Martin Regis, Visiting the Site of England’s Conversion, (Crisis Magazine, https://www.crisismagazine.com/2016/a-visit-to-england) (Accessed 8/13/19)

[7] Duffy Eamon, The stripping of the Altars (2^nd Addition. Hong Kong: Yale University, 2005), p. 593