Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-21T14:34:35.807Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ignatius Loyola and Reginald Pole: A Reconsideration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2009

Thomas M. McCoog SJ
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

‘Revisionist’ historians, led by David Loades, have begun to reexamine various aspects of the reign of Mary Tudor and thus to challenge traditional interpretations. Anyone considering the religious history of that period eventually encounters Cardinal Reginald Pole's refusal to accept into England some members of the newly founded Society of Jesus. Concurrent with the reappraisal of Mary's reign, a similar re-examination has dominated early Jesuit historiography. This work, which has generally passed unnoticed by Tudor historians, highlights the encouragement and support that the Society received from reformers, spirituali such as Cardinal Gasparo Contarini and Cardinal Giovanni Morone and, equally important, the attacks that both suffered from their common critics, for example from Gian Pietro Carafa (later Pope Paul iv), and Melchor Cano. One of that circle was Cardinal Reginald Pole. As research elucidates the relationship between that group and the Jesuits, it adds a new dimension to the old question: why did Pole resist Jesuit involvement in the restoration of English Catholicism? It is the purpose of this article to bring the two fields together and so first to demonstrate how developments in Jesuit historiography challenge established views and, second, to propose a more plausible interpretation.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , April 1996 , pp. 257 - 273
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For a general discussion of the spirituali see Gleason, Elisabeth G., ‘On the nature of sixteenth-century Italian evangelism: scholarship, 1953–1978’, Sixteenth Century Journal ix (1978), 3–25 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In the first chapter of his recent Marcello Cervini and ecclesiastical government in Tridentine Italy, DeKalb 1992, Hudon, William V. challenges the adequacy of the distinction between spirituali and intransigenti (pp. 3–17)Google Scholar.

2 The only detailed study of the question is Crehan, Joseph H. sj, ‘Saint Ignatius and Cardinal Pole’, AHSI xxv (1956), 72–98 Google Scholar.

3 Pole was Vittoria Colonna's spiritual director; she assisted the Jesuits Simão Rodrigues and Claude Jay in Ferrara in 1539. Contarini had made the Spiritual Exercises under the direction of Ignatius himself.

4 For the Viterbo circle see Fenlon, Dermot, Heresy and obedience in Tridentine Italy: Cardinal Pole and the Counter Reformation, Cambridge, 1972 Google Scholar.

5 Bangert, William V. sj, Claude Jay and Alfonso Salmerón, Chicago 1985, 167–71Google Scholar.

6 Parente, Ulderico, ‘Nicholás Bobadilla, 1509–1590’, AHSI lix (1990), 327 Google Scholar.

7 Pol. Chron. i. 392; Pole to Loyola, 22 Dec. 1541, ARSI, Epp. Ext. 7/II, fo. 43r (also in Epistolarum Reginaldi Poli S.R.E. Cardinalis et aliorum ad ipsum, ed. Quirini, A. M., Brescia 1744–1757, v. 115–16Google Scholar); Loyola, to Bobadilla, , 13 04 1549, MI Epp. ii. 379–80Google Scholar.

8 Epp. Bobad. 29–30, 620; Loyola, to Broët, , 29 03 1550, MI Epp. ii. 725 Google Scholar; Broët, to Loyola, , 12 04 1550, Epp. Broët, 45–6Google Scholar; Loyola, to Broët, , 26 04 1550, MI Epp. iii. 25 Google Scholar.

9 Loyola, to Rodrigues, Simão, 12 01 1550, MI Epp. ii. 643 Google Scholar; Loyola to Superiors of the Society, 6 Feb. 1550, ibid. ii. 674; Loyola to Pole, 16 June 1550, ibid. iii. 89–90.

10 23 July 1553, MI Epp.. v. 220–2 (translated in Letters of St Ignatius of Loyola, ed. Young, William J. sj, Chicago 1959, 301 Google Scholar).

11 7 Aug. 1553, MI Epp.. v. 304–6 (translated in Letters of St Ignatius Loyola, 304–5).

12 Loyola, Ignatius to Adriaenssens, Adrian, 27 02 1554, MI Epp. vi. 391 Google Scholar; Pole, to Charles, and de Croy, Robert, bishops of Cambrai and Tournai, 27 04 1554, ARSI, Epp. Ext. 7/II, fo. 414rGoogle Scholar (printed in Epistolarum Poli, v. 116–17).

13 Woodward, Geoffrey refers to this marriage as one ‘made not in heaven but in Brussels by Charles V's councillors’: Philip II, London 1992, 81 Google Scholar.

14 Lutz, Heinrich, ‘Cardinal Reginald Pole and the path to Anglo-papal mediation at the peace conference of Marcq, 1553–55’, in Kouri, E. I. and Scott, Tom (eds), Politics and society in Reformation Europe: essays for Sir Geoffrey Elton on his sixty-fifth birthday, New York 1987, 334 Google Scholar.

15 Doña Leonor was an enthusiastic supporter of Loyola and his early companions. Indeed, she yearned to join the Society. See Brodrick, James sj, Saint Ignatius Loyola, the pilgrim years, New York 1956, 313 Google Scholar.

16 MI Epp.. ii. 149–50. I use the translation from Rahner, Hugo, Saint Ignatius Loyola: letters to women, Edinburgh-London 1959, 32 Google Scholar.

17 Ibid. 31–2.

18 Ibid. 31–5. With the exception of Mary of Hungary, Ignatius had considerably more success with the female members of the Habsburg family than he did with the male. Indeed the Infanta Juana, daughter of Emperor Charles v and Regent of the Spanish kingdoms, was actually a member of the Society of Jesus. For an exposition of Loyola's relations with royal women, see the introduction to ‘The Courtier of Heaven’, ibid. 29–37.

19 Pol. Chron. iv. 310–11. One wonders whether Ignatius' decision reflects one of the most important aspects of the marriage treaty between Mary Tudor and Philip of Spain: the creation of a new northern state out of England and the Spanish Netherlands to contain France: Lynch, John, Spain 1516–1598: from nation state to world empire, Oxford 1991, 134 Google Scholar.

20 On Araoz's friendship with Rui Gómez see Bangert, William V. sj, Jerome Nadal, SJ (1507–1580): tracking the first generation of Jesuits, ed. McCoog, Thomas M. sj, Chicago 1992, 133 Google Scholar. On Borgia see de Dalmases, Cándido sj, Francis Borgia: grandee of Spain, Jesuit, saint, St Louis 1991, 111 Google Scholar, and Scaduto, Mario sj, L'Opera di Francesco Borgia (1565–1572), Rome 1992, 34 Google Scholar.

21 Pole, to Charles, and de Croy, Robert, bishops of Cambrai and Tournai, 27 04 1554, ARSI, Epp. Ext. 7/II, fo. 414rGoogle Scholar (printed in Epistolarum Poli, v. 116–17).

22 1 May 1554, MI Epp.. vi. 651.

23 3 May 1554, ibid. vi. 675. See also vi. 713; vii. 102, 142–3; Pol. Chron. iv. 435; Nadal, Jerome to Loyola, , 14 05 1554, Epp. Nadal, i. 261 Google Scholar; Borgia, to Loyola, , 26 02 1556, Epp. Borgia, iii. 256 Google Scholar. For the stormy relationships between Nadal, Borgia and Araoz see Bangert, Nadal, passim.

24 MI Epp.. vii. 472, 576; Pol. Chron. iv. 296. The marriage treaty stipulated ‘That Philip shall have none in his service but the queen's natural born subjects. That he shall not bring Foreigners into England, to make the English uneasy, and that he shall punish the contraveners. That he shall make no Alteration in the laws and customs of England.’: Acta Regia: or An account of the treaties, letters, and instruments between monarchs of England and foreign powers, London 1728, iii. 407–8Google Scholar. Philip's vacillation over the Society is but one example of his uncertainty regarding the composition of his retinue. In response to advice from his father, the Spanish ambassador, and his councillors, Philip changed his mind several times: Loades, David, The reign of Mary Tudor, London 1979, 134 Google Scholar. Approximately a dozen clerics journeyed to England with Philip. Theologians such as Juan de Villagarcía and Bartolomé Carranza were to work in London and the universities: Rodríguez-Salgado, M. J., The changing face of empire: Charles V, Philip II and Habsburg authority, 1551–1559, Cambridge 1988, 199 Google Scholar.

25 Ignatius Loyola to the Jesuits at Louvain, Cologne, and Tournai, , 21 08 1554, MI Epp. vii. 427 Google Scholar; Pol. Chron iv. 435, 492–3.

26 MI Epp. viii. 305–6.

27 The Roman College opened in 1551 and the German College in 1552. To assist the German College, Pole promised an annual donation of 500 aurei: ARSI, Rom. 157/I, fo. 13r.

28 MI Epp. viii. 308–10 (translated in Letters of Saint Ignatius Loyola, 361–2).

29 8 05 1555, MI Epp. viii. 311–12Google Scholar.

30 Interestingly this request is not mentioned at all in Morone's extant correspondence. I am indebted to Thomas F. Mayer for this information.

31 MI Epp. viii. 574. On Morone's request see Bangert, , Nadal, 139–41Google Scholar.

32 In his doctoral thesis ‘Cardinal Pole – papal legate to England in Mary Tudor's reign’, Cambridge 1972, p. 121 Google Scholar, Rex Pogson demonstrates Pole's reliance on Morone whose friendship and advice Pole valued.

33 2 07 1555, MI Epp. ix. 275 Google Scholar.

34 Polanco to Francis Borgia, 13 Nov. 1555, Ibid. x. 132; Ignatius to Olivier, 3 Dec. 1555, ibid. x. 247; Ignatius to Nadal, 5 Dec. 1555, ibid. x. 259; Ignatius to Ribadeneira, 30 Mar. 1556, ibid. xi. 195; Pol. Chron. vi. 445–6.

35 6, 18 07 1555, MI Epp. ix. 284–6, 299–300Google Scholar; Pol. Chron. v. 291, 312.

36 Ibid. v. 555–6.

37 Loyola, to Ribadeneira, , 9 06 1556, MI Epp. xi. 551 Google Scholar. Loyola's, first candidate was Pedro de Tablares but Borgia's, doubts resulted in the change: Pol. Chron. v. 555–6Google Scholar.

38 Loyola, Ignatius to Pole, Cardinal, 25 10 1555, MI Epp. x. 38 Google Scholar; Pole to Loyola, 15 Dec. 1555, ibid. X. 39.

39 Polanco to Borgia, 13 Nov. 1555, ibid. x. 132; Loyola to Nicolas Lanoy, 21 Mar. 1556, ibid. xi. 154; Loyola to Salmerón, 20 May 1556, ibid. xi. 424.

40 Loyola to Borgia, 14 Sept. 1555, ibid, ix, 616; Loyola to Nadal, 21 Nov. 1555, ibid. x. 179; Loyola to Lanoy, 25 Jan. 1556, ibid. x. 567.

41 Ribadeneira, to Loyola, , 26 08 1556, Epp. Ribad. i. 189–90Google Scholar.

42 Pol. Chron. vi. 452; Pole, to Laínez, , 15 11 1556 (printed in Epistolarum Poli, v. 120)Google Scholar.

43 Greenwich, 22 03 1558, in Calendar of Letters, despatches and state papers relating to the negotiations between England and Spain (July 1554–November 1558), ed. Tyler, Royall, London 1954, 370–1Google Scholar.

44 It seems that Pole had progressed from reluctance to opposition. Unfortunately Laínez did not say why he thought Pole was displeased with the Society. Crehan suggested that Pole was upset because his friend Bobadilla was badly treated in the constitutional struggle that followed the death of Loyola and the convening of the general congregation to elect his successor: ‘Saint Ignatius and Cardinal Pole’, 87, 91–3. On this struggle see Bangert, , Nadal, 108–9Google Scholar. One wonders, however, how well informed Pole would have been of the conflict and what grounds he would have had for concluding that Bobadilla had been badly treated.

45 Laínez, to Duke, of Feria, 17 09 1558, Epp. Laínez, iii. 539, 539–40nnGoogle Scholar; Epp. Ribad. i. 70–1.

46 6, 20 Jan. 1559, 4 Mar. 1559, 1 04 1559, Epp. Ribad. i. 308–10, 310–14, 320–3Google Scholar.

47 Reign of Mary Tudor, 347, 437.

48 Bangert, , Claude Jay and Alfonso Salmerón, 173–4Google Scholar. When Morone was freed in 1559 after the death of Paul iv, he explained to Laínez his resentment because Salmerón's testimony had been used against him. This, however, did not deter him from continuing his support for the Society: O'Malley, John, The first Jesuits, Cambridge, Mass. 1993, 316–17Google Scholar.

49 For more detail on this see Crehan, , ‘Saint Ignatius and Cardinal Pole’, 87, 91–93Google Scholar.

50 Loyola's relationship with Cardinal Carafa, later Pope Paul iv, was not especially amiable. Indeed, Loyola had feared Carafa's election: Quinn, Peter A., ‘Ignatius Loyola and Gian Pietro Carafa: Catholic reformers at odds’, Catholic Historical Review lxvii (1981), 386–400 Google Scholar.

51 See Fenlon, , Heresy and obedience, 251–81Google Scholar, and Loades, , Reign of Mary Tudor, 428–57Google Scholar.

52 Both Scaduto, Mario (L'Epoca di Giacomo Lainez Il Governo 1556–1565, Rome 1964, 82–3)Google Scholar and Simoncelli, Paolo (Il caso Reginald Pole: eresia e santità nelle polemiche religiose del cinquecento, Rome 1977, 187–91)Google Scholar have discussed the support the Society provided in the defence of these men.

53 Heresy and obedience, 257.

54 ‘Revival and reform in Mary Tudor's Church: a question of money’, in Haigh, Christopher (ed.) The English Reformation revised, Cambridge 1987, 141 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘The legacy of the schism: confusion, continuity and change in the Marian clergy’, in Loach, Jennifer and Tittler, Robert (eds), The mid-Tudor polity c. 1540–1560, London 1980, 134 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also his ‘Reginald Pole and the priorities of government’, Historical Journal xviii (1975), 3–20 Google Scholar.

55 On the importance of preaching see McGinness, Frederick J., ‘Preaching ideals and practice in Counter-Reformation Rome’, Sixteenth Century Journal xi (1980), 109–27Google Scholar; O'Malley, John W. sj, ‘Priesthood, ministry, and religious life: some historical and historiographical considerations’, Theological Studies xlix (1988), 223–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and The first Jesuits, 91–104.

56 Young, , Letters of St Ignatius Loyola, 95 Google Scholar.

57 de Dalmases, Cándido sj, Ignatius of Loyola, St Louis 1985, 195–7Google Scholar.

58 Koterski, Joseph W., ‘Discerning the more fruitful paths to reform: Pierre Favre and the Lutheran Reformation’, Heythrop Journal xxxi (1990) 499 Google Scholar. In the battle with the Lutherans Favre argued that religious conversions are caused not by argumentation and syllogisms but through concrete Christian witness. It is to this that Favre exhorts the Jesuits: p. 492.

59 O'Malley, John W. sj, ‘Attitudes of the early Jesuits towards misbelievers’, The Way, Supplement lxviii (1990), 68 Google Scholar; de Vries, Piet Penning sj, ‘Protestants and other spirituals: Ignatius' vision and why he took this position’, AHSI xl (1971), 476 Google Scholar. On the basis of his research on the Jesuits, French, Martin, A. Lynn concluded that ‘the Society of Jesus was a relative latecomer in the Catholic reaction to Protestantism’: The Jesuit mind: the mentality of an élite in early modern France, Ithaca, NY 1988, 88 Google Scholar.

60 On this image of the Society see Martin, A. Lynn, ‘The Jesuit mystique’, Sixteenth Century Journal iv (1973), 31–40 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 O'Malley, , ‘Attitudes of the early Jesuits’, 62–73 Google Scholar. On Nadal see Vercruysse, Jos E. sj, ‘Nadal et la Contre-Réforme’, Gregorianum lxxii (1991), 289–315 Google Scholar, and Bangert, , Nadal, 135–48Google Scholar.

62 On Cano and other early Spanish opposition to the Jesuits see Mathers, Constance Jones, ‘Early Spanish qualms about Loyola and the Society of Jesus’, The Historian liii (1991), 679–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; O'Reilly, Terence, ‘Melchor Cano and the spirituality of St. Ignatius Loyola’, in Plazaola, Juan (ed.), Ignacio de Loyola y Su Tiempo, Bilbao 1992, 369–80Google Scholar.

63 Pogson, , ‘Cardinal Pole – papal legate’, 279 Google Scholar.

64 Idem, ‘Legacy of the schism’, 117, 122, and ‘Revival and reform’, 140; Loades, , Reign of Mary Tudor, 347 Google Scholar.

65 Loyola, Ignatius, The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, ed. Ganss, George E. sj, St Louis 1970, 262 no. 588, 334–5 no. 817Google Scholar; O'Malley, , First Jesuits, 73–4, 157Google Scholar. On the refusal of bishoprics see Padberg, John W. sj, ‘Ignatius, the popes, and realistic reverence’, Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits xxv (1993), 20–8Google Scholar.

66 Quoted in Haigh, Christopher, English reformations: religion, politics, and society under the Tudors, Oxford 1993, 224 Google Scholar. According to Loades, , ‘In his [Pole's] view, sermons, even good ones, only stirred up controversy’: Mary Tudor: a life, Oxford 1989, 244 Google Scholar. Despite Pole's attitude, both Haigh, Christopher and Duffy, Eamon note the evidence for effective preaching during Mary's reign: English Reformations, 224 Google Scholar; The stripping of the altars: traditional religion in England 1400–1580, New Haven-London 1992, 527–37Google Scholar.

67 Loades observes the difference between Pole in Italy and Pole in England. Despite his earlier humanism and his continued interest in an educated clergy, the cardinal was ‘paternalistic and negative’ in his approach to the laity. Frequently employing images from the nursery and the classroom, ‘the function of the layman was to perform his sacramental and ceremonial duties, to pay honour (and tithe) to the clergy, and to restore the battered material fabric of his parish church’. See ‘The piety of the Catholic restoration in England, 1553–1558’, in Kirk, James (ed.), Humanism and reform: the Church in Europe, England, and Scotland, 1400–1643: essays in honour of James K Cameron, Oxford 1991, 296 Google Scholar.

68 Loyola, , Constitutions, 70 no. 6, 261–2 nos 586, 587 and n. 4Google Scholar; O'Malley, , First Jesuits, 136, 159–62Google Scholar.

69 Loades points out that in the attempt to revitalise the English Church Pole only looked to one continental source for aid: the reformed congregation of Monte Cassino. They did not come: ‘Catholic restoration in England’, 295.

70 Crehan, , ‘Saint Ignatius and Cardinal Pole’, 85, 97–8Google Scholar.

71 Loyola, to Borgia, , 14 09 1555, MI Epp. ix. 610 Google Scholar; Loyola to Borgia, 14 Sept. 1555, ibid. x. 616; Loyola to Jean Pelletier, 21 Sept. 1555, ibid. x. 637.

72 O'Malley, , First Jesuits, 234–5Google Scholar. For an exposition of the relationship between the college and Ignatian educational ideals see Cesareo, Francesco C., ‘The Collegium Germanicum and the Ignatian vision of education’, Sixteenth Century Journal xxiv (1993), 829–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

73 For examples of Jesuit missionary activity operating out of different colleges see Bangert, , Nadal, 62–3Google Scholar, and Martin, , Jesuit myth, 68–9Google Scholar.

74 This is not to minimise Pole's interest in reform. Pole was the cardinal protector of the Benedictine Congregation of Monte Cassino. He had hoped that two members of that congregation would come to England to aid in the restoration of the Benedictines at Westminster. Even though he was not successful in his bid, Pole supported the restoration after he had made a few reforms after the Cassinese model: Knowles, David, The religious orders in England, Cambridge 1959, iii. 424–5Google Scholar.

75 In ‘Catholic restoration in England’, 298–9, 303, Loades has nuanced the reactionary nature of Mary's restoration.

76 Idem, Reign of Mary Tudor, 352–4.

77 Tudor England, Oxford 1988, 227 Google Scholar.

78 A letter from Antonio de Córdoba's to Laínez substantiates this interpretation. Writing from Montilla, he reported that he had heard from the count of Oropesa, Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, who claimed to have been told by Pedro de Soto that Pole's opposition to the Society stemmed from two causes, their discarding of choir service and their repudiation of bishoprics: 3 03 1558, Epp. Laínez, iii. 172 Google Scholar.

79 According to the extant catalogues the first Englishman was a Thomas Lith who entered in 1555: McCoog, Thomas M. sj, Monumenta Angliae, Rome 1992, ii. 395 Google Scholar. The Thomas Anglus who entered the German College in 1554 was probably Thomas Natale who entered the Jesuits in 1556: Schmidt, Peter, Das Collegium Germanicum und die Germaniker, Tübingen 1984, 219 Google Scholar; McCoog, , Monumenta Angliae, ii. 415 Google Scholar.

80 Both Fenlon, Dermot (Heresy and obedience, 257)Google Scholar and A. G. Dickens offer the same conclusion. In Dickens's, words ‘It remains very possible that Pole foresaw the hostility which the mass-introduction of a “Spanish” Order might provoke in England’: The English Reformation, 2nd edn, London 1989, 427 n. 73Google Scholar. Haigh, Christopher also suggests this possibility in his cautious evaluation of Pole's refusal: ‘Controversial preaching by a rigorist order with foreign experience and leadership might have been disruptive, and it would have been some years before English (or English-speaking) Jesuits could be trained’: English reformations, 224 Google Scholar.

81 O'Malley, , First Jesuits, 54 Google Scholar. Evidence of Spanish dominance can be found both in the nationalities of the first three generals – Loyola, Laínez and Borgia – and in the composition of the first general congregation in 1558. Of its participants 70% were Spanish: Woodward, , Philip II, 55 Google Scholar.

82 There were, it is true, important Spanish theologians in England during Mary's reign, including Alonso á Castro, Bartolomé Carranza, later imprisoned and accused of heresy, Juan de Villagarcía, appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, and Pedro de Soto, appointed Professor of Hebrew at Oxford. All came in Philip's entourage. See Loades, David The Oxford martyrs, London 1970, 158, 225, 259Google Scholar, and Revolution in religion: the English Reformation 1530–1570, Cardiff 1992, 70 Google Scholar. The attack on Carranza was led by Fernando de Valdés, inquisitor-general and archbishop of Toledo, and Carranza's fellow Dominican Melchor Cano. On Carranza's relations with the Society see O'Malley, , First Jesuits, 317–20Google Scholar.