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The Transubstantiation of Myth: towards a New Popular History of Nineteenth-Century Catholicism in England

Derek Holmes, proposing a fresh investigation of the history of Catholics in nineteenth-century England, largely by reference to a tiny group of national clerical leaders, has justified his approach by arguing that it is impossible to imagine the development of English Catholicism without them. This seems a strange apology with which to introduce the history of so numerous and diverse a community. Is it to be assumed that that same community has little or no life apart, or that it had little significance except as backdrop to the drama of episcopal politics? This objection is particularly apropos of nineteenth-century Catholicism, which came to enjoy an enormous following in circumstances that appear to bear but a marginal relationship to the activity of the elite. In short, there is surely a popular dimension here, independent of figurehead biography, which is possibly best captured in the nineteenth-century legend of English Catholic history.