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Transmitting and Translating the Excommunication of Elizabeth I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2017

Aislinn Muller
Aislinn Muller*
Affiliation:
Cambridge University
*
*Girton College, Huntingdon Rd, Cambridge, CB3 0JG. E-mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

In 1570 Pope Pius V issued the bull Regnans in Excelsis, which excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I, deprived her of her right to rule, and released her subjects from obedience to her. This article attempts to trace the transmission of Regnans in Excelsis in the English realms during Elizabeth's reign, considering where possible the bull's publication and dispatch to different courts in Europe. It assesses efforts to distribute both publications of the excommunication, in 1570 and 1580, and what the continuity of these efforts suggests about the bull's reception amongst Elizabeth's subjects. By tracing literal translations of the bull and persistent attempts to smuggle it into the English realm, it also argues that Elizabeth's excommunication was of greater importance to her subjects than has previously been supposed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 53: TRANSLATING CHRISTIANITY , June 2017 , pp. 210 - 222
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2017 

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References

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9 The rebellion in England had been subdued by crown forces by the end of December: Kesselring, Northern Rebellion, 88–90. News of the rebellion had been sent to Rome from early December; Pius V wrote to the duke of Alba about his concern for the rebels in early February: Hicks, J. M., ed., Calendar of State Papers Relating to English Affairs Preserved Principally at Rome in the Vatican Archives and Library, 1, Elizabeth 1558–1571 [Hereafter: CSP Rome] (London, 1916), 315Google Scholar–16, 324–5.

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18 Lewes, The Keep, Rye 7/47/15/15, Mayor of Rye to Lord Cobham, 23 April 1577.

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22 McCoog, Society of Jesus, 140–5.

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30 The first publication of Regnans in Excelsis was not translated fully into English, although parts of it appeared in Protestant polemics.

31 LPL, Carew MS 607, fol. 37b.

32 TNA, PC 2/9, fol. 74, meeting at St James, 16 September 1564; TNA, SP 12/103, fol. 124, John Vaughan to Lord Burghley 6 June 1575; SP 63/112, fol. 13, Sir Richard Bingham to Sir Francis Walsingham, 14 October 1584.

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