This volume by Richard Finn OP was written with the aim to fulfil a wish earlier articulated by his fellow Dominican Fr Bede Jarrett to provide “a more detailed and more accurate account of this English province . . . up to now so curiously ignored” (1) and was compiled as the octo-centenary of the friars’ arrival in England was approaching. It covers a broad sweep of time from the Dominicans’ first arrival in England up to 2021, encompassing periods of growth, stability, exile, expansion, and contraction. The nature of the English Dominican Province was, at times, such that its reach included Ireland and Scotland in its early years, until they became two separate provinces, as well as extending to the Caribbean and South Africa. Various forms of Dominican life are explored in this book; thus in addition to the friars, the book also addresses the history of Dominican nuns, as well as lay tertiaries, although the latter two groups receive less attention than the friars. The early section of the book sees a good deal of attention paid to the Irish and Scottish parts of the province, which highlights the contrasts between these places and England, in terms of the different patterns of expansion evident in each, for example. The English Province again extends into Scotland in the later phases of the book with the acquisition of property in Edinburgh, in addition to work in university chaplaincy being documented.
While the volume offers a chronicle of the Dominicans’ changing status in society, it also provides insights into their changing role, as well as the changing profile of their patrons. The medieval period sees the Dominicans favored by royal and aristocratic patrons, while in the post-Dissolution period, we see the friars supported by recusant families, often supporting Dominicans based in continental Europe while the province in England faltered in the face of persecution. As the Dominican Province was re-established in England with an Observant novitiate in the nineteenth century, we begin to see a new profile of patron emerge with Catholic converts, such as Marc André Raffalovich (a convert from Judaism), potter Josiah Spode, and his niece Helen Gulson, who surely tested the patience of the friars with her demands, including access to the friars’ enclosure. The friars’ original role as preachers living in urban or suburban communities together, assisted by a range of supporters from varying levels of society, adapted and changed throughout the book as circumstances and necessity dictated. No Dominican houses closed due to the Black Death, but many houses in England never returned to their former size. Finn remarks on the expansion of the Dominicans into rural Ireland, suggesting they lacked urban support. This rural expansion is also characteristic of the other mendicant orders in late medieval Ireland and may perhaps reflect that many towns had reached saturation point in terms of their capacity to support the friars, who liked to give sufficient space to each other in any case. It may also be indicative of the willingness of rural populations to support the work of the mendicant friars. With the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the fortunes of the Dominicans of the English province quickly declined. Finn demonstrates that while some friars opposed the Protestant reforms, others supported them, notably John George of Cambridge, who was rebuked by his mother for doing so. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, the friars lacked a provincial structure and associated network of houses, but gradually continental foundations such as Bornhem and the house of nuns at Spellikin helped to strengthen the English Dominicans, with unrest on the continent leading many monks and nuns to return to England. A Dominican presence had continued in England during this time but is less well attested in the records than that on the Continent.
As the Dominicans sought to place themselves on a firmer footing in England from the mid-nineteenth century onward, they adopted the Strict Observance. They devoted themselves to parish work, to the extent that Fr Bede Jarrett stated, “You'll be swamped with parochiality until one's OPness is squeezed out of one” (245). Serving in parishes (in Britain or overseas such as in Grenada), as military or university chaplains, and in the context of limited vocations was at times to the detriment of the common life and choral office. The twentieth century saw changes, not just in how the Dominicans interacted with the world outside but also in how they interacted with each other, for example in terms of how members of communities in formation houses (fathers, lay brothers, and students) came to have increased contact with each other.
The book is carefully researched and draws on a good variety of primary source materials. It provides insights and analysis, while the author notes his intention to refrain from assessment in the final chapter, which deals with more recent events, the impact of which may be difficult to assess at such a brief remove. There are a few small typographical errors in the latter stages of the book that seem to have escaped the editing process. The book concludes with a series of twenty plates, with the first of these, notes and drawings concerning the Exeter Blackfriars being especially striking. The images mainly concern the friars rather than the nuns and would perhaps have been better scattered throughout the text where relevant rather than included at the back of the book. Overall, this book deals with a considerable scope in terms of time and indeed geography, and provides an accessible study of a deserving subject that is rich in detail and captures the diversity of the experience of the English Dominican province.
