Outram Evennett was a university lecturer in history at Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity College. This book, based on his Birkbeck Lectures of 1951, represents some twenty years' work on the sources
The author of this 1930 volume maintains that the first two and a half years of the pontificate of Pius IV, during which the continuation of the Council of Trent and the maintenance of its earlier decrees were secured against strong French and German opposition, constituted the critical period which finally determined the ultimate orientation of the Counter-Reformation. This thesis is worked out in detail in regard to the French efforts to prevent the continuation of the Tridentine Council and to force the Counter-Reformation into different channels from those desired by Rome, efforts which were largely inspired by the Cardinal of Lorraine around whom the narrative is hung. In addition, an attempt is made to appreciate the Cardinal's personality and to understand his ecclesiastical standpoint.
Outram Evennett was a university lecturer in history at Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity College. This book, based on his Birkbeck Lectures of 1951, represents some twenty years' work on the sources of the Counter-Reformation. Evennett did not live to complete his task, but he has provided a remarkable synthesis of the vast European literature on this subject. His method was to isolate the special and positive characteristics of the Counter-Reformation and to account for them in relation to the environment in which they developed. This approach is highly original; it sees in the spirit of the Counter-Reformation an attempt not to check but to extend and come to terms with the more individualistic and modern environment in which the Catholic Church found itself. The Jesuits are treated as agents of this change. Dr John Bossy has edited these lectures for publication and added a Postscript, analysing some of the problems raised in the years since the lectures were delivered. Professor
