At the end of 1996, an important repository for the study of ecclesiastical history quietly opened its collections to bona fide researchers for the first time, and the opening was publicly announced in January 1998. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, previously known as the Congregation of the Holy Office, and before that as the Supreme Congregation of the Inquisition, began to welcome scholars into an archive which had seen only a dozen or so scholars workings on its papers. Even Ludwig von Pastor and Cardinal Aidan Gasquet were denied entry [1].
Those tiny few who used the patronage network, so refined in the Roman Church, to gain access, for instance, to documentation on Giordano Bruno and Galileo found themselves being carefully watched as they beavered away in this Holy of Holies. Many historians, therefore, who have been forced to seek entry for purposes of research to the archives of the Roman Inquisition have expressed their frustration at finding the door slammed in their faces. The generosity of the Holy See to open these collections seems to have been the initiative of Pope John Paul II himself who at the beginning of the third millennium wished to portray the Church as a defender of human rights, and being prepared to come to terms with the darker aspects of its history, and apologising for any injustices it had perpetrated. What is to be found in this newly opened archive is not a complete collection. In February 1810, Napoleon had the entire papal archive transported to Paris, some crates being lost en route, and when, in 1816, it was returned to Rome thanks to the efforts of Cardinal Ercole Consalvi, it was only after what was considered material of lesser importance had been removed, destroyed, or dispersed. Furthermore, much of the returned material now resting in Rome still awaits cataloguing.[2]
In defence of the faith against heresy, Pope Paul III in 1542 had reconstituted the Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition or the Holy Office, commonly known as the Inquisition, by establishing a tribunal of six cardinals. It was further reformed in the reorganisation of the Curia by Pope Sixtus V in 1587-88. The Roman Inquisition also supervised the work of the local Italian Inquisitors. Unlike its counterpart in Spain which dealt particularly with the conversion of Jews, the Roman Inquisition in its early days was concerned especially with the eradication of the serious crime of Protestant heresy, hence our interest in the manuscript under discussion here. Recent studies on the Roman Inquisition have emphasised the humane moderation and meticulous standards and procedures of the Roman Inquisitors as a way of balancing deeply rooted anti-popish horror stories, although the Inquisition remained rigorous in its pursuit of heresy. In 1638, only three years after the event described here, the first edition of Historia della Sacra Inquisitione, by the anti-papal Paolo Sarpi, (1552-1623), known as 'the terrible friar', was published, which continued to dispensed the usual stock of horror stories. The Roman Inquisition, it is argued, however, by today's scholars 'was not a drumhead court, a chamber of horrors, or a judicial labyrinth from which escape was impossible'.[3]
Because the papers of the Congregation of the Inquisition were until recently unavailable, scholars in the past were dependent on peripheral repositories, especially those attached to the various Italian states, for acquiring accounts of the Inquisition’s working with various governments and institutions. This paper provides an example of the Roman Inquisition’s dealings with an Englishman which is found unusually in a manuscript deposited in the Huguenot Society archive, and which seems to exist in two manuscript versions. More light will hopefully be shed on this case as the papers of the Roman Inquisition become available.[4]
On 13 June 1636, Walter Strickland wrote from London describing his meeting a year earlier with a certain John Molle who was detained by the Roman Inquisition. He hoped the details would be passed on to Molle's wife and a Mrs Stanhope. Despite belonging to the Protestant branch of the Stricklands, he had stayed during his visit to Rome at the English College, even though the College frequently assisted the Inquisition in its work of reconciling heretics like Strickland. Much of Strickland's later political career was spent as an ambassador in Holland during the Protectorate and as a high-ranking politician in Cromwell's government.[5]
Whilst in Rome, Strickland had come upon the English Benedictine procurator or agent, John Wilfrid Selby, who had been his schoolfellow in Newcastle. John Selby was born of an old Catholic family in County Durham. Gillow says he was probably the third son of William Selby, a merchant in Newcastle, by Elizabeth, daughter of Gerard Ffenwick, of Newcastle, and was brother to Sir George Selby, of Whitehouse, Co. Durham, and Sir William Selby, of Shortflatt and Bowlam, Northumberland. He was clothed, taking the name Wilfrid of St Michael, and later professed as an English Benedictine at St Gregory's, Douai, on 21 March 1620. In 1629 he became Procurator for the English Benedictines in Rome and continued in that office until the General Chapter of 1645, and perhaps even longer. In Rome, Selby was highly regarded by Pope Urban VIII's nephew, Cardinal Francesco Barberini (1597-1679), Cardinal Protector of England. Both uncle and nephew were known to regret the over-hasty action of Pope Clement VII against King Henry VIII which had resulted in the English Reformation. In the event described here, Barberini had earlier Selby that the next time they met at the Inquisition, he would do him the favour of persuading the cardinals of the Inquisition to allow his old friend Strickland to speak to the prisoner Molle.[6] This meeting took place on 13 June 1635, when Strickland went to the Inquisition with Selby, Dominic Burke, an Irish Dominican, and another Irish priest.
Once there, the Inquisitor demanded that Selby and the Irish priest retire, having only the authority to allow Burke to remain in order to provide a record of the conversation and to act as interpreter since the Inquisitor, who remained present throughout the interview, knew no English. The strict purpose of the visit was to allow Strickland to inform Molle of the circumstances of his family and friends in England, permission was not given for any other business. An officer, therefore, sent for Molle, who entered the chamber through one of a number of doors. He was, we are told, tall with a stoop, and his hair and beard were white; he was aged sixty eight or sixty nine, and 'wore a little short streight horsemans coate of a sad brown; his other apparrell of a midle value'. This may have been the Samarra, the garment worn by obdurate heretics.Strickland saw no signs of ill-usage on the prisoner, and in any case he dared not ask him whether he had been badly used. After formal introductions, Molle expressed his surprise that Strickland, as a Protestant, had been allowed to visit him. Burke the Dominican immediately interjected and told Molle he was not to mention Strickland's Protestantism which he insisted had nothing at all to do with the visit. The pair then settled down to a friendly discussion concentrating on family and acquaintances and avoiding areas of controversy. Just as the Inquisitor came to end the meeting, Molle began to stray again into dangerous waters, telling Strickland that he had followed St. Augustine in always trying to testify to the truth and that his family should know that despite being a prisoner of the Inquisition, he was determined to remain constant in the religion in which he had been born and baptised. Molle refused to allow Burke to interrupt his flow and went on to state his determination to 'pray for all conversions'. He then returned to his room, leaving Strickland deeply affected by the sufferings of this man who had been imprisoned by the Inquisition for over twenty six years.
This straitlaced interview between Molle and Strickland, coming only two years after the Inquisition's censure of Galileo in 1633, provides us with a valuable illustration of how the strict operational protocols of the Roman Inquisition might be relaxed in practice thanks to personal and diplomatic influence. To deal firstly with Molle and the punishment meted out by the Inquisition. John Molle had worked for the English government as paymaster to the army in France, where he had been wounded, imprisoned, and ransomed. He worked briefly for the Council of the North before becoming, in 1602, travelling tutor on the Grand Tour to Lord Roos (Ross), a distant relation of his, and to Lord St. John. This group was amongst the first to go on the grand tour when it became easier to travel after James I's peace treaty with Spain in 1604. As the result of a vagary, Roos pushed to go to Rome in 1608 and Molle reluctantly gave in, having previously resolved as a Protestant not to cross the Alps. Once in Florence, on the orders of the Inquisition, Molle was immediately arrested by officers as the party of English tourists entered an inn, for the authorities had been alerted to their whereabouts by Sir Tobie Matthew himself a pioneer of the Grand Tour. Matthew belonged to a distinguished Anglican family and having recently turned a Catholic, he had become friendly with the Grand Inquisitor and attempted to convert Molle.
In its work of uprooting heresy and controlling the spread of heretical books, the Holy Office of the Inquisition was generally well informed of the movements of unlawful foreign heretics in Italy, although Molle would probably not have spurred the Inquisition into action if he had not been so thoroughly provocative. For on his arrest, Molle was found to be in possession of a translation he had made of the French Calvinist theologian, Philippe de Mornay, Seigneur du Plessis-Marly's A Treatise of the Church (London 1606). The Inquisition always scrupulously tried to block entry of such heretical books into Italy, and it would have been especially offended by the title-page of this work which bore a text condemning Rome as Babylon. Molle was therefore carried to 'the Inquisition-House' in Rome, and was to remain in prison for the extraordinary length of thirty years when his death cut short the sentence. All attempts by ambassadors and others over the years to secure his release by recommending he might, for instance, be exchanged for priests or Jesuits imprisoned in England failed, and he continued to languish 'at Soul Surgery in the Inquisition'. Meanwhile we are told his charge, Lord Roos, daily feasted, favoured and entertained: so that some would not stick to say, 'That here he changed no Religion for a bad one', for Roos converted to Catholicism. Catholic controversialists sought to convert Molle, but neither frights nor flattery impressed him, and he remained steadfast in his Protestant faith for which perseverance he was to be greatly admired by his co-believers, 'a Land-mark of Christian patience to all posterity'. Molle appears to have been imprisoned for life (immuratio, imprisonment in a cell of four walls, not a walling-in), judging by the details of entry doors in the letter. In general, conditions seem to have been relatively comfortable for such prisoners as Molle. We know that the Pope insisted that he should be 'dolce trattato and all means used for his conversion', although a total ban on all communication explains why his interview with Strickland caused such surprise to him and was subject to such scrutiny. Molle's one visitor from England during his lengthy incarceration was Walter Strickland. Molle was the last case of severe punishment for religious reasons experienced by an English visitor in Rome, and his prolonged incarceration was the result of his pertinacity and refusal to be reconciled.[7]
The gloomy picture of the living martyrdom of Molle at the hands of the Inquisition vindicated contemporary Protestant criticisms of the institution, but the most unusual grant of permission for his meeting with Strickland was undoubtedly the result of the persuasive influence of individual Catholics, like Selby, who were crucially involved in improving relations between the English government and the Holy See at this time and in these negotiations the English Benedictines were seriously involved. [8]
The Irish Dominican friar, Dominic Burke, who belonged to the family of the royalist Earl of Clanricarde, was present, as we have seen, throughout Strickland's interview with Molle He acted as interpreter and helped to steer the discussion away from forbidden topics. Burke had already worked as a chaplain to British soldiers employed in Catholic regiments in Europe before coming to Rome, and was knowledgeable about English ecclesiastical affairs. Holding the posts of lector in theology and Irish Dominican procurator in Rome, Burke was resident at the time at Santa Maria sopra Minerva where public abjurations of heresy took place. He would therefore appear to have been associated with the Roman Inquisition.[9] Strickland's other companion on the visit was the English Benedictine, Wilfrid Selby alias Reade. who was the first full-time English Benedictine procurator in Rome between 1629 and 1645. We have already noted that he had been at school with Walter Strickland, and it was Selby who used his influence with the Inquisition to arrange the meeting with Molle. His wide experience and interests identify him as the human face of Catholicism to English Protestants on edge in papal Rome. Selby was certainly very popular in Rome where he adopted the alias Joannes Rubeus (Red or Reade) because Romans had some difficulty pronouncing Wilfrid or Reade. He was credited with a deeper knowledge of the Roman Court than any other northern European, and believed to be a perfect courtier, and a saint by courtiers themselves.
It was Selby who used his influence shrewdly to manoeuvre through the curia and past the eyes of Pope Urban VIII, who held him in high esteem, the essential constitutional documents re-establishing the English Benedictine Congregation, including the famous Bull Plantata (1633), 'a kind of blank cheque from the papacy to the English monks' and the papal confirmation of new cathedral priors. The 1629 General Chapter had appointed nine cathedral priors, each with a small body of monks for a chapter. The Chapter also claimed Peterborough, Gloucester and Chester as cathedral priories. The 1629 Chapter did not regard the cathedral priors as merely titular, for Plantata, which echoed this chapter's aspirations, stated that the priors were intended to be true officials exercising jurisdiction. This claim to active jurisdiction was absurd, insisted David Lunn, but Chapter appointed Selby as full-time procurator at Rome with the special task of seeing it confirmed. In 1641, he was himself made cathedral prior of Chester. At the 1645 General Chapter, still in Rome but far removed from the events detailed here, Selby attempted to prevent being elected to any office but was, nevertheless, elected as President-General of the English Benedictines, despite his chapter delegate, D. Paul Robinson, resigning from the office in Selby's name. The Regimen insisted, however, on Selby became President through holy obedience. As President General, Selby continued to live in Rome. Fr Wilfrid or Reade or Selby died in Rome 1659 according to his epitaph in the English College. Weldon, inaccurately, says his death occurred in 1657.[10]
Selby's pre-eminence in Rome not only allowed him to persuade Cardinal Francesco Barberini to permit Strickland access to the Inquisition's prison, but his Anglo-Roman diplomacy also brought Protestant England and the papacy closer to each other. Throughout much of his time in Rome, Selby lived at the Gregorian College of St Benedict in Trastevere, established in 1621 by Gregory XV as a hospice and academy for foreign monks whose nations had fallen into heresy and which was put under the Cassinese Benedictine Sicilian abbot, Constantino Caetani (Cajetan) (1560-1650). This college was the precursor of Propaganda Fide and Sant'Anselmo. Caetani was its first president, though his book De Religiosa S. Ignatii sive S. Enneconis Fundatoris Societatis Jesu per Patres Benedictinos Institutione, Venice 1641 was put on the Index on 18 December 1646, with a note from him repudiating the authorship. Selby collaborated in Caetani's published defence of Pope Boniface VIII (1651) and in an edition of the works of Peter Damian (1606-40).[11]
Caetani had known the English Benedictines from at least 1607-08, when he had supported their case against the Jesuits. There had also been around this period a small and fluctuating group of English monks, mostly from the struggling community at Dieulouard, living near the church of S. Callisto in Trastevere for their studies . They included Alban Roe, Bernard Edmunds, Francis Constable. It was also in Trastevere that the building of the Gregorian College was begun, near the small 11th-century church of S. Benedetto in Piscinula, built on the site of the town house of St. Benedict's family. Caetani eventually handed over his Gregorian College to the English Benedictines, and here Selby lived, according to Lunn, salvaging the monks' credit after the Bishop Richard Smith dispute, breaking finally with the Cassinese , and securing Plantata – but he also made a small mark on Anglo-Roman diplomacy, defending Leander Jones's mission, and earning Charles I's respect. In 1629, hoping to regularise the position of the English monks at the Gregorian College, President Bagshaw asked that they might be adopted by it as fully professed members, and Caetani agreed, no doubt envisaging large English contributions to the college's upkeep. But the aggregation had to wait until 1638, and Urban VIII delayed confirming it until 1640. [12]
The Gregorian College's finances were always a grave concern. No one was fully responsible for it, and the member congregations were either not interested enough or too impoverished by the Thirty Years' War, for they did not pay their subscriptions. Selby made fund-raising journeys in Germany, Austria and Switzerland to help the college, without much success. In 1635, the desperate Caetani, acting through the agency of Selby, offered the college to Propaganda, conditional upon it remaining an international Benedictine house, and twice in 1639 Caetani and Selby repeated their offer, throwing in Caetani's library as an additional inducement. Propaganda seems to have accepted, but only after a visit to the site and with the condition that Caetani, who remained in charge, should draw up new constitutions. In 1641 the English General Chapter showed itself to be one of the reluctant subscribers to its upkeep, for it refused to tax the houses of the English Congregation for such a cause during those difficult times. All that the Congregation agreed to do was to pay for the students whom it sent to the college, and in this sense Propaganda gave permission on 6 November 1643 for four monks to be sent there. Selby was unable to solve the college's difficulties, despite a number of financial expedients, and the English Congregation had to get him out of debt by purchasing the college from him in the year that he died (1659). In 1666, after his successor, Bernard Palmes, had been removed from the office for indulging in a disastrous taste for building, the college was given to the Germans, who were more interested than any other nation in preserving an international Benedictine house.
The historical situation in England during the 1630s, then, is crucial for understanding why the Roman Inquisition opened its doors to allow two heretics to meet each other. For during the 1630s the English government and the papal court came closer than they had ever been since the Reformation thanks to those envoys of the Catholic Queen Henrietta Maria sent to the papal court and, in return, papal agents sent to England. The agency of Gregorio Panzani in England (1634-6) was was the context in which the Molle-Strickland meeting took place. By the 1630s, the English monks had become acceptable at court. Charles I, writing to Captain Arthur Brett, the Queen's envoy at Rome, told him to seek the advice of Wilfrid Selby, the Benedictine agent at the papal court, describing him as 'a moderate man, of good affection towards our service, and one whom you may trust' . Leander Jones came to England in 1634, though it is not to be seen as a delicate papal approach to Archbishop Laud, or Jones as an accredited agent of the papacy, for in reality he came in order to bring some rebel Benedictine missioners to obedience. Urban VIII's Secretary of State, Cardinal Barberini did, however, ask Jones to send a report on the English Catholics in general. All such reports to Rome went through Selby as agent. This report revealed Jones's opposition to the creation of a bishop and his prejudices against the Jesuits. He also attacked the oath of allegiance and suggested Charles I was at heart a Catholic, and could be persuaded to erase the penal laws and make England Catholic. Francis Windebank. Charles's Secretary of State, who died a Catholic, with his unrepresentative court circle of crypto-Catholics, must share some responsibility for Jones's unrealistic attitude, but so must the papacy, with its unwillingness to live with the thought that the Protestants of Europe were irreconcilable, well-established churches, not just rebels.
Between November and December 1634, Jones composed seven more longish documents on Church and State for Rome's attention and put himself deeper and deeper into difficulties. He committed himself, for example, to the opinion that the Anglican ordination rite was roughly same as the Catholic one, and that Anglican clergy would submit to re-ordination. Panzani, who followed him as agent, believed that Jones had been instrumental in persuading the King not to enforce the oath of supremacy with rigour, 'With his gentleness he can do much, said Panzani of Jones, 'besides, he behaves very well and is a venerable old man, of much learning, and of stupendous memory'. But Rome refrained from replying to Jones's communications, and even in England, his influence was waning, for in November 1635, Jones had to ask Windebank for protection from the pursuivants for Benedict Price with whom he was lodging. The next month he was dead. One of his major achievements was the articles of peace signed by him and Price for the Benedictines, and by representatives of the seculars and other religious orders. [13]
Differences between the seculars and regulars were the reason for the mission from Rome of Gregorio Panzani to England from 1634 to 1637,when the meeting between Molle and Strickland at the Inquisition took place. Panzani arrived with an anti-regular prejudice. Until reprimanded by Rome, he tried, like Jones, to find a way around the oath of Allegiance. The monks played a significant part in these events. Windebank told Arthur Brett, the Queen's agent in Rome, to confide in Wilfrid Selby, the Benedictine procurator at the papal curia. Panzani reported that Selby was sending information about the Papacy to Windebank, probably through Benedict Price. This news did Selby no harm in Rome, especially since he was said to have sent to England an exaggerated report of papal esteem for the King, which pleased Charles inordinately. Although these agents were over optimistic in relation to any real reconciliation between Rome and England, and the diplomatic overtures were ultimately unsuccessful, Cardinal Francesco Barberini and Selby himself nevertheless remained committed to seeking closer ties between the two courts. Barberini, well-known for his kindness to English visitors in Rome, was, however, always guarded, for he always insisted that Rome would not budge on its attitude to the Oath; 'The English', he wrote to Panzani a couple of months before he organised Strickland's visit to Molle, ' are a mysterious people, and require all your attention. The sea which you passed to visit them is an emblem of their temper...I wish you had been cautious in relation to the oath'.[14]
It is striking that someone like Selby who was so hospitable to Protestant heretics in Rome could also be responsible for drafting the sufferings and executions of English Catholic martyrs at the hands of Protestants. His interest in compiling accounts of these sufferings, however, seems only to have quickened in the 1640s and 1650s when he was Benedictine President-General and when the Parliamentarians had appreciable numbers of Catholic priests executed. Selby's account of the martyrdom of the Benedictine Philip Powel or Morgan in 1646, a contemporary of Selby in the novitiate at Douai and a dear friend, was addressed to Cardinal Barberini.[15]
Barberini was arch-priest of St Peter's at the time, but, more importantly, Cardinal Protector of England. He had been introduced to John Milton (1638) and had accommodated the brother of the Marquis of Worcester in his apartment in the Cancellaria. In England, Selby, besides being the English Benedictine procurator, was well-known as an influential point-of-contact in Rome for English visitors to the city and one who had easy access to Cardinal Barberini. He frequently dined at the English College with English tourists. Thus, literary figures like the poet Patrick Cary and the diarist John Evelyn were directed to him, and he introduced both of them to each other. Cary, son of Elizabeth Cary, Lady Falkland, came in 1637 as a youth to Rome, and remained under Selby's tutelage for nearly twelve years, receiving financial help, and being recommended at the outset by Selby to Cardinal Barberini's patronage. Evelyn arrived in the city in 1644, and was told to contact Selby as 'a person of singular learning, religion and humanity'. It was Selby's friend, Cardinal Francesco Barberini who arranged for Evelyn to attend a consistory (4 May 1645) and kiss the papal toe.[16]
The death of Pope Urban VIII in 1644 and the flight of his relations, the Barberini clan, to France in January 1646 coincided with the breaking out of the Civil War in England which was followed by the execution of Charles I and the the establishment of the Commonwealth and Protectorate. In these strained circumstances, Selby remained, following Cardinal Francesco Barberini's rapid departure from Rome, perhaps the most important surviving unofficial diplomatic link in Rome between the two courts. He continued his ecumenical work, but sided with the Royalists and condemned the Parliamentarians for their executions of Catholics. On the death of Abbot Clement Reyner, first abbot of Lambspring, in 1651, Selby was elected his successor. He was aware that local Lutheran nobility cast greedy eyes on the abbey and its estates, and so to prevent this, he resigned the abbey into the hands of the papacy. This allowed the monastery to remain with the English Benedictines, for, on Selby's recommendation, the pope appointed D. Placid Gascoigne as his successor. This appointment had the support of the local German civil and ecclesiastical authorities. While Selby had earlier followed his patron Caetani and his English Benedictine confrere, Francis Walgrave, in stoutly defending the Benedictine John Gersen as the author of The Imitation of Christ, Selby's own English translation of the Imitation which appeared in this later, more troubled, period (1657) would have been welcomed by Anglicans attracted to this work, already popular among Catholic and Protestant readers, for its modern English colloquial style, and the book may well have been published in London rather than Rouen, as stated on the title-page. On the proposal of President Placid Gascoigne at the Chapter of 1653, 28 August., the chapter had voted its thanks to Selby for some many years of hard work for the good of the Congregation, a rare mark of gratitude. [17]
After his death in 1659, but discussed at Chapter since 1653, was published his life of St Scholastica, Tabula votiva appensa Tholo S. Scholasticae a P. Johanne Rubeo, Cong. Anglo. O.S.B., Romae, Jac. Dragondelli, 1659, which was dedicated to the Fathers of the Swiss Benedictine Congregation, and edited after the author's death by Father. Bernard Palmes, Selby's successor as procurator at Rome. Prefixed to it are three odes on S. Scholastica by James Alban Gibbes, the eminent Latin poet, and professor of eloquence at the Sapienza College, Rome. The 1661 Chapter demanded that the monasteries provide financial help towards the book's publication.[18]
![Tablet in the Chapel of the English College Rome [photo M.Coughlan]](selby-rome-17pc.jpg)
On his retirement, Selby attempted to complete the buildings of St Gregory's College in Rome, offering to resign the property into the hands of the English Benedictine Congregation, shortly before his death. Before the offer could be discussed at the next General Chapter Selbydied of the bubonic plague in the Gregorian college in Trastevere 18 February 1657 in a catastrophe which swept away fifteen thousand victims in the first fourth months of its appearance.[19]