PREFACE
In writingmy doctoral thesis at the University of Warwick I frequently consulted the extant catalogues of the English province. They contained a wealth of information that had not been sufficiently incorporated into recusant historiography. As prepared to return to the United States in 1984, suggested to Mr. Antony Allison that publication of the catalogues would be an important contribution to recusant studies . The CRS approved and, working with microfilm , I began to transcribe the catalogues in 1985. As the work progressed , I wondered whose permission was needed to publish material from the Jesuitarchives in Rome. wrote to Father Charles E. O'Neill , S.J. , of the Jesuit Historical Institute. He reminded me that publication of such material was the purpose of the Monumentaseries . In the ensuing correspondence , it was decided thatthe Jesuit Historical Institute would initiate a new sub-series of the Monumenta, the MonumentaAngliae, with the English catalogues and that this volume would be co- sponsored by the CRS. In 1988, on a trip to Rome to consult the original documents in the Jesuit archives , stayed at the Historical Institute. In discussions with Father Ladislaus Lukács, S.J. , whose editions of Austrian catalogues served as a model and whose editorial advice was often sought , he suggested that it would be even more beneficial for historians I included all English and Welsh who had entered the Society. We know very little about the men who entered the Society before the initiation of the English mission in 1580. Many are simply names; others became important figures in provinces as disparate as India and Lithuania. This
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suggestion demanded that I consult all the extant catalogues and thus morethan doubled my work. Once the focus was expanded to include all extant catalogues , the size of the Monumentavolume increased considerably and was eventually published as two volumes in 1992. Its terminus ad quem was 1640, thus treating the first centennial of the Society's
history. This terminus ad quem posed a problem for the CRS . An earlier volume in the same series, that of Father Geoffrey Holt , S.J., treated the English Jesuits after 1650. Thus , if I stopped at 1640, there would be a gap of ten years. On the otherhand the inclusion of ten moreyearswould probably have necessitated a third volume. Subsequent discussions resolved the problem: the volumes published by the Historical Institute and those published by the CRS would be separate and independent. The Monumenta volumes would contain the catalogues for the original