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Books and Prints at the Heart of the Catholic Reformation in the
Low Countries (16th–17th centuries)
 Library of the Written Word

volume 104

The Handpress World

Editor-in-Chief

Andrew Pettegree (University of St Andrews)

Editorial Board

Ann Blair (Harvard University)

Falk Eisermann (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preuβischer Kulturbesitz)
Shanti Graheli (University of Glasgow)
Earle Havens ( Johns Hopkins University)
Ian Maclean (All Souls College, Oxford)
Alicia Montoya (Radboud University)
Angela Nuovo (University of Milan)
Helen Smith (University of York)
Mark Towsey (University of Liverpool)
Malcolm Walsby (enssib, Lyon)
Arthur der Weduwen (University of St Andrews)

volume 83

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/lww

 Books and Prints at the
Heart of the Catholic Reformation
in the Low Countries
(16th–17th centuries)

Edited by

Renaud Adam
Rosa De Marco
Malcolm Walsby

LEIDEN | BOSTON
Cover illustration: Albert & Isabella Clara Eugenia, Placcaet [...] opt collecteren [...] op die waeren ende
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Contents

List of Figures vii

List of Tables xi
List of Abbreviations xii
Notes on Contributors xiii

1 Books and Prints at the Heart of the Catholic Reformation in the Low
Countries (16th–17th Centuries) 1
Renaud Adam, Rosa De Marco and Malcolm Walsby

Part 1
Book Production and Book Business

2 A Window of Opportunity: Framing Female Owner-Managers

of Printing Houses in Sixteenth-Century Antwerp 9
Heleen Wyffels

3 The Printing Industry and the Counter-Reformation in Brussels under

Archduke Albert and Archduchess Isabella (1598–1633) 23
Renaud Adam

4 Successful Strategies for Creating a Devotional Best Seller: Canisius’s

Manuale Catholicorum Published by the Plantin Press 46
Dirk Imhof

5 International Sales of Tridentine Emblems Books by the Antwerp

Officina Plantiniana: The Case of Father Joannes David at the Beginning
of the Seventeenth Century 61
Renaud Milazzo

Part 2
Publishing Enterprises

6 A French Book in the Low Countries: Matthieu de Launoy’s Déclaration

et Réfutation and Its Reissues in Douai, Cambrai and Antwerp
(1578–1579) 81
Alexander Soetaert
vi Contents

7 ‘Per Modum Compendii a Leonardo Damerio Leodiensi in Lucem

Editum’: Odo van Maelcote, Léonard Damery, the Astrolabium
Aequinotiale, and the Parallactic Print between Italy and the Southern
Netherlands in the Age of Galileo 101
Ruth Sargent Noyes

8 An Imperial Crusade? Public Opinion in Antwerp and the Response

to the Bohemian Crisis 131
Paul Arblaster

9 Printed Christian hilaritas under Archdukes Albert and Isabel

(1598–1621) 155
Johan Verberckmoes

Part 3
Prints and Iconography

10 Militant Printers’ Marks across the Southern Low Countries (1561–1640):

A Survey at the Heart of the Emblematic Era 179
Rosa De Marco

11 The Counter-Reformation and Its Rebranding through Images:

The Frontispieces of Books Printed in Antwerp 216
Annelyse Lemmens

12 Thesis Prints Dedicated to Archduke Leopold William of Austria,

in the Service of the Pietas Austriaca 239
Gwendoline de Mûelenaere

13 The Iconography of the Last Supper in Géronimo Nadal’s Evangelicæ

historiæ imagines 268
Valentine Langlais

Index 295
Figures

3.1 Book production in Brussels, 1598–1633: global production by four-year

intervals 26
3.2 Book production in Brussels, 1598–1633: market shares of active printers 29
3.3 Book production in Brussels, 1598–1633: breakdown by categories 33
3.4 Book production in Brussels, 1598–1633: paper requirements of the different
literary categories 35
3.5 Book production in Brussels, 1598–1633: breakdown by language 36
3.6 Etienne Ydens, Histoire du saint Sacrement de Miracle (Brussels: Rutger Velpius,
1605): title-page (©Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels, LP 9547 A) 42
4.1 Petrus Canisius, Manuale catholicorum (Antwerp: Christopher Plantin, 1588):
title page (© Plantin-Moretus-Museum, Antwerp, MPM A 1288) 48
4.2 Petrus Canisius, Manuale catholicorum, Antwerp, Christopher Plantin, 1588:
pp. 70–71 (beginning of the 4th Exercice) (© Plantin-Moretus-Museum,
Antwerp, A 1288) 51
4.3 Petrus Canisius, Handt-boeck der catholijcken, Antwerp, Jan Moretus I, 1604,
pp. 170–171 (beginning of the 7th exercice) (© Plantin-Moretus-Museum,
Antwerp, A 889) 53
4.4 Sale of a colored copy to Martin Ginderhoven on 18 May 1605
(© Plantin-Moretus-Museum, Antwerp, Arch. 177, Journal 1605, fol. 78v) 56
4.5 Petrus Canisius, Le manuel des catholiques, Antwerp, Balthasar Moretus II,
1662, pp. 174–175 (beginning of the 8th exercice) (© Plantin-Moretus-Museum,
Antwerp, O.B 1.4) 58
5.1 Market share of the various David’s emblem books at the Frankfurt Fairs from
1606 to 1610 according to the Cahiers de Francfort kept at the Plantin-Moretus
Museum in Antwerp 66
5.2 Sales of Joannes David’s emblem books at the Frankfurt fairs between 1606
and 1610 67
5.3 Montage of two separate sheets of the Veridicus Christianus, emphasising the
relationship between image and text. Jan David, Veridicus christianus (Antwerp:
ex officina Plantiniana, 1601) 69
5.4 Sales by cities of emblem books published by the Officina plantiniana at the
Frankfurt fairs (spring and autumn) between 1606 and 1610 according to the
Cahiers de Francfort kept at the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp 73
7.1 Léonard Damery after Odo van Maelcote, Equinoctial astrolabe, in Astrolabium
aequinoctiale, Odonis Malcotij Bruxellensis e Societate lesu. Per modum
compendij a Leunardo Damerio Leodiensi in lucem editum (Brussels: Rutger
Velpius, 1607). Burin engraving (© Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels,
VH 8.416 A 1) 115
viii Figures

7.2 Lambert Damery after Odo van Maelcote, stereographic astrolabe, c.1600–1610.
Engraved brass (© Musée de la Vie Wallonne, Liège, MVW 4000035) 118
7.3 Ferdinand Arsenius after Odo Van Maelcote, “Astrolabium Hemisphaericum
ad lat. 66 ½ / Odo Malcot invenit Ferd. Arssenius Sculp” (Aequinoctial
austral-boreal tympanum printing plate, latitude 66 ½ [=arctic circle]),
c.1610 (terminus post quem). Copper, burin-engraved (© Musée des arts et
métiers-Cnam, Paris, 00914-0000) 119
7.4 Valerian Regnard after Odo van Maelcote, Hemisphaeria AEquinoctialia,
in Astrolabiorum seu Vtriusque planispherij vniuersalis, et particularis vsus.
Per modum compendij traditus à Valeriano Regnartio Belga […] (Rome:
Bartholomaeus Zannettus, 1610). Burin engraving (© Biblioteca Angelica, Rome,
h.5.16) 123
7.5 Ferdinand Arsenius after Odo Van Maelcote, Hemisphaeria AEquinoctialia
terrestrial austral hemisphere plate, in Astrolabiorum seu Vtriusque
planispherij vniuersalis, et particularis vsus […], c.1610 (terminus post quem).
Burin engraving (© Zentralbibliothek Zürich, Zürich, NE 1951) 124
10.1 Cornelis I Galle after Paul Peter Rubens, Plantin’s Mark in Silvestro Pietrasanta,
De symbolis heroicis libri IX (Antwerp: Balthasar Moretus (© University Library
of Liege, Liège, 374B) 179
10.2 Hendrick Goltzius, Portrait of Christopher Plantin, 1581–1585. Copper engraving,
20,4 × 13,4 cm (© Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, RP-P-1884-A-7748) 183
10.3 Guillaume La Rivière’s mark, the wide river, in Maximilien de Wignacourt,
Discours sur l’estat des Pays Bas, auquel sont déduictes les causes de ses troubles
et calamitez et leurs remèdes (Arras: Guillaume de La Rivière, 1593)
(© University of Gent) 187
10.4 Guillaume La Rivière’s mark, at the address of The Good Shepherd, from the
dictionary compiled by Ferdinand van der Haeghen, Marques typographiques
des imprimeurs et libraires qui ont exercé dans les Pays Bas, et marques
typographiques des imprimeurs et libraires belges établis à l’étranger (2 vols.,
Ghent: C. Vyt, 1894), II. 8 188
11.1 Engraved title page, Lodovico Guicciardini, Descrittione di tutti i Paesi Bassi,
altrimenti detti Germania Inferiore (Antwerp: Christophe Plantin, 1581
(© Plantin Moretus Museum, Antwerp, A1342) 218
11.2 Frontispiece, Lodovico Guicciardini, Descrittione di tutti i Paesi Bassi, altrimenti
detti Germania Inferiore (Antwerp: Christophe Plantin, 1581) 220
(© Plantin Moretus Museum, Antwerp, A1342) 220
11.3 Cesare Baronio, Annales ecclesiatici a Christo nato ad annum 1198 (12 vols.,
Antwerp: Officina Plantiniana, 1597–1607): engraved title page (© Plantin
Moretus Museum, Antwerp, 2–173.1) 225
11.4 Jerónimo Nadal, Evangelicae historiae imagines ex ordine Evangeliorum, quae
tot anno in Missae Sacrificio recitantur, in ordinem temporis vitae Christi digestae
Figures ix

(Antwerp: s.l., 1593): frontispiece (© Plantin Moretus Museum, Antwerp,

A 3808) 229
11.5 Jerónimo Nadal, Adnotationes et meditationes in Evangelia quae in sacrosancto
Missae sacrificio toto anno leguntur (Antwerp: Martinus Nutius, 1595): engraved
title page (© Plantin Moretus Museum, Antwerp, A 555) 230
11.6 Jan David, Veridicus Christianus (Antwerp: Officina Plantiniana, 1601): engraved
title page (© Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, BRES-R5A14986) 233
11.7 Jan David, Occasio arrepta, neglecta, huius commoda, illius incommoda
(Antwerp: Officina Plantiniana, 1605): engraved title page (© Plantin Moretus
Museum, Antwerp, A 1205) 235
12.1 Cornelis ii Galle, Portrait of Archduke Leopold William of Austria crowned by
two angels, ca 1652. Engraving, 26,7 × 17 cm (© Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam,
RP-P-1904-380) 242
12.2 Petrus Clouwet after Jean-Baptiste Van Heil, Universal Philosophy, thesis
frontispiece with a portrait of Archduke Leopold William of Austria, 1655.
Engraving, 41,2 × 26,5 cm (© Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels, SI 11514) 245
12.3 Adrien Lommelin after Antoine Sallaert, Synopsis theologica, title page for a
thesis defended by Humbert de Precipiano, Jesuit college of Louvain, 1648.
Engraving, 39,3 × 24,1 cm (© Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, RP-P-1908-702) 249
12.4 E. de Boulonnois after F.A. Marienhof, “Serenissimo Principi Leopoldo
Guilielmo pacis ac tranquillitatis publicae auctori”, in P.D.F., À son Altesse
Leopolde Guillaume […] panegirique […], s.l., ca 1651, 16 pp., 24,5 × 37,5 cm
(© Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels, VH 26.867 C) 253
Fig. 12.5 and 12.6. Paul Pontius after Abraham van Diepenbeeck, Thesis of Claudius,
Count of Collalto, dedicated to Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, University
of Louvain, 1645. Engraving, 102,5 × 68 cm (© Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam,
RP-P-OB-70.060 and 061) 254
12.7 Theodore van Thulden after Peter Paul Rubens, Temple of Janus, in Caspar
Gevartius (ed.), Pompa Introitus Ferdinandi Austriaci Hispaniarum Infantis…,
Antwerp, 1641, pl. 117A (© Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, RP-P-OB-70.270) 256
12.8 Theodore van Thulden after Peter Paul Rubens, Portico of the Emperors
(Matthias and Ferdinand ii), in Caspar Gevartius (ed.), Pompa Introitus
Ferdinandi Austriaci Hispaniarum Infantis…, Antwerp, 1641, pl. 50A
(© Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, RP-P-OB-70.262) 257
12.9 Jacob Neeffs after Philippe Fruytiers, Austriaco Burgundico, title page for
a thesis dedicated to Leopold William of Austria, undated (c.1647–1656).
Engraving, 22,3 × 17,2 cm (© Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels, SI 28961) 258
12.10 Anonymous, Timore Domini concessa divinitus Israeli sapientia, felicitas,
gloria […], frontispiece for the libretto of a stage play given to Leopold William
of Austria, Antwerp, 1648. Etching, 20,5 × 15 cm (© KU Leuven, Tabularium, inv.
A 16018 n°5) 261
x Figures

12.11 Adrien Lommelin after Abraham van Diepenbeeck, Decor Carmeli, thesis (?)
broadside dedicated to Leopold William of Austria, ca 1650–1655. Engraving,
100 × 40 cm (Antwerp, St Charles Borromeo church, © IRPA, inv. 57750) 264
13.1 Johannes Wierix after Bernardino Passeri, Feria v. Maioris Hebdom, 1593,
woodcut, 232 × 145 mm (© Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, RP-P-OB-67.223) 270
13.2 Johannes Wierix after Bernardino Passeri, Cœna commvnis, et Lavatio
Pedum, 1593, woodcut, 232 × 145 mm (© Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam,
RP-P-OB-67.224) 271
13.3 Johannes Wierix after Bernardino Passeri, Sanctissimi Sacramenti, et Sacrificii
Institvtio, 1593, woodcut, 232 × 145 mm (© Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam,
RP-P-OB-67.225) 272
13.4 Johannes Wierix after Bernardino Passeri, De Gestis post sacram
Commvnionem, 1593, woodcut, 231 × 144 mm (© Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam,
RP-P-OB-67.226) 273
13.5 Jacob Corneliszoon van Oostsanen, Christ and the apostles celebrating the
Passover, 1523, woodcut, 110 × 78 mm (© The British Museum, London,
1859.0709.2865) 275
13.6 Jacob Corneliszoon van Oostsanen, The Institution of the Eucharistic
sacrament, 1523, woodcut, 110 × 78 mm (© The British Museum, London,
1859.0709.2865) 276
13.7 Johannes Wiei, after Pieter van der Borcht, The Last Supper, 1571, etching,
114 × 73 mm (© The British Museum, London, 1875.0710.116) 286
13.8 Antoine II Wierix after Bernardino Passeri, Eodem die apparet Iesvs dvobvs
discipvlis evntibvs emavnta, 1593, woodcut, 233 × 146 mm (© Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam, RP-P-OB-67.265) 287
13.9 Pieter Paul Rubens, The Last Supper, 1620, oil on panel, 43,8 × 44,1 cm
(© The Art Museum, Seattle, 61.66) 291
13.10 Philips Galle after Jan van der Straet, The Last Supper, 1585, etching,
198 × 269 mm (© Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam,
L1966/56–3) 292
 Tables

4.1 Plantin editions of Canisius’s Manuale in Latin, Dutch and French and their
basis selling price 52
4.2 Balthasar i and Jan Moretus ii editions of Canisius’s Manuale in Latin, Dutch
and French and their basis selling price 57
10.1 An attempt to systematically assess the influence between emblems and
printers’ marks in the Low Countries (sixteenth–seventeenth centuries) 203
Abbreviations

Bibliotheca catholica Bibliotheca catholica neerlandica impressa 1500–1727

(The Hague: Martinus Nijfhoff, 1954).
BT Elly Cocx-Indestege, Geneviève Glorieux and Bart Op de Beeck, Belgica
Typographica, 1541–1600. Catalogus librorum impressorum ab anno MDXLI
ad annum mdc in regionibus quæ nunc Regni Belgarum partes sunt
(4 vols., Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1968–1994).
DPD Peter van Huisstede and J.P.J. Brandhorst, Dutch Printer’s Devices.
15th–17th Century: A Catalogue (3 vols., Nieuwkoop: De Graaf Publishers,
1999).
ICC-ODIS Impressa catholica cameracensia. A Database on the Religious Book and its
Networks in the Ecclesiastical Province of Cambrai (1559–1659), on line:
<https://www.arts.kuleuven.be/nieuwetijd/english/odis/ICC_search>.
ISTC Incunabula Short-Title Catalogue, on line: <http://data.cerl.org
/istc/_search>.
NB Andrew Pettegree, Malcolm Walsby, Netherlandish Books. Books Published
in the Low Countries and Dutch Books Printed Abroad Before 1601 (2 vols.;
Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2011).
NK Wouter Nijhoff, Maria Elizabeth Kronenberg, Nederlandsche bibliographie
van 1500 tot 1540 (3 vols., The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1923–1971).
PP Léon Voet, The Plantin Press at Antwerp (1555–1589). A Bibliography of the
Works Printed and Published by Christopher Plantin at Antwerp and Leiden
(6 vols., Amsterdam: Van Hoeve, 1980–1983).
STCV Short Title Catalogue Flanders, on line: <www.stcv.be>.
USTC Universal Short Title Catalogue, on line: <https://www.ustc.ac.uk>.
VD 16 Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachbereich erschienenen Drucke des 16.
Jahrhunderts, on line: <http://www.vd16.de>.
Notes on Contributors

Renaud Adam
works for the auction house Arenberg Auctions (Brussels) and is scientific
collaborator for the Modern History Department of the University of Liège,
where he also taught History of the book in the Renaissance from 2012 until
2019. His research focusses on the book culture and its industry in the Low
Countries during the Early Modern Period. He published a.o. Vivre et imprimer
dans les Pays-Bas méridionaux (des origines à la Réforme) (2 vols., Turnhout,
Brepols, 2018), Lectures italiennes dans les pays wallons à la première modernité
(1500–1630), with Nicole Bingen (Turnhout, Brepols, 2015) and Itinéraires du
livre italien à la Renaissance. Suisse romande, anciens Pays-Bas et Liège, edited
with Chiara Lastraioli (Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2019).

Paul Arblaster
D.Phil. (Oxford, 2000), is a historian and translator who has taught at the
Centre for European Studies of the KU Leuven and at the Maastricht School of
Translation and Interpreting. He currently teaches at the Marie Haps Faculty
of Translation and Interpreting, Université Saint-Louis Bruxelles, and the
Louvain School of Translation and Interpreting. His research has focused on
communication, translation and news publishing in the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries, and on martyrdom, exile and monasticism in the religious
conflicts of the period. He is the author of Antwerp & the World: Richard
Verstegan and the International Culture of Catholic Reformation (Leuven, 2004);
From Ghent to Aix: How They Brought the News in the Habsburg Netherlands,
1550–1700 (Leiden, 2014); and A History of the Low Countries (third edition, fully
revised and updated, London, 2019).

Rosa De Marco
has a master in conservation of cultural heritage and holds a PhD in history
of modern art from the University of Burgundy. She is a scientific collabora-
tor at the Modern History Department of the University of Liège where she
has been hosted as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie research fellow. Her researches
focus on baroque ceremonies and the relationship between text and image
in the European arts. She is currently preparing a monograph from her thesis,
on Jesuit Festivals in France (1586–1643), and a further volume, Emblems in
European stages, for the series Glasgow Emblem Studies.
xiv Notes on Contributors

Dirk Imhof
has a master in classics and in library sciences. In 2008 he obtained his doc-
torat in history at the University of Antwerp with a thesis on the Antwerp pub-
lisher Jan Moretus i (1543–1610). He is curator of the rare books and archives
at the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp. His research focuses on book his-
tory in Antwerp in the early modern period and the Plantin Press in particular.
Together with Karen Bowen he published Christopher Plantin and Engraved Book
Illustrations in Sixteenth-Century Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2008). His
bibliography of the editions of Jan Moretus i, Jan Moretus and the Continuation
of The Plantin Press: A Bibliography of the Works Published and Printed by Jan
Moretus I in Antwerp (1589–1610), (Leiden: Brill), appeared in 2014.

Valentine Langlais
is a PhD student at the University of Montpellier and the University of Geneva.
Graduate of the Ecole du Louvre, she is currently working on a thesis titled
“Painting the Eucharist: the iconography of the Last Supper in Dutch and
Flemish painting (1560–1660)”. Her field of research is the religious iconog-
raphy in the Flemish and Dutch art and, more specifically, the links between
painting and the religious and political context of the Netherlands in the wake
of the crisis of iconoclasm in the 16th century, and then during the 17th cen-
tury. Alongside her research, she is also working as a lecturer at the University
of Montpellier and teaching Renaissance art in Europe.

Annelyse Lemmens
is Phd student in History of art at the Université catholique de Louvain
and former fellow of the F.R.S.-FNRS (2010–2014). Member of the GEMCA
(UCLouvain) since 2010, she also beneficiated from a short-term fellowship at
the Warburg Institute (London). Her researches are centred on the statuses,
functions and uses of the frontispiece in Antwerp between 1585 and 1640. Her
interest concerns especially the evolution of the structures of the frontispieces
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the link between the liminal
image and the book. Influenced at first by visual semiotic, her last interven-
tions led her to consider her object of study from the angle of visual rhetoric.

Renaud Milazzo
obtained his Ph.D. in History, Art History and Archaeology at the University
of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines with a thesis about the emblem book
market in Europe over the period between 1531–1750 (Tutor: Prof. Chantal
Grell). His dissertation will soon be published in the series Bibliologia by
Notes on Contributors xv

Brepols (Turnhout, Belgium). Dr Milazzo has published articles on topics

related to the sale of emblem books printed by Christopher Plantin and Jan
Moretus i, based on the archives of the Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp.
He joined the EMoBookTrade project team in July 2018 (Università deli Studi
di Milano) through the special project EMoEuropeBookPrices (funded by
FARE-MIUR, Italy) with the goal of studying the manuscript catalogue of book
prices recorded by Christopher Plantin and Jan Moretus i (1555–1593 ca.) at the
Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp.

Gwendoline de Mûelenaere
is a postdoctoral researcher in history of art at Ghent University, in Belgium.
Her current project focuses on illustrated lecture notebooks from the Old
University of Louvain. She intends to analyze the features and the functioning
of such images in order to assess their role in the transmission of knowledge,
and to survey their socio-symbolic stakes from an art historical perspective.
Prior to that, she obtained a PhD at the Université catholique de Louvain,
under the supervision of Prof. Ralph Dekoninck. She carried out an iconologi-
cal study of thesis prints produced in the Southern Low Countries in the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries. Her research interests include early modern
prints, the history of education in the Southern Netherlands, the role of the
Jesuits in the creation of images produced in academic frameworks, allegor-
ical and emblematic languages, text/image relationships, frame and framing
issues.

Ruth S. Noyes
Novo Nordisk Foundation Mads Øvlisen Fellow at the National Museum of
Denmark, holds a PhD in the History of Art from Johns Hopkins University. A
Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, she has received over 10 postdoc-
toral research grants, awards and fellowships, including the Rome Prize (2014)
and Marie Skłodowska-Curie EU Fellowship (2019). Author of numerous arti-
cles and essays, she published her first monograph with Routledge in 2017 and
is currently preparing two further monographs.

Alexander Soetaert
earned his PhD in Early Modern History from the University of Leuven (KU
Leuven). In 2019, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Leibniz-Institute for
European History in Mainz, Germany. His main research interests concern
transregional history, early modern book history and hagiography and the
history of the Walloon provinces of the Low Countries. His PhD thesis on the
xvi Notes on Contributors

Catholic printing press in the Ecclesiastical Province of Cambrai has been

published in the series of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science
and the Arts under the title De katholieke drukpers in de kerkprovincie Kamerijk.
Contacten, mobiliteit en transfers in een grensgebied (1559–1659) (Leuven:
Peeters, 2019). Together with Violet Soen, Johan Verberckmoes and Wim
François, he also published the volume Transregional Reformations: Crossing
Borders in Early Modern Europe (Refo500 Academic Series, Göttingen, 2019).

Johan Verberckmoes
is Professor of early modern cultural history at the Faculty of Arts, KU Leuven.
His research focuses on humour and laughter as cultural movers from the 16th
to the 18th century. He is currently preparing a book on the humour of ordinary
people in the 17th and 18th century based on joke collections and egodocu-
ments. His other main research interest is the history of intercultural contacts
in the context of the Spanish Habsburg territories as part of the worldwide
Spanish and Portugese empires in the 16th and 17th century. His latest book is
Ontmoetingen in het Westen. Een wereldgeschiedenis (Encounters in the West,
A World History), Pelckmans Pro 2019.

Malcolm Walsby
is Professor of book history at Enssib in Lyon, director of the Gabriel Naudé
research centre, and co-founder of the Universal Short Title Catalogue. He
is the author of a number of monographs and articles on 15th-, 16th- and
17th-century French history. Most recently, he has published L’imprimé en
Europe occidentale, 1470–1680 and Booksellers and Printers in Provincial France
1470–1600 (2020 and 2021). He has also edited volumes on European book his-
tory as well as bibliographies on French and Netherlandish books. A specialist
of the archaeology of the book and the economics of the book trade, he is
currently developing an international research project on the creation and use
of Sammelbände in Europe.

Heleen Wyffels
is a PhD-fellow of the Research Foundation-Flanders (FWO) based at the
University of Leuven. She is preparing a doctoral thesis on women printers in
the Habsburg Low Countries (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries), under the
supervision of Violet Soen and Johan Verberckmoes. Before starting her PhD,
Heleen Wyffels studied history at the University of Leuven and arts and herit-
age at Maastricht University.
 Chapter 1

Books and Prints at the Heart of the Catholic

Reformation in the Low Countries
(16th–17th Centuries)
Renaud Adam, Rosa De Marco and Malcolm Walsby

The use and the impact of the printing press in promoting the Catholic
Reformation in the early modern Habsburg Low Countries has not received the
attention it deserves. In contrast, the use of books and prints by Protestants –
often considered as the first phenomenon of mass media in history – has been
widely studied and has generated a rich and plentiful bibliography.1 Yet the
Spanish monarchy and local authorities, the Catholic Church, the universities
of Douai and Louvain, and the new religious orders within these territories
seized the opportunities offered by printers and booksellers to strengthen their
missions: to restore Spanish authority, ensure dissemination of the decrees of
the Council of Trent, fight all kinds of heresy, and contribute to pastoral and
pedagogical activities. Though there are studies on a few core figures, such
as Christophe Plantin or the Verdussen family,2 or a few important publish-
ing enterprises, such as the Plantin Biblia Regia or the Imago Primi Saeculi by
Moretus, many other less well-known cases are still as yet unstudied.3 The main
target of this book is to shed light on the extent, dynamism and underlying
mechanisms of the processes set up to support Catholic Reform. The thirteen
essays gathered in this volume offer an interdisciplinary approach to under-
stand the complexity of the phenomenon through religious history, book his-
tory, art history and cultural history. Each part focuses on specific fields: book

1 Among the rich and plentiful bibliography on the subject, see Mark Ulin Edwards, Printing,
Propaganda and Luther (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); Ilja M. Veldman,
Images for the Eye and Soul. Function and Meaning in Netherlandish Prints (1450–1650)
(Leiden: Primavera Pers, 2006); Andrew Pettegree, Brand Luther 1517. Printing, and the Making
of the Reformation (New York: Penguin Press, 2015).
2 Leon Voet, The Golden Compasses: A History and Evaluation of the Printing and Publishing
Activities of the ‘Officina Plantiniana’ at Antwerp (2 vols., Amsterdam-London-New York:
Vangendt, 1969–1972); Stijn Van Rossem, Het Gevecht met de Boeken. De uitgeversstrategieën
van de familie Verdussen (Antwerp, unpublished PhD, 2014).
3 Frederico Pérez Castro, Leon Voet, La Biblia Políglota de Amberes (Madrid: Fundación uni-
versitaria española, 1973); John W. O’Malley, Art, Controversy, and the Jesuits: The ‘Imago Primi
Saeculi’ (1640) (Philadelphia: Saint Joseph’s University Press, 2015).

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 |

2 Adam, De Marco and Walsby

production and dissemination, the actors of the Counter-Reformation and

their networks, and prints and iconography.

…
The first part of the volume focuses on Catholic book production and book-
selling in the Low Countries. While such publications are well documented for
the fifteenth and the sixteenth century and studies on publishers’ editorial pol-
icies are flourishing, there is still a severe lack of data regarding some aspects
of book production.4 Some of the social facets of the book world have been
neglected (such as the key role played by widows); and dissemination, circu-
lation and bookselling need to be further investigated. Four chapters dealing
with these matters intend to fill some of these historiographical gaps. Heleen
Wyffels explores the contribution of women to the production of Catholic
books and images in Antwerp during the sixteenth century. This case is an
opportunity to study the options available to printers’ widows and provides
quantitative analysis of widows’ printing houses. Renaud Adam reconsiders
the case of Brussels under the reign of Archduke Albert and Archduchess
Isabella (1598–1633). The history of this printing centre during the seven-
teenth century has been unjustly ignored by scholars for many years, which
has affected our vision of the role played by Brussels printers in the dissemi-
nation of the Counter-Reformation. Dirk Imhof examines the publishing his-
tory of Petrus Canisius’s Manuale catholicorum, printed by the Plantin Press.
This prayer book, essential to the Counter-Reformation, quickly became an
extremely successful text with numerous editions. Imhof’s chapter documents
the publication of this work from the first edition to the middle of the seven-
teenth century. He discusses the evolution of its illustration and investigates
the sale of a selection of editions. Renaud Milazzo looks at the issue of the
international emblem book trade at the beginning of the seventeenth century
through the prism of the Plantin company’s archives.
The second part is dedicated to the actors of the Counter-Reformation
and their networks (both within and beyond the Low Countries) through the
study of some relevant publishing enterprises. Four chapters focus on authors
who, through their writings, participated in the struggle led by the Habsburgs

4 NB; USTC; Andrew Pettegree, ‘Printing in the Low Countries in the Early Sixteenth Century’,
in The Book Triumphant. Print in Transition in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, eds.
Graham Kemp, Malcolm Walsby (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2011), pp. 3–25; Chiara Ruzzier, Xavier
Hermand, Ezio Ornato, Les stratégies éditoriales à l’époque de l’incunable: le cas des anciens
Pays-Bas (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012); Renaud Adam, Vivre et imprimer dans les Pays-Bas mérid-
ionaux (des origines à la Réforme) (2 vols.; Turnhout: Brepols, 2018).
Books and Prints at the Heart of the Catholic Reformation 3

against all forms of heresy. Alexander Soetaert examines how the Catholic
Party appropriated La déclaration et réfutation des fausses suppositions, writ-
ten by Matthieu de Launoy and Henri Pennetier (both former Huguenot min-
isters who had converted to Catholicism). First published in Paris in 1577, it
was reissued four times in the Low Countries. This editorial history enables
him to reassess the role played by the Walloon provinces in the exchange of
news and books between France and the Low Countries. Exploring the nature
of a network of scientists by examining the relationship between the Jesuit
astronomer-mathematician Christoph Clavius, from Rome, and the young Jesuit
Odo van Maelcote, from Liège, Ruth S. Noyes studies Catholic Reformation
confessionalised science and the material culture of the converting [im]
prints in the Low Countries ca 1600. Paul Arblaster examines two aspects of
the Habsburg response to the Bohemian crisis of 1618–1620 in Antwerp: the
licensing of the city’s first newspaper and the establishment of a confraternity
to support the maintenance of the legitimate authority of the Catholic princes.
He studies how and why rhetoric and imagery of crusades were deployed, and
argues that its use was limited by concerns about the institutional and fiscal
implications that ‘crusading’ still bore within the Habsburg monarchy more
broadly. Johan Verberckmoes’s contribution challenges the instrumental uses
of humour during the rule of the Archdukes in the first decades of the seven-
teenth century. He analyses the rediscovery of hilaritas in the production of
contemporary biographies and news on the Archdukes, as well as contempo-
rary advice on laughter in books and prints.
It is well known that images were used as didactic vehicle for spreading
Lutheran theses. From the end of the fifteenth century, images were employed
to criticise the perceived excesses and moral abuses of the Roman Church and
the use of sacred imagery, often in a grotesque and satirical way that met with
great success among all levels of society.5 To appeal to the souls and show evi-
dence of dogmas through the pedagogical power of images, Catholic reaction
to the Reformers’ attacks became a theological legitimisation of the sacred
image, emphasising the necessary discernment between image and idol, and
reaching a wide audience thanks to an ambition publication strategy.6 The third
part of the book explores the production, use and impact of illustrated books
and broadsheets in the Catholic campaign against the Protestant reformers.

5 Veldman, Images for the Eye and Soul, passim.

6 Ralph Dekoninck, ‘Ad Imaginem’. Statuts, fonctions et usages de l’image dans la littérature
spirituelle jésuite du XVIIe siècle (Genève: Droz, 2005); Walter S. Melion, The Meditative Art:
Studies in the Northern Devotional Print, 1550–1625 (Philadelphia: Saint Joseph’s University
Press, 2010).
4 Adam, De Marco and Walsby

Images enabled Catholic authors to challenge their opponents. Jerome Nadal’s

Evangelicae historiae imagines (Antwerp, 1593), or Jan David’s Veridicus chris-
tianus (Antwerp, 1601) were the best-known and most influential illustrated
books of catechetical and polemical literature.7 However, the scope of their
content is still far from fully understood, as Valentine Langlais demonstrates
in her essay. She focuses on the Nadal’s visual strategy to explain the scriptural
and ritual roots of the sacrament of the Eucharist. Prints were also a very effec-
tive way of magnifying the promotion and political support of the Catholic
conquest, namely during public events such as thesis defences currently the
subject of much new research in France.8 Gwendoline de Mûelenaere sug-
gests that printed thesis dedicated to Archduke Leopold-William, governor
of the Spanish Low Countries from 1647 to 1656, used allegorical expressions
of Christian virtues to affirm and frame his princely authority and Roman
Catholic aspirations. Two other contributions explore particular visual and
verbal elements in the paratext. These have a commercial and aesthetic value,
arousing the interest of the reader through their enigmatic word-image amal-
gam and in particular in the choices of decorated title-pages or frontispieces
and the publishers’ devices. The analysis of a series of frontispieces produced
in Antwerp at the turn of the seventeenth century allows Annelyse Lemmens
to show how this ornamental element could guide the reader and both change
the perception of the book as a material object and emphasise its significance.
Building on recent studies on the publisher’s device as a complex medium
sharing strong links with emblematic expression,9 Rosa De Marco focuses on
devices (end sixteenth to early seventeenth centuries) from the Southern Low
Countries, a territory where device indexing projects are still lacking.
The contributions collected in this book allow us to rethink the state of
Catholic book culture, the industry and its actors in the early modern Low

7 Ralph Dekoninck, Agnès Guiderdoni-Bruslé, M. van Vaeck (eds.). Emblemata Sacra. Rhéto­
rique et herméneutique du discours sacré dans la littérature en images (Turnhout: Brepols,
2007); Walter S. Melion, Annotations and Meditations on the Liturgical Gospels (3 vols.,
Philadelphia: Saint Joseph’s University Press, 2003–2014); Imhof 2014, Melion 2003–2014,
Dekoninck, Guiderdoni, Vaeck 2007); Dirk Imhof, Jan Moretus and the Continuation of the
Plantin Press: A Bibliography of the Works Published and Printed by Jan Moretus I in Antwerp
(1589–1610), (2 vols., Leiden: Brill, Hes & De Graaf., 2014).
8 Véronique Meyer, L’illustration des thèses à Paris dans la seconde moitié du XVIIe siècle: pein-
tres, graveurs, éditeurs (Paris: Commission des travaux historiques, 2002); Id., Pour la plus
grande gloire du roi. Louis XIV en thèses (Rennes: PUR, 2017).
9 Michaela Scheibe, Anja Wolkenhauer (eds.), Signa Vides. Researching and Recording Printers’
Devices (London: Consortium of European Research Libraries, 2015); Bernhard F. Scholz,
Anja Wolkenhauer (eds.), Typographorum Emblemata The Printer’s Mark in the Context of
Early Modern Culture (Berlin: De Gruyter Saur, 2018).
Another random document with
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"And why so?" I asked.

"Because, an you read and believe it, you will never go back
there," answered Dick; and that was all I could get out of
him.

Dick is changed, but not as Mistress Bullen said. He is far

graver, and more manly than he used to be. He has lost
most of his old blundering bashfulness, and seems indeed
not to think of himself at all. The very expression of his face
is changed, yet he has all his old kind ways, and is just as
ready to do service to gentle and simple.

It is odd he never so much as noticed the change in my

dress.

I am vexed when I think of the coil that was made about

poor Dick's simple offering. If dear Mother had only opened
it—but she will know when I write to her.

To-morrow is May-day, and is like to be fine. If so we shall

go down as usual, and see the dances on the green, and
perhaps join in them. My Lord and Lady have promised to
grace us with their presence. I fear she will think our
country ways but rude and boisterous, as she has lived all
her life in town and about the Court; though in her manners
she is as modest and simple as any country maid.
 CHAPTER XXVI.

May 12.

THE May games went off very well. We had all the usual
sports—Robin Hood and Little John, Maid Marian and all the
rest of them, and besides a Miracle play—the first ever seen
in these parts, and for mine own part I should hope it might
be the last. The players, it seems, were at Biddeford May
games, and hearing that we were to have unusual festivities
here, they sent a deputation hither, praying my Lord and
my father to patronize them. The Prior also gave them his
good word, so my Lord consented and won my father to do
the same.

The old May pole having been shivered by lightning last

year, my Lord gave a new one from his own woods, a fine,
stately shaft, which was duly bedizened with flowers and
ribbons, and drawn to its place on the morning of the
games, with all the oxen that could be mustered, and a
great noise of horns, hautbois and fiddles.

We walked down to the green about ten of the clock, and

found the lads and maids dancing about the pole, and more
than the usual crowd assembled. There was an Egyptian
woman telling of fortunes, a travelling huckster or two with
ribbons, toys and gingerbread, and another selling of books
and ballads, who I fear made but a bad speculation. He was
a sober, decent-looking man, and seeing him looking our
way, my mother beckoned him, and began looking over his
stock, which was made up mostly of tracts and primers,
with some ballads and penny prints of saints and virgins.

"And have you no other wares than these?" asked my step-

dame. "There are many new books going now-a-days?"

"And that is true, madam," answered the chapman, (and I

could not but notice how well he spoke, respectfully, but
with no fawning servility, such as chapmen commonly use).
"The present time is, under your favor, like the householder
in the scriptures, bringing forth out of his treasures things
new and old. Aye, and the old have been so long forgot in
these parts that they are the newest of all."

"And that is true!" answered my mother. "Well, this is but a

public place. Come you to Corby End this evening, and we
will look over your wares, and give you a night's
entertainment."

The man gave her courteous thanks and turned away. Just
then Harry came to tell us that the play was about to begin,
and only waited our coming to the seats reserved for us.

"I have little fancy for these mummeries," said my Lady to

us, as we took the stools which had been set for our
accommodation; "but yet we must not mortify the poor
players. I trust they will confine themselves in proper
bounds."

"'Tis the Passion of our Lord they are about to play," said
the Prior of Stanton, who had his seat near us. "No one can
object to that, surely."

"With submission, reverend Father, such a subject seems to

me hardly fitted for the day and the scene," answered my
Lady, gently. "Besides, does it not seem to you to savor of
presumption—to say no more—that a poor strolling player,
and he often a lewd and profane person, as but too many of
them are—should take upon himself to personate our
suffering Lord, putting his own words in the mouth of one
so unspeakably august and venerable?"

The Prior fidgetted on his scat, and looked somewhat

uncomfortable as he answered:

"You know, my Lady, the Church path always sanctioned

these things, considering them to be of the nature of
pictures and images, which are called the books of the
unlearned."

"But why not expend the time and treasure which these
things cost, in teaching the unlearned?" asked my mother.

"Nay, Madam, that would never do," answered the Prior.

"What, would you have Jack and Jill, and Hodge and Joan,
leaving their ploughing and spinning to pore over books of
divinity, and discuss questions of casuistry? What then
would become of the work, and of the respect which they
owe to their betters?"

The poor old fat priest got so red and did seem so
disturbed, that I was glad my mother made him no reply,
save a smile. Indeed, she had no time to do so, for the play
began directly.

I had never seen such an one before, and I must say I was
shocked. There were all the holy Apostles, our Lady
(represented by a simpering boy with a crack in his voice)
Pontius Pilate (a most truculent looking personage), the two
thieves, and worst of all, our Lord himself, besides devils
and angels in plenty. The people made their remarks freely
enough, and I can't say they seemed greatly solemnized or
edified. The part which pleased them most was when the
devils thrust Judas down to the infernal pit, and were then
kicked after him, without any ceremony, by the angels, who
afterward ascended to heaven, one at a time, on the same
cloud which had served our Lord, and which was worked in
plain sight by a man with a rope and a winch.

It seems to me almost profane to write these things down,

and yet I don't know why I should feel so. We used to make
little Christs of wax at the convent, and paint them to the
life, and nobody thought any harm of that. And there were
our Bethlehems, which practice was begun by Saint Francis
himself, our holy founder, and at the first of which happened
a wonderful miracle, for during the ceremony, the saint was
seen caressing an infant of celestial beauty, who appeared
to the astonishment of all beholders. The straw on which
this apparition happened was preserved with great
devotion, and worked many miraculous cures. We had some
of it among our relics, and 'twas held almost as sacred as
the glass containing the Holy Virgin's milk. But I am
forgetting the May games.

After the play was ended, the dancing began anew. Several
of the fathers were down from the convent, as usual, but
methought they were not very cordially received. And when
Father Jerome ventured to chuck Jan Lee's new wife under
the chin, with what I must needs say was rather a broad
jest, Jan gave him a look as black as thunder and drew his
bride away. I too had an encounter which did not please
me. I was standing by my father, and leaning on his arm,
when the Prior came up to us with the same dark priest who
had been in the church on Sunday, and presented him to
my father as Father Barnabas of Glastonbury. Then turning
to me:

"What, my fair Rosamond, is this you? I did not know the

dove in her plumage!"
While I was thinking what to say in reply, the other priest
broke in:

"Methinks neither the plumes nor the place are very well
suited to the promised bride of Christ; how well soever they
may beseem fair Rosamond!" with an emphasis on the
name. It was now my father's turn to look black.

"My daughter, sir priest, is no nun; and being as yet under

her father's roof and rule, she dresses to please him, like a
dutiful maiden, and according to the words we heard last
Sunday: 'Honor thy father and mother.'"

"Aye, there it is," said the prior. "Now may we see what
comes of these innovations. Soon every man will be ready
with his text and his commentary—according to the boast of
that archfiend Tyndale, which I heard him make to myself,
that he would so order matters that in a few years every
ploughboy should know more of Scripture than I did. And
what are we to do then!"

"Lackaday! I don't know," answered Will Paxton, my Lord's

jester, putting in his word as usual—"'Tis an ill-ordered
house where the man can write, though the master can't
read."

Whereat the priest frowned, and my father laughed heartily,

and gave Will a silver groat, bidding him go buy a fairing for
his sweetheart. Then saying that I was standing too long
and would be ill again, he led me away, and we presently
went up to the Court to spend the day with my Lady, to
whom I had promised instruction in the art of knitting. We
passed a very quiet and pleasant day, and walking home
together in the twilight, in a thoughtful mood, I suddenly
bethought myself of Dick's little book, and asked my
mother, saying:
"Madam, have you ever seen one of these same Testaments
of Master Tyndale's?"

"Aye, daughter, that have I! I have both seen and read it!"
she answered.

"And do you think 'tis really the true Gospel?" I asked

again, remembering what Amice had told me about it.

"I have no doubt of it. Master Ellenwood, at my request,

and for his own satisfaction, has been comparing it with the
Greek and Latin text, and says 'tis marvellously well done."

"Oh, how I should love to read it!" I exclaimed.

"You would find many things to astonish you, my child,"

answered my mother. "Yea, to upset all your former notions,
and mayhap lead you to renounce and contemn many
things which you have been used to hold most sacred all
your life long."

"Dick said I must not read it if I ever meant to go back to

the convent," I said. "But mother—Madam, I would say—"

"Nay, dearest child, call me ever mother, if you will," said

she, pressing my arm kindly. "'Tis very sweet to me to hear
the name fall so naturally from your lips. But what would
you say, dear heart?"

"I was going to say, that this difference seems very strange
and sad to me," I went on. "If the Gospels are right—and
the true Gospel must be right—then is the Church wrong!"

"Well, what then?" she asked. "Your reasoning is good, but

what then?"
"Why, then we must follow the Gospel, as it seems to me," I
answered. "But, mother, will you let me have this Gospel to
read?"

"Yes, child! Since you ask it, I can do no otherwise," said

she, after a moment's hesitation. "I dare not withhold the
word of God from you—but alas, my child, have you
considered that you may be taking in hand the torch to light
your own funeral pile, withal? Shall I give you that which
may be your death?"

"Why not, if it shall lead me to eternal life?" I said.

"Besides, it may not be so bad as you say. Mistress Bullen
favors the new teachings, my Lady says—not that I think
any better of them for that, but she is very great with the
King, as we all know."

"I build not at all on Mrs. Bullen's favor," answered my Lady.

"She is indeed in the sunshine of his Majesty's countenance
even now, but how long will she stay there, think you? She
is beautiful and brilliant and fascinating, if you will—though
I must say she never pleased me—but she hath neither
principle nor prudence to guide her in her dangerous path.
Ah, child, be thankful that you have grown up at home, and
not in a Court."

"But as to this book!" I ventured to say.

"As to this book, you shall have it, if your father be willing
to let you run the risk. But count the cost, my child, and
pray for guidance to Him who has promised to give wisdom
to them that ask. When you have done so, come to me in
my closet, and I will put into your hands the word of God."
 CHAPTER XXVII.

June 1.

DICK was right! I shall never go back to the convent.

The next day after the May games, my mother, according to

her promise, put into my hand Master Tyndale's New
Testament, and with it a copy of the same in Latin—the
Vulgate, as 'tis called—bidding me compare as I read. Since
then every leisure moment has been spent in reading and
studying and comparing, and oh, in what a new world of
thought and feeling and experience do I find myself! What
clouds have cleared away from my mind!

I have spent many hours closeted with my mother, and

while our fingers worked at Harry's outfit, our minds were
busy with these great themes. No, I never can go back,
never can take the veil! I find in the word of God no warrant
for any such life.

How astonished I was to find that St. Peter and St. James
and other of the Apostles had been married—that our Lady
herself seems to have lived at home with her husband like
any other woman—and that she is nowhere represented as
bearing any rule, or being of more authority in the Church
than any other woman. Indeed, our Lord Himself said that
any one who had His word and kept it, was as near to Him
as His mother—"the same is my brother, and sister, and
mother"—are His words. And then this very Gospel, which
the priests keep so jealously from us, was at the first
preached to the common folk in those parts—they followed
Him in crowds to hear His words, and indeed very few of
the better or more religious class followed Him at all. But I
cannot write down all my thoughts—they are too new and
too precious. I must think them over.

My mother tells me that the chapman whom we saw at the

May games, and who stayed more than one night here and
at the Court, was a member of the fraternity known among
themselves as the Christian Brothers—a company of
merchants and men of substance who devote their time,
their means, yea and their lives also to spreading the word
of God in this land. This same Master Bradbury's stock in
trade consisted chiefly of Testaments, or fragments of the
same, which he disseminated wherever he found
opportunity.

My mother, I can see, builds nothing at all on his Majesty's

favor for the new religion. She says he may quarrel with the
Pope about this matter of the divorce, but if so, 'twill be but
to make himself Pope instead. He is already highly enraged
at Tyndale, because of his letter against the divorce, and
hath forbidden the circulation of his books; but, said my
mother, he might as well forbid the wind to blow.

'Tis even as Master Ellenwood said—like making a breach in

the dykes and forbidding the sea to run through.

But I can't help hoping more than my mother does—

perhaps because I am younger. Anyhow I am sure I shall
never be sorry that I have come to know the true Gospel. It
has cleared away many doubts and fears and cares from my
mind. All anxiety for my mother's soul, for one thing;
because, though she believed as she was taught, and never
saw this book, yet I am sure she trusted in God for her
salvation, and served Him according to the light that she
had. As for my dear Amice, I feel sure that she has obtained
the object of her old ambition, though in a far different way
from that she proposed for herself, and is now indeed a
saint—a glorified saint, to go no more out from His presence
forever, in whom she trusted. Oh, that dear Mother
Gertrude could have this comfort about one whom she
mourns as eternally condemned to perdition! I cannot give
it her—I can only pray for her and—what a word have I here
written! Only pray for her, forsooth!

CHAPTER XXVIII.
I HAVE had an adventure which hath bred serious
consequences in the household.

The night before last was very dark and sultry, with thick,
low hanging clouds, and a feeling of thunder in the air. The
sea was calling loudly, and Dobby's Pool roaring in that
hollow, boding tone, which always foretells a storm. I had
had a headache, and some threatenings of a chill, a
visitation to which I am now and then subject, and my
mother gave me a dose of her favorite spicy cordial, and
sent me early to bed.

Thunder always makes me drowsy, and I was soon asleep.

It must have been near midnight when I waked. The waning
moon had risen, and shone full into the chamber and on the
door of my mother's oratory. To my utter amazement it
opened slowly, and a figure issued therefrom, dressed in my
mother's garments, and bearing in one hand a dim light, in
the other my old convent dress, which it seemed to hold up
reproachfully before my eyes, while it uttered in a hollow
whisper these words:

"Wretched, apostate child! Will you doom your own soul and
your mother's to the flames of hell forever?"

I was scared at first, I confess—but the moment the

apparition spoke, my courage returned, or something which
served me instead. I sprang from the bed, and snatching
the bed staff which stood near, I rushed at the would-be
ghost, which retreated the way it had come with all haste,
but not before I had dealt it one sound blow, which fell
plainly on corporal substance. I followed the thing into the
oratory, but it was nowhere to be seen. By this time I was
as cool as possible. I knew there was but one place of
concealment, namely a small closet which had no outlet,
and finding the key in the oratory door, I quietly locked it on
the outside, put the key away, and returned to bed.

The start and exertion brought on my shivering fit, and I

was just beginning to get over it a little, when I heard a
voice I well knew, but humble and quavering enough.

"Mrs. Rosamond—Oh, Mistress Rosamond—" then as I did

not answer—"Oh, Mistress Rosamond, do let me out! There
is a storm coming on, and I dare not stay here."

"Who are you?" I asked, trying to speak soberly, though I

was choked with laughter.

"I am nobody but Prudence—Prudence, your poor bower-

woman. Oh, Mistress Rosamond, do let me out, and I will
thank you all my days!"

"I do not believe you!" I said. "Prudence would never play

such a wicked, malicious trick, and one too so profane and
impious. You are some impudent stroller and thief—an
Egyptian, too, for aught I know. You shall stay till morning,
and see what measure my Lord and my father will deal out
to you."

She still pleaded for mercy, and in tones of such real and
abject terror, that I began to fear she might die of fright,
and rose to release her; but just as I was striking a light,
for the clouds had risen once more, and it was very dark,
my stepmother entered the room with a candle in her hand.

"Are you ill, Rosamond—and who were you talking with?"

said she, looking around, and naturally surprised to see
nobody. "I am sure I heard you talking."
"You did, Madam!" I answered. "A ghost appeared to me
and I chased it with the bed staff into the closet yonder and
locked it up, and now it is scared and wants to get out."

Madam looked as if she thought my wits were wandering,

and as well as I could for laughing, I told her the tale. Then
suddenly the wickedness and unkindness of the trick flashed
on me, and I fell to crying as hard as I had laughed.

Madam soothed and kissed me, and making me lie down,

she said she would fetch me some drops from her room
—"and then I will call your father, and we will unearth this
ghost of ours."

When she was gone, Prudence renewed her pleadings. "Oh,

Mistress Rosamond, do let me out. My master will kill me!"

"I can't," said I. "Madam has taken the key—" (as indeed
she had, thinking, I dare say, that I should relent).
"Whoever you are, you must bake as you have brewed. I
fear the bread will not be to your taste."

My father and mother entered even as I spoke, and going at

once to the door, my father unlocked and threw it open.
There stood Mistress Prudence, arrayed as I had seen her,
for in the darkness she had not been able to find her own
gown, and looking as foolish and venomous as a fox caught
in a poultry yard.

I pass over the scene that followed—my father's stern

wrath, which my mother vainly strove to mitigate, and
Prue's tears and exclamations that she meant no harm, and
it was only a joke, and so on.

"It is a joke that shall cost you dear," said my father, grimly.
"You shall spend the night in the prison you have chosen,
and in the morning you leave this house forever. But for her
sake whose memory you have outraged, the rising sun
should see you set in the stocks on the village green as a
thief and an impudent witch."

"I am no thief!" sobbed Prudence. "I never took so much as

a hair."

"Where got you the clothes you wear—and that rosary by

your side—wretch that you are!" interrupted my father, his
wrath rising as he recognized my mother's beads and cross,
which he had always kept on his own table. "Here, you men
and women—" for by this time half the household were
gathered at the door—"come in and see this woman, who
has dared to dress up in her sainted lady's clothes to scare
my daughter. Look at her well! For by this hand you will not
see her soon again!"

Many and various were the remarks and comments of pity

for me and anger and contempt against Prue, who is no
favorite.

"If it had been any common young lady, and so delicate in

health as Mistress Rosamond too—it might have scared her
to death!" said one.

"I wonder Mrs. Prue didn't see a ghost in good earnest,"

said another. "I should have expected an evil spirit to come
after me if I had played such a trick."

"There is no evil spirit worse than the spirit of lying and

cruelty—remember that, maids!" said Madam, solemnly.
"Now let all go to bed, say your paternosters, and let the
house be quiet."

In the morning Prue was released from her durance and

allowed to go free whither she would. So much grace did
my mother and I obtain for her, but farther than that my
father was adamant. He declared in answer to a hint of
mine that she had had a lesson, and might be allowed to
remain—that nothing should tempt him to let her stay
under the roof another day. And here indeed my step-dame
took part against me, and on consideration, I believe they
are both right—yet I can't but feel very sorry for Prue. She
came to my room to bid me farewell, and I gave her some
money. My step-dame did the same, though I believe there
was little need of it, for I know she hath saved nearly all her
earnings.

"Oh, Mistress Rosamond!" was all she could say at first, for
she was really weeping—and then—"'Twas all for your good
—to save your precious soul and your mother's."

"Souls are not to be saved by lies, Prue!" says I.

"Remember that there is no sin that God hates more than
this of lying."

"Nay, 'tis but a venial sin," she answered, excusing herself;

"'tis not one of the seven deadly sins!"

"'Tis a sin most expressly forbidden in the word of God," I

told her, "as you might have known if you had listened to
the commandments which have been read in the church
lately."

"Not I!" said she, tartly. "I am for no such new-fangled

ways. But oh, Mistress Rosamond, I meant not to harm you
—I did not, indeed. 'Twas all for your good, and to scare
you into your duty. Oh, Mistress Rosamond, my dear heart,
do not you be persuaded into breaking your convent vows!
Your mother, your blessed mother, gave you to the Church
the very hour you were born, and before. You will pull down
destruction on your head, if you draw back—Father
Barnabas himself says the same. This new lady is no better
than a heretic, and I have it from a sure hand that in
London she was well-known as such, and my mistress is
just the same. Oh, that ever I should have lived to see the
day! But, my dear Mistress Rosamond, for your own soul
and body's sake, don't you break your vows and be a
castaway!"

"Now you are meddling with matters far too high for you,
Prudence!" said I. "As for my vows, there can be none
broken where there were none made, and for the rest,
beware my Lord's anger! If he should hear that you had but
breathed on the fair fame of his wife, it were better you had
never been born!"

She winced a little at this, and took refuge in tears and

exclamations that ever she had lived to see the day: and so
took her leave, meaning, as she says, to go to her sisters at
Bristol. Yet I hear she hath not gone, but is staying with
some one here in the village, making a great show of
devotion, and specially of saying her prayers at my
mother's grave. I wish she would go away, I know not why,
but I do dread some mischief from her tongue.

What she said about lying has set me to looking up all the
passages in Scripture relating to the same. I find plenty of
them condemning the sin in the strongest terms, as even
that all liars shall have their part in the lake that burneth
with fire and brimstone, which is the second death; and yet
it is true, as she said, that the Church counts it but a venial
sin. I cannot understand it.
 CHAPTER XXIX.

June 20.

I HAVE been called on to make a very solemn and awful

decision—and I have made it. Some days ago my father
sent for me into his room, and said to me:

"Rosamond, the time has come for you to decide upon your
way of life. If you are going back to the convent it is time
and more that you were gone. You know what your
mother's and my wishes once were on the subject. You
have seen what convent life is, and now you must decide
what you will do—whether you will become a nun, or live at
home."

I was struck dumb for a few minutes. It had never occurred

to me that I was to be called upon to decide the matter. I
had somehow supposed that it would be settled for me.
"So far as we are concerned," continued my father, after a
little silence, "my wife and I would gladly keep you at home.
You have ever shown yourself a dutiful and good child to us,
as well as to—her that is gone. But we put no force upon
your inclinations, either way. You must decide for yourself."

"But not this minute, or this hour, dear heart," said madam,
who had hitherto been silent. "Take time, pray, ask counsel
of God and thine own heart, and then decide. Be sure that
we shall be only too glad to keep you with us as long as we
can."

"Only this much I must say, Rosamond," added my father,

"I do believe if we could know thy mother's mind now, she
would bid thee remain at home. But go now and do as
madam hath said—pray—read the Gospel, and then decide.
Bless thee, my dear one; and truly I believe thou wilt be
blessed, for better maid never lived."

I cannot but write these words, they are so precious,

coming from my father, who seldom puts his deeper feelings
into words. I rose from my knees and went to mine own
chamber, to the oratory where my mother spent so much
time in prayer, and there I remained many hours—Madam,
with her usual kind care, giving orders that I should not be
disturbed.

For a while my mind was so tossed and tumbled that I could

see nothing. I could not even pray, and at last took refuge
in repeating the Psalms, specially the hundred and
nineteenth, which seemed full of petitions suitable to my
state. By degrees my spirit grew calmer, and I was able to
pour out my whole heart. I do not now pray to the Saints or
to our Lady, because I can find in the whole of Scripture no
warrant for doing so, but every encouragement to come at
once to my Heavenly Father, through the merits and
intercession of His Son.

Toward evening my mother came, bringing with her own

hands a simple and dainty little repast, decked with fresh
flowers, as her manner is. (She does love flowers above any
woman I ever saw, and has brought from London and the
East country many new kinds of roots and seeds, such as
have never been seen in these parts.) She would have me
eat and drink to keep up my strength; and though I felt no
great inclination thereto, it behooved me to please her,
when she had taken so much pains for me.

"And now, my dear one, let me give thee a little counsel!"

said she. "Do not you remain shut up here, but go out and
walk in the fresh cool evening, before the sun goes down,
and then committing thyself and all thy cares to thy
Heavenly Father, lie down to rest in peace. Be sure He will
guide thee to a wise decision."

I had purposed to watch all night in the oratory, I told her.

She smiled.

"And will that clear your head, think you, sweetheart? Or

will a fit of ague, such as any fatigue is sure to bring upon
you, assist you in deciding wisely? See here what the
Psalmist says!"

And taking up my Latin Psalter, she read from the hundred

and twenty-seventh Psalm: "It is but lost labor that ye
haste to rise up early, and so late take rest—for so He
giveth his beloved sleep!"

I saw that she was right. Certainly the ague does not clear
one's head, and I am apt to have a return of it on any
unusual fatigue. So I kissed her good-night, said my