Guidance documents
The Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church
The Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church has produced a number of important documents which provide helpful guidance on matters relating to the preservation and promotion of ecclesiastical archives, libraries and museums, as well as guidelines for the education and training of future priests on these matters.
The guidance documents include the following:
The Pastoral Function of Church Archives (2 February 1997)
This is a hugely important document, offering important philosophical principles relating to the preservation of Church archives.
Lettera Circolare sulla Necessità e Urgenza dell’Inventariazione e Catalogazione dei Beni Culturali della Chiesa (8 December 1999) — text available only in Italian.
The Catholic Archives Society
The Catholic Archives Society (CAS), founded in 1979, promotes the care of archives of the Roman Catholic Church in the UK and in Ireland: it provides information, advice and training opportunities for anyone with responsibility for the identification, cataloguing, care and preservation of these archives, and its advisory documents are freely available:
The CAS also has an active policy of publishing useful guides for sale, details of which are available here.
The Religious Archives Group: preserving Britain's Archival Religious Heritage
The Religious Archives Group (RAG) is a voluntary association, founded in 1989, for anybody interested in the collection, preservation and use of religious archives, and the personal papers of religious leaders, in the UK. This includes archives created and used by private organisations and individuals and those in public repositories.
The RAG supports the archives of all faith communities and aims to advance education, research, scholarship and stewardship by working separately and collectively with others to promote awareness of religious archives and enhanced levels of access to them and of collection care. The RAG offers much useful guidance.
Archives of Catholic dioceses and of other members of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales
DIOCESAN ARCHIVES
In canon law, the function of a diocesan archive is to preserve relevant documents relating to ‘both the spiritual and temporal affairs of the diocese’ (see Canon 486, §2).
It is important for there to be a proper inventory of the materials held in the archives (Can. 486, §2 & 3). Only the bishop and chancellor of a diocese may have access to the archives, except where permission is specifically granted to someone else, such as a professional archivist (Can. 487, §1).
Individuals do have a right of access to public documents such as their own baptismal certificate, but not otherwise (Can. Can. 487, §2).
There is also to be a secret archive to which only the bishop has access, containing, for example, the register of marriages celebrated secretly (see Can. 489).
Diocesan record offices are not combined with local authority record offices, though a number of local record offices, as well as The National Archives at Kew, London, and the National Library of Wales, in Aberystwyth, do hold important Catholic archives.
The following is a list of diocesan archives in England and Wales:
Brentwood (see also entry in AIM25)
Hallam (no web link currently available: diocesan archivist — Tony Hague — 0114 256 6404 [voice mail only] — e-mail: archives@hallam-diocese.com)
Lancaster (no web link currently available, but many early parish records are preserved at the Lancashire Archives)
Liverpool (many early parish records are preserved at the Liverpool Record Office and at the Lancashire Archives)
Portsmouth (contact: archives@portsmouthdiocese.org.uk)
Salford (many early parish records are preserved at the Lancashire Archives)
Wrexham (early records are also held at the National Library of Wales)
ARCHIVES ARE ALSO HELD BY THE FOLLOWING OTHER MEMBERS OF THE BISHOPS’ CONFERENCE OF ENGLAND AND WALES:
Record societies and historical associations in the field of English and Welsh Catholic history
NATIONAL SOCIETIES
Catholic Family History Society
The Catholic Family History Society publishes a wide range of resources providing important information on the make-up of the Post-Reformation English and Welsh Catholic community: these include the Margaret Higgins Database of 275,000 Catholics living in England between 1607 and 1840 (NB: the database itself can be downloaded from page 2 of the pdf accessible from the link immediately above).
The Society’s very extensive collection of transcripts of the records of early Catholic missions in England and Wales includes details, dating mainly from the late eighteenth century, of births and baptisms, confirmations and First Communions, marriages, conversions, deaths and burials, memorial and monumental inscriptions, wills, admission records of Catholic institutions, and other printed material. This collection, held since 2015 by Durham University Library, Archives and Special Collections, forms part of the Catholic National Library, founded in 1912. The collection of transcripts is fully catalogued and is available for consultation at Ushaw College, Durham.
Catholic Record Society
The Catholic Record Society, founded in 1904, publishes a wide range of sources relating to individuals and ecclesiastical institutions in the British Isles in the period after the Reformation. Its journal, British Catholic History, formerly entitled Recusant History, is published by Cambridge University Press.
All of its publications are available in the Schwarzenbach Reading Room at the Venerable English College and seventy-nine of the eighty-seven volumes published in the Society’s Records series are now available in fully searchable digitized format. These include the Liber Ruber of the Venerable English College, Rome:
When Fr Robert Persons, SJ (1546–1610) became Rector of the Venerable English College in 1598, a custom was introduced whereby each intending student was set a series of questions concerning his family, upbringing, education, state of health, religious history, and intentions in coming to the seminary.
This methodology, adopted to prevent English government spies infiltrating the student body, as had been the case some years earlier, was an adaptation of an existing methodology within the Society of Jesus whereby novices are required to provide a short biography of the themselves, up to the moment of their entry, often called a Little Life.
About a year after its introduction, this requirement was incorporated into the new statutes of the College, in the Constitution Omnis Reipublicae Status promulgated by Cardinals Odoardo Farnese (1573 –1626) and Camillo Borghese (1550–1621), the future Pope Paul V. In accordance with this rule, during most of the seventeenth century, the majority of students entering the College wrote autobiographical accounts of their lives up to that moment.
It is these autobiographical statements, known as the Responsa Scholarum, which form the material of two volumes (Volumes 54 and 55) of the Catholic Record Society's publications and which may be consulted here:
English Catholic History Association
The English Catholic History Association, founded in 1998 to encourage interest in the Catholic history of England and Wales, organizes visits and conferences on aspect of Catholic history. The association also supports research and seeks to prevent the destruction of Catholic archives. It has its own archive library.
REGIONAL SOCIETIES
Gloucestershire Catholic History Society
Beginning life in October 1986 as the Gloucester and North Avon Catholic History Society, the first newsletter of the new organization was published in November 1986. Following a change of name to the Gloucestershire Catholic History Society in 1996, the newsletter developed into a more substantial quarterly journal, with a total of fifty-five issues being published. An almost complete run of the journal is available in the Schwarzenbach Reading Room at the Venerable English College.
Isle of Wight Catholic History Society
Founded in 2002, the Isle of Wight Catholic History Society seeks to raise awareness of the Catholic history and culture of the island, not least through publications.
Kent Recusant History Society
The Kent Recusant History Society flourished from 1979 until 1993 and its publication, Kent Recusant History, is available in a number of libraries in the United Kingdom. Coverage of the history of Catholicism in Kent is now provided by the journal South-Eastern Catholic History listed below.
Midland Catholic History Society
The Midland Catholic History Society was formed in 1996 by the merger of the Staffordshire Catholic History Society (founded in 1960) and the Worcestershire Catholic History Society (founded in 1962 and amalgamated with the Federated Western Marches Recusant Society in 1981).
As both Staffordshire and Worcestershire were included in the Midland Vicariate Apostolic (1688–1840), and the Central Vicariate (1840–50) and the Diocese, later Archdiocese, of Birmingham (1850–to date), there was a certain logic in combining the journals of the two societies in 1991 as Midland Catholic History, replacing two earlier journals, Worcestershire Recusant, which had long included material from Warwickshire, Herefordshire and Shropshire, and Staffordshire Catholic History.
A full run of Worcestershire Recusant is available in the Schwarzenbach Reading Room at the Venerable English College: runs of Staffordshire Catholic History and Midland Catholic History would be welcome additions to our collection.
North East Catholic History Society
The North East Catholic History Society was founded in 1974 to promote research into the history of the Roman Catholic Church since medieval times in the north eastern counties of England – a geographical term which is taken to cover the eastern half of the country between the rivers Tweed and Humber.
Each year, the Society arranges a programme of talks and visits and publishes the substantial illustrated periodical Northern Catholic History, more than fifty editions of which have now appeared.
North West Catholic History Society
The North West Catholic History Society, founded in 1968, promotes the study of the history of the Catholic Church in the region west of the Pennines — the old counties of Cheshire, Cumberland, Lancashire, and Westmorland, and organizes regular conferences, as well as publishing the journal, North West Catholic History.
The Society has made a number of its publications freely available online, including;
Arundel to Zabi: A Biographical Dictionary of the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales (Deceased) 1623–2000, by Brian Plumb
From the Fylde to Rome: Two Essays on the Life and Influence of William Allen, by Brian Plumb
The Catholic Family Historian’s Handbook, by Allan Mitchinson
South-Eastern Catholic History
In 1958, the first regional Catholic historical group in the country was formed as the Essex Recusant Society (ERS). Its founders were Monsignor Daniel Shanahan (1922–1995) and Fr Brian Foley (1910–1999), a former student of the Venerable English College and subsequently bishop of Lancaster (1962–1985): they were supported in their venture by many lay people and by the sisters of the Ursuline Convent, Brentwood, who provided space for the Society’s library and a convenient meeting place. The ERS engaged in research into the history of post-Reformation Catholicism in Essex and East London and published its much-admired journal Essex Recusant.
The ERS did not meet from the late 1980s until 2000. In the latter year, a small group of enthusiasts re-formed the group and, in 2009, a new journal was launched, entitled South-Eastern Catholic History. This brought together, in a single journal, the previous activities of three separate Catholic history societies and their journals:
Essex Recusant (1959–1986)
London Recusant (1971–1975)
Kent Recusant History (1979–1993)
Full runs of Essex Recusant and London Recusant are available in the Schwarzenbach Reading Room and we should be grateful to hear from any reader seeking a good home for a run of Kent Recusant History.
South Western Catholic History
This journal, covering the history of Catholicism in the South West of England, ran from 1983 to 2001, but is now discontinued. Prior to the formation of the Wales and the Marches Catholic History Society (see below) in 1999, the journal also covered the history of Catholicism in South Wales.
Wales and the Marches Catholic History Society: Cymdeithas Hanes Catholig Cymru a'r Gororau
Between 1999 and 2020, the Wales and the Marches Catholic History Society published a journal and a range of material on the history of Catholicism in Wales and the English borderlands. The Society ceased operating in June 2020.
Winchester Catholic History Society
The Winchester Catholic History Society aims to develop and foster an interest in, and appreciation of, Catholic, local and English history and achieves these aims through meetings, lectures, and visits.
Internet-based resources for English and Welsh Catholic history
History of the English and Welsh Jesuits
Henry Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus: historic facts illustrative of the labours and sufferings of its members in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
Series II. The College of St. Aloysius, or the Lancashire District
Series III. Part I. The College of St Chad, or the Staffordshire District
Series III. Part II. The College of the Immaculate Conception, or the Derbyshire District
Series IV. Part I. The College of the Holy Apostles, or the Suffolk District
Series IV. Part II. The College of St. Hugh, or the Lincolnshire District
Series V. The Residence of St. John the Evangelist, with the Mission of Durham
Series VI. The College of St. Michael the Archangel, or the Yorkshire District
Series VII. The College of St. Thomas of Canterbury, or the Hampshire District
Series IX. The Residence of St. George, or the Worcestershire District
Series X. Part I. The College of St. Francis Xavier and the District of South Wales
Series X. Part II. The Residence of St. Mary, or the Oxfordshire District
Series XI. Part II. The Residence of St. Stanislaus, or the Devonshire District
General History of the Province – Part I. From 1678 to the end of the reign of Charles II
General History of the Province – Part II. The Accession of James II and the Revolution of 1688
The College of the Immaculate Conception, or the Derbyshire District
The College of St. Dominic, formerly the residence of St. Hugh
The Residence of St. John the Evangelist, or the Durham District
The Residence of St. Michael the Archangel, or the Yorkshire District
The College of St. Thomas of Canterbury, or the Hampshire District
The Residence of St. George, or the Worcestershire and Warwickshire Districts
The College of St. Francis Xavier, and the South Wales District