This book covers a particular controversy between an ex-Jesuit and a Jesuit following the oath of allegiance exacted by James VI in 1606 but gives an impressive overall view of a conflict for the Catholics which began effectively in 1559 with the Act of Supremacy. The coming of the joint mission of seminary priests and Jesuits in 1580 galvanized the regime into enacting drastic laws intended to make the open practice of their faith impossible. The screw turned finally the year after the Gunpowder Plot. This was the excuse not only to close all professions and make any exercise of the faith tantamount to civil death but—something never attempted under Elizabeth—obliged everyone to take the Protestant communion as a sign of allegiance to Church and State: a single entity allowing no differentiation. The Catholic ideal demanded fearless declaration of the faith and a refusal to participate with heretics—and take the consequences. This meant not only loss of property and social status but even a martyr's death horribly inflicted. 

 

In recent years much scholarly attention has been focused on the encounter of cultures during the early modern period, and the global implications that such encounters held. As a result of this work, scholars have now begun to re-evaluate many aspects of early culture contact, not least with respect to Christian missionary activities. Prominent among the missionaries were members of the Society of Jesus. Emerging as a dynamic new religious order in the wake of the Reformation, the Jesuits were deeply committed to promoting religious and cultural reforms both within Europe and in non-Christian lands. Yet while scholars have revealed much about the Jesuits' innovative educational endeavours, and their numerous missions to the Americas, Asia and the Sub-Continent, less attention has been paid to the nature of the Jesuits' global civilizing mission as a key feature of their institutional character. Nor has sufficient work been done to fully explain the relationship between the Jesuits' efforts to evangelize and civilize those areas within the Catholic fold and those without. Taking as its focus the city of Naples, this study illuminates how the Jesuits' work in a Catholic European setting reflected their broader global civilizing mission. Despite its Catholic heritage, Naples was popularly perceived as a place of spiritual and social disorder, thus providing an irresistible challenge to religious reformers, such as the Jesuits, who sought to 'civilize' the city. Drawing in considerable numbers of the order, Naples proved to be a training ground for the Jesuits that shaped the order's missionary praxis and influenced the thinking of many who would later travel further afield. By gaining a fuller understanding of this process, it is possible to better understand what drove the Jesuits to craft and perpetuate a cultural map that continues to resonate down to our own times. 

Established in 1941, the Bibliotheca Instituti Societatis Iesu (BIHSI) series is devoted to monographs on the history and culture of the Society of Jesus. 

Según documentos inéditos de la época.