‘Dowting of ye Cupp’: Disbelief about the Eucharist and a Catholic Miracle in Reformation England

This essay is inspired by an intriguing late sixteenth-century Catholic liturgical object, the Bosworth Hall burse. It commemorates a vision of the crucified Christ seen by the missionary priest (and later martyr) John Payne in Douai in 1575, which apparently dispelled a moment of doubt about the re...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Walsham, Alexandra 1966- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Published: 2016
In: Studies in church history
Year: 2016, Volume: 52, Pages: 232-249
Further subjects:B Mass
B Miracles
B Catholicism
B Eucharist
B Doubt
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
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Summary:This essay is inspired by an intriguing late sixteenth-century Catholic liturgical object, the Bosworth Hall burse. It commemorates a vision of the crucified Christ seen by the missionary priest (and later martyr) John Payne in Douai in 1575, which apparently dispelled a moment of doubt about the real presence in the consecrated eucharist. The incident is situated in the context of the heated Catholic and Protestant controversies about the doctrine of transubstantiation in post-Reformation England and against the backdrop of similar medieval miracles designed to counter disbelief, including the Mass of St Gregory and the miracle of Bolsena of 1263. The essay illuminates the persistence and transformation of anxieties about the sacred in the sixteenth century, considers the part they played in private and public crises of faith, and explores the mechanisms by which they were resolved. It also investigates how the memory of Payne's miraculous vision was crystallized in a material object.
ISSN:2059-0644
Contains:Enthalten in: Studies in church history
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1017/stc.2015.13