Introduction

After the Emancipation Act of 1829 it was supposed that Roman Catholicism in England would repose peacefully in the position that its obscurity merited. But the effects of the Oxford Movement, famine in Ireland, political turbulence in Europe, problems within the Established Church and the almost confrontational policies of Wiseman, Manning and Vaughan all dictated otherwise.

A new era in Church history was created and with it a vocabulary which if not exactly new was, at least, unfamiliar to many. While some Catholics may not have known when the Vidi Acquam had to replace the Asperges before High Mass, or what precisely was a Double of the First Class, most people were aware that Catholics did not eat meat on Friday but few could explain the difference between fasting and abstinence.

The Douai Bible, Douai Abbey, the English College at Douai, Liberalism, Modernism, secular, regular, Ultramontane or Cisalpine, even typhoid and typhus are just some of the words that have created confusion in minds attempting to make sense of it all.

It is hoped that this book will prove useful to all viewing this period, whether for the first time as students or retrospectively, perhaps with a touch of nostalgia. Obviously it cannot contain everything but it is believed that that which it does contain can be verified from reliable sources.

It is offered as a pointer or companion to those years from when Bishop Bramston greeted Catholic Emancipation with the words "What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul!", through when W. G. "Ideal" Ward said he enjoyed nothing better than a papal encyclical for breakfast, to when Cardinal Heenan charged the Second Vatican Council with containing the roots of revolt wherein lay a loss of faith in all things supernatural.

I am grateful to Mr. J. A. Hilton for his help in the preparation of this handbook. Neither of us lays claim to infallibility, so readers are invited to respond with their own syllabus of errors.

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