Serenus de Cressy

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Benedictine monk, who became a noted scholar in Church history
.

Life

Anglican chaplain

Hugh Paulinus de Cressy was born at Thorpe Salvin, Yorkshire, about 1605, the son of Hugh de Cressy, barrister of Lincoln's Inn, and later a justice of the Court of King's Bench (Ireland), and Margery d'Oylie of London, daughter of Thomas D'Oylie, a highly regarded doctor and scholar of Spanish, (and a close connection by marriage of Francis Bacon) and his wife Anne Perrott of North Leigh. Educated first at Wakefield Grammar school, when fourteen years old he went to Oxford, where he took the degree of B.A. in 1623 and that of M.A. in 1627. He attended, and became a fellow of Merton College, earning his Master's degree in theology the following year.[1]

Having taken

collegiate chapter of Windsor, Berkshire, in 1642, but was not able to occupy the position due to the troubled times England was experiencing then.[1]

Roman Catholic Benedictine

After his patron, Lord Falkland, was killed in battle in 1643, Cressy went into the service of

theologian at the Sorbonne. He then published his most noted work, the Exomologesis, wherein he explained the motives which led him to change his religion.[1] In some ways Cressy's views on Tradition prefigure John Henry Newman's observations in his 1845 Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine.[2]

When he had become a Roman Catholic, Cressy considered entering the

professed
monastic vows on 22 August 1649.

He was ordained a

Catholic priest in 1651. That same year he was sent to serve as chaplain to the monastery of English Benedictine nuns, then still in Paris. While there he began his work on the text of Julian of Norwich.[3] Returning to his own monastery in Douai, he undertook an extensive study of the history of monasticism in England. He also translated several works by various English mystical
writers across a span of centuries.

Cressy was assigned to return to England in 1660 to serve as one of the chaplains to Queen Catherine of Braganza, wife of King Charles II of England and a Roman Catholic. For four years he resided at Somerset House, which served as her official residence.[4] He was involved in theological controversies with Bishop George Worley of Worcester and Edward Stillingfleet.[2] He then went to provide spiritual care to the Catholic Caryll family and died at East Grinstead, Sussex on 10 August 1674.[4]

He is described as a quick and accurate disputant, a man of good nature and manners, and no inconsiderable preacher. He is also said to have been particularly temperate in controversy.[4]

Works

Cressy published his Exomologesis (Paris, 1647), or account of his conversion; it was valued by Roman Catholics as an answer to William Chillingworth's attacks.[5]

Cressy's major work, The Church History of Brittany (i.e. Britain) from the beginning of Christianity to the Norman Conquest (1st vol. only published, Rouen, 1668), gives an exhaustive account of the foundation of monasteries during the

Anthony à Wood in his Athenae Oxoniensis, who supports Cressy's statement that it was compiled from original manuscripts and from the Annales Ecclesiae of Michael Alford, William Dugdale's Monasticon, and the Decem Scriptores Historiae Anglicanae.[5]

The second part of the history, which has never been printed, was discovered at Douai in 1856. Cressy also edited Walter Hilton's Scale of Perfection (London, 1659); Dom Augustine Baker's Sancta Sophia (2 vols, Douai, 1657);[6] and Julian of Norwich's Sixteen Revelations on the Love of God (1670). These books might have been lost but for Cressy's zeal.[5]

For a complete list of Cressy's works see Joseph Gillow's Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics, vol. I.[5]

There is a lengthy speech attributed to Cressy in Joseph Henry Shorthouse's novel, John Inglesant.

References

  1. ^ a b c Hind, George. "Hugh Paulinus Serenus Cressy." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 9 December 2014
  2. ^
    ISBN 9789004054561
  3. ISBN 9781843840084
  4. ^ a b c Juliana of Norwich. XVI revelations of divine love, publ. by S. Cressy, Preface, S. Clarke, London, 1843
  5. ^ a b c d Chisholm 1911.
  6. ISBN 9781610252256

External links

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