Loosed and Bound: Kinship, Faith and the English Mission

This article explores the role of family and kinship in religious conflict and its negotiation, chiefly through the case study of Catholic missions to England, c.1580-1679. It examines how family ties were subjugated to religious imperatives, but also incorporated into them, as missionaries sought the salvation of their families and proclaimed affective bonds as motivation. Sometimes, this subverted traditional authority paradigms, as demonstrated through texts in which sons - Protestant or Catholic - exhorted their parents to religious conversion. Evidence is also examined that family ties were important for the practicalities of clandestine Catholic ministry. The essay then considers the linguistic and affective triangle of family, religion and nation, whereby the English Mission was interpreted as a patriotic endeavour in which saving the patria was, in part, an extension of the imperative to save one's kin.