Eamon Duffy Explained

Eamon Duffy
Honorific Suffix:	FSA FBA KSG
Birth Date:	9 February 1947
Birth Place:	Dundalk, Ireland
Nationality:	Irish
Discipline:	History
Sub Discipline:	History of Christianity
Doctoral Students:	Paul C. H. Lim
Notable Works:	The Stripping of the Altars (1992)

Eamon Duffy (born 1947) is an Irish historian. He is the Emeritus Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow and former president of Magdalene College.^[1]

Early life

Duffy was born on 9 February 1947, in Dundalk, Ireland.^[2] He describes himself as a "cradle Catholic".^[2] He was educated at St Philip's School and the University of Hull. He undertook postgraduate research at the University of Cambridge, where his doctoral advisers were Owen Chadwick and Gordon Rupp.^[3]

Academic career

Duffy specialises in 15th- to 17th-century religious history of Britain.^[4] He is also a former member of the Pontifical Historical Commission.^[5] His work has done much to overturn the popular image of late-medieval Catholicism in England as moribund, and instead presents it as a vibrant cultural force.^{[6] [7]} On weekdays from 22 October to 2 November 2007, he presented the BBC Radio 4 series 10 Popes Who Shook the World^[8]  – those popes featured were Peter, Leo I, Gregory I, Gregory VII, Innocent III, Paul III, Pius IX, Pius XII, John XXIII, and John Paul II.

Duffy moved to Magdalene College in the University of Cambridge in 1979, and was professor of the history of Christianity from 2003 to 2014. Since 2014 he has been Emeritus Professor.^[9] In 2004 he was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy.^[10]

Prizes and awards

• Longman–History Today Award for book of the year (1994): The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400–1580^[11]
• Hawthornden Prize for Literature (2002): The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village^[12]
• Honorary fellow, St Mary's College, Twickenham (2003). (He later resigned from the position in protest of management decisions at the college made by its principal, Philip Esler)^[13]
• President of the Ecclesiastical History Society (2004–2005)^[14]
• Honorary doctorates from the universities of Durham,^[15] Hull,^[16] and King's College London,^[17] and from the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Toronto
• Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy (2012)^[18]
• Honorary Canon, Ely Cathedral (2014)^[19]

Works

Books

• Humanism, Reform and the Reformation: The Career of Bishop John Fisher (1989; transferred to digitally printed hardback and paperback in 2008) (Editor; co-edited with Brendan Bradshaw) (1989) (2008, hardback) (2008, paperback)
• The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400 to 1580 (1992; subsequent editions in 2005 and 2022) (1992) (2005) (2022)
• Book: Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes. Yale University Press. registration. (1997; transferred to paperback in 1998, subsequent editions in 2002, 2006, and 2014) (1997) (1998) (2002) (2006) (2014)
• The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village (2001; transferred to paperback in 2003) (2001) (2003)
• "The Shock of Change: Continuity and Discontinuity in the Elizabethan Church of England", in Anglicanism and the Western Catholic Tradition (2003, edited by Stephen Platten)
• Faith of Our Fathers: Reflections on Catholic Tradition (2004; subsequent edition in 2006) (2004) (2006)
• Walking to Emmaus (2006)
• Marking the Hours: English People and their Prayers 1240–1570 (2006; transferred to paperback in 2011) (2006) (2011)
• Fires of Faith: Catholic England Under Mary Tudor (2009; transferred to paperback in 2010) (2009) (2010)
• Ten Popes Who Shook the World (2011)
• Saints, Sacrilege and Sedition: Religion and Conflict in the Tudor Reformations (2012; transferred to paperback in 2014) (2012) (2014)
• Reformation Divided: Catholics, Protestants, and the Conversion of England (2017)
• Royal Books and Holy Bones: Essays in Medieval Christianity (2018)
• John Henry Newman: A Very Brief History (2019)
• A People's Tragedy: Studies in Reformation (2020)

Other

• "Eamon Duffy in Conversation with Raymond Friel", in The Hope That Is Within You (Audio CD, 2017)

Further reading

• Eamon Duffy, "Far from the Tree" (review of Rob Iliffe, , Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017,), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXV, no. 4 (8 March 2018), pp. 28–29.

External links

• Duffy's faculty page
• PBS interview with Duffy
• Red Cross Lecture 2015: Fact, Fiction And The Tudor Past

Notes and References

1. https://web.archive.org/web/20040224073356/http://www.magd.cam.ac.uk/people/fellows/allfellows.html Alphabetical list of all fellows
2. https://books.google.com/books?id=3aWWI1EOo2cC&pg=PA11 "Confessions of a Cradle Catholic"
3. Web site: Professor Eamon Duffy FBA. Faculty of Divinity. 22 July 2013 . University of Cambridge. 8 June 2014.
4. Eamon . Duffy . The English Reformation After Revisionism . Renaissance Quarterly . 59 . 3 . 2006 . 720–731 . 10.1353/ren.2008.0366 . 10.1353/ren.2008.0366. 154375741 .
5. http://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_mipeople&view=person&id=18&departmentid=2&Itemid=60 Eamon Duffy profile
6. Book: Duffy, Eamon . The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, – . Yale University Press . 2nd . 2005 . 978-0-300-10828-6 .
7. Book: Duffy, Eamon . Eamon Duffy . The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village . Yale University Press . 2001 . 978-0300098259. none.
8. Web site: Ten Popes Who Shook the World . BBC Radio 4.
9. Web site: Lecture by Professor Eamon Duffy. University of Bergen.
10. Web site: Professor Eamon Duffy FBA. British Academy.
11. Web site: Awards Winners . . 22 January 2015 . 16 September 2011 . 16 September 2011 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110916032646/http://www.historytoday.com/page/awards-winners .
12. News: Myers. Kevin. This constant stream of English life. 22 January 2015. The Daily Telegraph. 26 May 2002.
13. Web site: Top historian criticises St Mary's for 'grotesque' treatment of professor. Catholic Herald. 22 January 2015. 25 September 2012.
14. https://www.history.ac.uk/ehsoc/about/past-ehs-presidents Past Presidents - Ecclesiastical History Society
15. Web site: Prof Eamon Duffy receives Honorary Degree. Durham University. 22 January 2015. 3 July 2013.
16. Web site: Honorary Graduates – A to E. University of Hull. 22 January 2015. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20150209020348/http://www2.hull.ac.uk/theuniversity/honorarygraduates.aspx. 9 February 2015.
17. Web site: Honorary Degree ceremony. King's College London. 22 January 2015. 26 November 2009.
18. Web site: Members List. Royal Irish Academy. 22 January 2015. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20150213122929/https://www.ria.ie/about/Membership/Member-List.aspx. 13 February 2015.
19. Web site: New Canons Admitted and Installed at Ely Cathedral. 22 January 2015. 14 May 2014. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20150122112800/http://www.ely.anglican.org/news_events/news_items/14May14.html. 22 January 2015. dmy-all.