Robert Bireley, 1998–1999

Fellowship Work Summary

Robert Bireley completed the first draft of a book provisionally titled The Jesuits, the Courts, and the Thirty Years War. He read proofs and prepared an index for The Reshaping of Catholicism, 1450 to 1700: A Reassessment of the Counter Reformation, published by Macmillan in London and also by the Catholic University of America Press (1999). He gave a lecture entitled “The Reshaping of Catholicism during the Early Modern Era: A New Look at the Counter Reformation,” at East Carolina University, at the Catholic University of America, and at the first national meeting of the Historical Society, held at Boston University as part of a panel on “Early Modern Catholicism: Three Perspectives.” At the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference in Toronto, he served as chair and participated as a commentator in a session on “Early Modern Casuistry: Forms and Functions.” He organized a joint session on “The Church on the Eve of the Reformation,” on behalf of the Renaissance Society of America, for the American Historical Association meeting, to be held in Chicago in January 2000. He was a participant in the Lilly Collegium on Religion and the Humanities at the Center.