Secret Jesuit Library in Wales
Carted off to Hereford Cathedral in 1678.
Much of the history of the 16th and 17th century English and Welsh Jesuits is dramatic and dangerous1: clandestine meetings, priest-holes, raids, escape from the Tower of London, imprisonment, torture, and martyrdom. Priests travelled between Catholic safe houses under assumed names and in disguise.2
The Jesuit College of St. Francis Xavier3 the headquarters of the large territorial district (Wales, Herefordshire, Monmouthshire, Somerset, and Gloucestershire, an area of some thirty thousand square kilometers) from approximately 1600 to 1679 was located at the Cwm.4
In the atmosphere of the fabricated Popish Plot authorities in places with a known significant Catholic population were pressured into bringing the threat under control including Monmouthshire and Herefordshire. An order was sent from the House of Lords on December 7, 1678, to Bishop Herbert Croft of Hereford (1603–1691) to carry out a raid on the Cwm Jesuit Library on December 19. Several cartloads of books were removed from the premises.
The surviving volumes from the Cwm Jesuit Library were seized and brought to Hereford Cathedral. The Cwm collection is the largest known surviving post-Reformation Jesuit missionary library in Britain and reveals a great deal about post-Reformation life in Wales and the English borderlands. 5 It can be searched at the library and archives of Hereford Cathedral.6
Into the Lion’s Den: The Jesuit Mission in Elizabethan England and Wales, 1580–1603. By Robert E. Scully, S.J. [No. 23 in Series 3: Scholarly Studies Originally Composed in English.] (St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2011.
Thomas, Hannah. 2014. “Missioners on the Margins? The Territorial Headquarters of the Welsh Jesuit College of St Francis Xavier at The Cwm, C.1600–1679.” British Catholic History 32 (2). Cambridge University Press: 173–93. doi:10.1017/S0034193200032155.
Thomas, H. (Archivist and historian). (2014). “The Society of Jesus in Wales, c.1600-1679: Rediscovering the Cwm Jesuit Library at Hereford Cathedral.” Journal of Jesuit Studies, 1(4), 572–588.
Ibid.
To find all the Cwm books, choose ‘Library Catalogue’ from the list on the left, go into the online catalogue and simply enter ‘Cwm’ as a keyword.
You have shone light on one of the important issues for historians: trace the Jesuits. They were rigorous intellectuals not afraid to challenge the Church when they believed it was wrong, nor to fight against the Church's opponents when they believed it was correct. I've always found it useful to look to Jesuits' observations, which are often the most insightful available.
Cards on the table: I'm an Anglican. I not only look to other Christian denominations but to other religions - Judaism, Islam, Sikhs, Buddhism and elsewhere - for enlightenment. My first stop is usually the Jesuits because of their ruthless introspection.