History Books

This book is a short introduction to the development of the Roman Rite of Mass, the most widely used of the Church's liturgical rites, from its origins in early Christianity until the present day. Over the centuries, the form of Mass most Catholics are familiar with has been shaped by the Apostolic See of Rome in contact and exchange with other local churches. Understanding this rich and complex history will help not only the clergy in their sacramental ministry, but all the faithful in parti...

The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam A riveting account of the lives and epic battles of eight Western defenders against violent Islamic jihad that sheds much-needed light on the enduring conflict with radical Islam. In Defenders of the West, the author of Sword and Scimitar follows up with vivid and dramatic profiles of eight extraordinary warriors--some saints, some sinners--who defended the Christian West against Islamic invasions. Discover the real Count Dracula, Spain's El Cid, E...

Clash of Cultures: Christian Knights Defend Western Civilization Against the Moslem TideIn the first half of the sixteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was thought to be invincible. Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman sultan, had expanded his empire from western Asia to southeastern Europe and North Africa. To secure control of the Mediterranean between these territories and launch an offensive into western Europe, Suleiman needed the small but strategically crucial island of Malta. But Sule...

The relationship between the Catholic Church and science is one of the most misunderstood stories of Western civilization. Merely repeating the mantra that there is no ultimate contradiction between faith and reason has not solved the crisis for millions of Catholics, many of whom have abandoned the Faith over perceived discrepancies between the religious and scientific worlds. In Pursuit of Wisdom moves beyond polemical and surface-level approaches to paint a more accurate picture of the his...

With Between Rome and Rebellion, Yves Chiron, acclaimed author of dozens of biographies and historical studies, once again proves himself a master historian. Drawing upon a vast fund of information gathered over the course of three decades, including numerous interviews, correspondence, diaries, and archives, Chiron tells the thrilling, at times gut-wrenching, story of the "loyal resistance" of Catholics-especially in France, but soon all over the world-who held fast to the old forms of worsh...

For over two decades, Eugenio Pacelli, Pope Pius XII, has been blasted in the public square as "Hitler's Pope", accused by bestselling authors of cowardice in the face of the Nazi regime. Some have even said that the pope was complicit in Hitler's grab for power, privately fueled by a hatred for the Jewish people. And if they are right, who would not join in condemning a leader like this, especially one who claims to represent all Christians?But what if this image of Pius XII is completely ba...

In the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries It is hoped with the second edition of the English translation of Petit's classic masterpiece that this hidden jewel of a book will become less hidden. That the people of our day might find inspiration in the amazing story and spirit of the Norbertine Order in its first centuries - the story which Fr. Petit so lovingly unpacks in these pages. And that it may contribute to keeping the Premonstratensian fire burning brightly— nine centuries after it was f...

The Earliest Chronicle of the First Crusade This new translation offers a faithful yet accessible English-language rendering of the twelfth-century Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolomitanorum, the earliest known Latin account of the First Crusade. Although an anonymous work, it has become the exemplar for all later histories and retellings of the First Crusade. As such, it is filled with vivid descriptions of the hardships suffered by the crusaders, with deeds of personal heroism, with cour...

A French Genocide: The Vendée provides a detailed narrative of the civil war in the Vendée region of western France, which lasted for much of the 1790s but was most intensely fought at the height of the Reign of Terror, from March 1793 to early 1795. In this shocking and controversial book, Reynald Secher argues that the massacres which resulted from the conflict between "patriotic" revolutionary forces and those of the counter-revolution were not the inevitable result of fierce battle, but r...

The wars and upheavals of the 17th and 18th centuries had created a situation where by the 19th century, political control was exercised over the Church not only in England and Germany but even in Catholic countries such as Austria, France, and Spain. The new ideas of Febronianism, Jacobism, and the French Revolutionary ideologies spread throughout Europe had done their utmost to bring discredit on the old asceticism and its principal representatives in the mendicant orders, such as the Domin...

Conspiracies and secret societies exist because man, wounded by Original Sin, is inclined to evil and his social nature leads him to unite with other men in carrying out evil plans. With typical precision, historian Roberto de Mattei navigates us through this gloomy labyrinth of evil amid congiure, conspiracies, and plots -- terms often used as synonyms but which, through their semantic and conceptual differences, can each assist us in understanding better the hidden dimension of the history ...

Ngo Dinh Diem, the first president of the Republic of Vietnam, possessed the Confucian "Mandate of Heaven", a moral and political authority that was widely recognized by all Vietnamese. This devout Roman Catholic leader never lost this mandate in the eyes of his people; rather, he was taken down by a military coup sponsored by the U.S. government, which resulted in his brutal murder.The commonly held view runs contrary to the above assertion by military historian Geoffrey Shaw. According to m...

During the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I, it was high treason—and therefore punishable by death—to be a Catholic priest in England. In this dangerous era, hiding places were essential whenever pursuivants arrived in search of clergy. Among the master craftsmen responsible for constructing these ingenious “priest-holes,” one name stands above the rest: St. Nicholas Owen. A small and later crippled man, Owen built the majority of England’s priest-holes, saving the lives of countless priests...

Among the early followers of St. Francis of Assisi were saints and masters of the spiritual life who shared both a natural and supernatural kinship with their founder. Through their lives and writings they deepened and articulated the spirituality St. Francis embodied—rooted in simplicity, love, and total conformity to Christ. Their witness brought clarity to the distinctive traits of Franciscan life and became a wellspring for generations of Christians seeking to follow the Seraphic Father. ...

Maximus the Confessor (580–662), one of the towering figures of early Byzantine theology, occupies a place in the Greek patristic tradition comparable to that of Thomas Aquinas in the Latin West. His profound influence as a spiritual and theological master is evident in the vast space dedicated to him in the Philokalia. For Maximus, dogma and prayer were inseparable, and his unwavering defense of orthodox Christology—against the heresies of his time—was grounded in this deep unity of truth an...

From its founding in 1928, the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius created an unprecedented bridge between Russian Orthodoxy and the Christian West. Through its journal—first under the Fellowship’s name and later as Sobornost—it became the principal venue where the exiled Russian Orthodox intelligentsia engaged with Anglican theologians of the Catholic party, as well as, on occasion, with other Protestant traditions. In this deeply researched account, Aidan Nichols traces the journal’s evol...

This book is the result of a life-long companionship with William Shakespeare. Annie-Paule de Prinsac has never been in doubt about his mannerism, whose many guises she reveals through close readings of selected plays. Such mannerism, however, in a kingdom torn by religious conflicts, violent oppression, and censorship raises questions. It seems out of step with the spirit of the Elizabethan Court, but also seems to belie the views of so many critics regarding his alleged social background an...

Learned and filled with holiness, he not only organized the constitutions, and established the Salve Regina after compline but was instrumental guiding the work of others to establish the Dominican Liturgy.Though master-general of the order, Bl. Jordan's humility prevented him from attributing himself as a director of any human authority. He was not and did not wish to be anything but a docile instrument of grace. As a director of conscience in his breadth and delicacy, Jordan had the Catholi...

That after seven hundred years his life is still the subject of historians' endeavors is a clear proof of the deep significance of St. Dominic's personality for his Order, for the clergy, and the entire Church. He lived in the late Middle Ages, when the Chair of Peter was occupied by popes like Innocent III, whose prudence and firmness were active factors in shaping Europe's history. The spirit of faith still had at least a little influence in political matters, and enthusiasm for the reclaim...

The contribution of women in the history of the Church is often overlooked. In modern times it is customary to look for all the wrong things, who is powerful, who became the first woman to work in this place, or who started a movement. The women who are the subject of this book, however, were greater than any of these mundane accomplishments; they were Heroines of Christ.Married and religious, Roman martyrs and Cristeros, the 15 women whose biographies are found in this book exemplified true ...

What happened to the Apostles? How did the early Christians live? Why did the Romans and other peoples try to destroy them with such brutality? Those answers are all provided in Fr. Pedro de Ribadeneyra, SJ's Flores Sanctorum, carefully translated by Mrs. Anne Hope.Lives of the Early Martyrs not only traces the most ancient testimony to where the Apostles went, and where they won their crowns of martyrdom, but their disciples as well. It carefully elucidates the lives that the early Christian...

Many have heard of St. John Fisher, but usually in association with his fellow martyr, St. Thomas More and that he refused to accept Henry VIII's break from Rome, and was thus executed. Few know that Fisher was famous in the first half of the 16 th century, not only as a holy reforming bishop, but also as one of the greatest theologians in Europe. His masterful theological acumen made him the right man to oppose the ill wind blowing in from Germany.Luther denied several Catholic doctrines, an...

Enthusiasm, in the religious sense, is more akin to fanaticism than fervor. As Monsignor Ronald Knox describes, it is that recurring situation in Church history in which men and women, seek to be less and less "of the world" and more and more attentive to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Their assumption is audacious yet simple: grace does not perfect nature; it destroys and replaces it. The inevitable result: separation, secession, schism. In twenty-three informative and entertaining chapter...

The Sacred Heart of Jesus is the revelation of God's love for man, made flesh. The heart is a symbol of our passions, desires, and will. Meditating upon Jesus' heart can transform our own hearts so we might be one with him.Make Our Hearts Like Yours is a comprehensive collection of meditations on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, drawn from saints and scholars of every age of Church history. Arranged according to the liturgical calendar, this daily devotional highlights the centrality of the Incarna...

St. Felix of Cantalice was a Capuchin Franciscan in the 16th century. Placed among great personages such as St. Philip Neri, St. Charles Borromeo, and others, St. Felix lived a life of poverty and fidelity to the rule of St. Francis. Born in 1515, he lived as a farm worker until he was 28, when he became a Capuchin. He not only begged alms, but gladly distributed them to the poor. It was said that his alms sack was as bottomless as his heart. He walked bare-foot through the streets of Rome, a...

The figure of Girolamo Savonarola looms large over Italian secular and ecclesiastical history, but remains obscure to the English-speaking world. Now, as part of a larger project dedicated to the translation and study of the life and works of Savonarola, this highly accessible biography of the Friar of San Marco has been republished in the hopes of introducing faithful Catholics to a man that Pius XII called "an apostle who has a lively sense of things divine and eternal, who takes a stand ag...

This book will help you understand that, yes, you can study dog poetry, become the Minnesota Twins closer, run for president of the United States, become a Franciscan friar in Albuquerque, put oranges in a circle, teach courses in conflicting political theory at the University of Idaho, attend Mass literally underground in a subterranean cathedral hundreds of feet below the desert floor, play no pads tackle football on Boise State's blue turf, write tracts while sunbathing at the top of Namur...

For too many of us, life is harder than it needs to be. We have forgotten the ancient system of "super habits" -- a specific set of habits for making decisions, managing our emotions, and dealing with other people that fosters lives of greater ease, happiness, and power.Ancient civilizations relied on these habits to produce some of the greatest achievements in human history. Now, contemporary researchers in psychology, education, and management are rediscovering these habits and empirically ...

Dive into the fascinating and overlooked aspects of the Catholic faith with Weird Catholic Handbook by Michael Lichens. This book takes you on a Chestertonian romp through the peculiar and intriguing elements of Catholic history, offering a refreshing perspective on the faith that combines humor, curiosity, and profound insights.Lichens invites you to discover the bizarre and extraordinary stories that have shaped Catholicism. From saints who faced mythical monsters to the eerie beauty of bon...

Near-death experiences (NDEs) are endlessly fascinating for those who long for Heaven or are just curious about the things we cannot see (yet). Lost in all the discussion of NDEs, however, is their long, rich history. Saints and mystics have been visiting Heaven for thousands of years, and here, for the first time, Scott L. Smith provides you with a glimpse of what they've been seeing these past two millennia.In these heart-pounding pages, you will first learn about the ancient origin of NDEs...

In Visions of the Divine, Catholic evangelist, author, and businessman Steve Auth reunites the art of the Eucharist with the Eucharistic liturgy itself. Much of this art was separated from the context of the Mass for which it was created many centuries ago and is relegated now to museums sprinkled around the world. Along with his co-authors Evelyn Auth and Msgr. Roger Landry, Steve leads the reader on a worldwide pilgrimage to some of the most spectacular and moving artistic masterpieces crea...

Warriors of God: The Great Religious Orders and Their Founders, by church historian Walter Nigg, is a detailed and lively account of eleven of the great Christian monastic and religious orders and the fascinatingly diverse figures who launched them. The author begins with St. Anthony and the desert fathers, and continues with St. Pachomius and the development of cenobitic monasticism, St. Basil, St. Augustine and the common life of the clergy, St. Benedict and the Rule, St. Bruno and the Cart...

Ancient Rome's brutal culture exploited the weak and considered human life expendable. Women were used as property; unwanted children were left on the streets to die. Four centuries later, even ordinary men and women prospered in what had become a vigorous new Christian society; a society that served the vulnerable, exalted women, treasured virtue, and loved peace. Faith had triumphed. Truth was proclaimed. And on this rock-solid foundation, Christian society flourished in the West for the ne...

It is no secret that many factions exist in the Church. The challenge, however -- and increasingly so -- is in determining which are propagating error and which are shedding light. Through historical vignettes and penetrating writings from a range of sources, Aurelio Porfiri, musician and essayist, examines the emergence of traditionalism in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, the debates concerning liturgy that it has engendered, and the Church's current relationship with the world. Thro...

Christians are called to proclaim 'the glorious liberty of the children of God' to all men and women in the world. With this in mind, the enclosure of cloistered nuns, the apparent renunciation of personal freedom in order to live within the walls of a monastery for the rest of one's life, is often regarded as a sign of contradiction. How can such a life be justified in view of the Gospel, which invites Christians to become a light to the world and to proclaim the good news to all peoples? Th...

In the first section of this fascinating study, 'Cistercian Chronicles and the Events of Nature', David Williams reveals the wealth of information to be gleaned from medieval and later Cistercian chronicles on the effects felt from earthquakes, floods, drought, extreme temperatures, pestilence and plague, as well as the impact of eclipses and comets, on the monks themselves and on the wider population. The second section of the book provides an invaluable survey of Cistercian Necrologies from...

EARLY CHRISTIANITY explores how in the first centuries the followers of Jesus Christ lived their faith centred upon Him. It provides a comprehensive introduction, starting from New Testament times, to key figures in the rise of Christianity including Mary, Mother of God, and Saint Peter and Saint Paul, the founders of Christian Rome. The book shows how the theological tradition of the primacy of Rome developed in the Church and with the Papacy. It considers a wide range of issues in the life ...

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, there has been a heightened fascination with "Celtic Christianity," construed by some as a spirituality of semi-pagan sensibilities -- without rules, never united with Rome, and aligned with ecological and feminist concerns. Celtic prayers and "Celtic liturgies" continue to be fashionable in certain circles. This groundbreaking book presents a comprehensive authentic history of Christianity in Ireland in late antiquity for the first time. It is a li...

Nowadays the inclusion of hymns, chants and sequences in Eucharistic worship is a well-established and much-loved feature of liturgical celebration that we tend to take for granted. How this came about is the subject of this present fascinating study in which John Blakesley guides us through the growth and development of chant, office hymns, sequences and tropes and their increased use in the Church of the Middle Ages. St. Ambrose is credited with introducing hymns into the Western Church in ...

Conscience before Conformity tells the story of German students who dared to speak out against Hitler and the Third Reich, and died for their beliefs. Operating under the name of the White Rose, they printed and distributed leaflets condemning Nazism and urging Germans to offer non-violent resistance to the 'atheistic war machine'. By looking at the cultural and religious journey of the protagonists, Hans and Sophie Scholl, we can see what made them change from active participants in the Hitl...

In 1783, the Peace of Paris famously concluded the American Revolution. However, the Revolution could have come to an end through the Peace of Vienna a year earlier had diplomats from the Habsburg realms--the largest continental European power--succeeded in their attempts to convene a Congress of Vienna in 1782. Bringing together materials from American, Austrian, Belgian, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, and Italian archives, Jonathan Singerton reconstructs the full sweep of relation...

General Francisco Franco (1892-1975), ruler of Spain for nearly forty years, was one of the most powerful and controversial leaders in that nation's long history. This deeply researched biography treats the three major aspects of his life--personal, military, and political. It depicts his early life, explains his career and rise to prominence as an army officer who became Europe's youngest interwar brigadier general in 1926, and then discusses his role in the affairs of the troubled Second Sp...

Twelve Ancient Cities and How They Were Evangelized Jerusalem, Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, Ephesus, Carthage, Edessa . . . These were some of the ancient cities that once raged against the Gospel and persecuted the Church but later came to admirable faith. Each city had its own unique commerce, culture, and institutions. Each city was different from all the others, and each became more perfectly itself through the influence of Jesus Christ. In the pages of this book, you'll climb the hills of ...

The Word Incarnate,"The Whole Christ,"and the Drama of Truth God's Creation and the men and women populating it cannot help but offer us a picture of unpredictable activity. For each and every new moment of its history is in many respects unique, and not some mere monotonous repetition of what has gone before it-especially given the reality of the free will possessed by each human person. This is even more true of the Mystical Body of Christ-what St. Augustine calls "the Whole Christ"-a Body ...

Based upon Richard Johnson's work, which first appeared in print in the 1590s and was widely read for over three centuries after its publication, The Seven Champions of Christendom whisks the reader away to a bygone age of mythic heroes and warrior saints engaged in earthly battle against evil. The Seven are St. George of England, St. Denis of France, St. James of Spain, St. Anthony of Italy, St. Andrew of Scotland, St. Patrick of Ireland, and St. David of Wales. Subsequently rewritten in mod...

The Meddlesome Friar and the Wayward Pope tells the story of two men whom the patterns of Providence brought into mortal conflict: Fra Girolamo Savonarola of the Order of Preachers and Pope Alexander VI of the Borgia family. Each representative of certain High Renaissance ideals, they are well-known as historical figures yet poorly understood as individuals. For Michael de la Bédoyère, that poor understanding obscures the magnitude and complexity of their story. Was Alexander VI, the "bad Pop...

The Church of Cathedral and Crusade is the third installment in Henri Daniel-Rops' monumental History of the Church of Christ. This volume includes the first seven chapters of that work, surveying the salient characteristics of the period 1050 to 1350; the religious foundation of the age and its expressions in prayer and pilgrimage, liturgy and sacrament; the archetype of medieval manhood, St. Bernard of Clairvaux; the leavening labors of reform and renewal by Popes Gregory VII and Paschal II...

The Church of Apostles and Martyrs is the first installment in Henri Daniel-Rops' magnificent and enormously popular History of the Church of Christ. This volume includes the first six chapters of that work, surveying the first years of the Church until the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70; the peerless contributions of St. Paul; the relations between imperial Rome and the fledgling Church; the persecutions and first martyrdoms; the catacombs and development of the liturgy; and the genesis...