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This paper gives an overview of current research into the relevance of Catholic sources-and Catholic culture generally-in the age of Shakespeare. It outlines some Catholic features of his works, focusing particularly on evidence that Shakespeare was familiar with, and influenced by, the writings of the Jesuit, Robert Southwell. The purpose is not to speculate on what Shakespeare's own religious convictions may have been, but simply to draw attention to the continuing relevance of continuing Catholic culture, Catholic tradition and Catholic literary sources for the study of Shakespeare in particular and the period in which he lived in general.

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James Mabbe (c.1571–c.1642) remains a somewhat enigmatic figure. While the paucity of detail about his personal life once led to speculation that he might have been working secretly for the English government, more recent evidence has emerged that he spent time in prison as a Catholic spy. Valuable insights can be gained from a study of his choice and treatment of texts for translation in the context of his diverse network of friends, patrons, and dedicatees, and from considering his corpus as a whole (including his less well known translations), which seems to suggest a sociopolitical agenda. Ultimately, though, he continues to fascinate precisely because of the ambiguities that surround him; Mabbe's work has a mysterious quality, a différance that defies stable reconstruction.

Discussion of the dispersal of Catholic literature in post-Reformation England tends to focus on the tenacity of recusants and ‘church papists’ in perpetuating allegiance to Rome. Relatively little attention has been paid to the extent to which Catholic texts, either in their original form or modified for a Protestant readership, formed a part of the mainstream culture of the reformed Church. This paper attempts to demonstrate the significance of Catholic literature in the Protestant context by showing the range of Protestant adaptations, the extent of Protestant readership and the influences of Catholic literature on Protestant writers.