The seventeenth-century English and Scottish reception of Francis de Sales’An Introduction to a Devout Life

Abstract

St Francis de Sales’ devotional manual,An Introduction to a Devout Life(1609), had a complex but fascinating reception history in seventeenth-century England and Scotland. Collectively, the English-language editions in this century include two translations and, perhaps most interestingly, several reformed editions. It is curious that a post-Reformation, Tridentine Catholic work, written by a French bishop dedicated to converting Protestant ‘Heretiques,’ would appeal to both Catholics and Protestants alike. Most of the seventeenth-century English editions were published abroad in Douai, Paris, St Omer, and Rouen, places that were home to many English and Scottish exiled communities, both lay and religious. Two of the three reformed editions were published in England, evidence of theIntroduction’s widespread readership and its importance to seventeenth-century English devotion. Finally, during James II’s reign two Catholic editions were openly published, one in England and the other in Scotland.