Eamon Duffy (born 9 February 1947) is an Irish historian. He is the emeritus professor of the

History of Christianity The history of Christianity began with the life of Jesus, an itinerant Jewish preacher and teacher, who was Crucifixion of Jesus, crucified in Jerusalem . His followers proclaimed that he was the Incarnation (Christianity), incarnation of Go ...

at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, and a fellow and former president of

Magdalene College Magdalene College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary ...

Early life

Duffy was born on 9 February 1947, in

Dundalk Dundalk ( ; ) is the county town of County Louth, Ireland. The town is situated on the Castletown River, which flows into Dundalk Bay on the north-east coast of Ireland, and is halfway between Dublin and Belfast, close to and south of the bor ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

."Confessions of a Cradle Catholic"
/ref> He describes himself as a "cradle Catholic". He was educated at St Philip's School and the

University of Hull The University of Hull is a public research university in Kingston upon Hull, a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It was founded in 1927 as University College Hull. The main university campus is located in Hull and is home to the Hu ...

. He undertook postgraduate research at the

, where his doctoral advisers were

Owen Chadwick William Owen Chadwick (20 May 1916 – 17 July 2015) was a British Anglican priest, academic, rugby international,Gordon Rupp Ernest Gordon Rupp (7 January 1910 – 19 December 1986) was a Methodist preacher, historian and Luther scholar. Early life and education Rupp was born on 7 January 1910 in London and attended Owen's School in Islington. He studied history ...

Academic career

Duffy specialises in 15th- to 17th-century religious history of Britain. He is also a former member of the Pontifical Historical Commission. His work has done much to overturn the popular image of late-medieval

Catholicism in England The Catholic Church in England and Wales (; ) is part of the worldwide Catholic Church in full communion with the Holy See. Its origins date from the 6th century, when Pope Gregory I through a Roman missionary and Benedictine monk, Augustine, ...

as moribund, and instead presents it as a vibrant cultural force. On weekdays from 22 October to 2 November 2007, he presented the BBC Radio 4 series ''10 Popes Who Shook the World'' – those popes featured were

Peter Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a su ...

, Leo I,

Gregory I Gregory I may refer to: * Gregory the Illuminator (250s–330s), Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church in 288–325 * Gregory of Nazianzus (329–390), Patriarch Gregory I of Constantinople, in office 379–381 * Pope Gregory I (540–604), i ...

, Gregory VII,

Innocent III Pope Innocent III (; born Lotario dei Conti di Segni; 22 February 1161 – 16 July 1216) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1198 until his death on 16 July 1216. Pope Innocent was one of the most power ...

Paul III Pope Paul III (; ; born Alessandro Farnese; 29 February 1468 – 10 November 1549) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 13 October 1534 to his death, in November 1549. He came to the papal throne in an era follo ...

Pius IX Pope Pius IX (; born Giovanni Maria Battista Pietro Pellegrino Isidoro Mastai-Ferretti; 13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878) was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878. His reign of nearly 32 years is the longest verified of any pope in hist ...

Pius XII Pope Pius XII (; born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli; 2 March 18769 October 1958) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 2 March 1939 until his death on 9 October 1958. He is the most recent p ...

John XXIII Pope John XXIII (born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli; 25 November 18813 June 1963) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 28 October 1958 until his death on 3 June 1963. He is the most recent pope to take ...

, and

John Paul II Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005. In his you ...

. Duffy moved to Magdalene College in the University of Cambridge in 1979, and was professor of the history of Christianity from 2003 to 2014. Since 2014 he has been

emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

professor. In 2004 he was elected as a fellow of the

British Academy The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the sa ...

Prizes and awards

* Longman–''History Today'' Award for book of the year (1994): ''The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400–1580'' *

Hawthornden Prize The Hawthornden Prize is a British literary award given annually to a British, Irish or British-based author for a work of "imaginative literature" – including poetry, novels, history, biography and creative non-fiction – published in the pre ...

for Literature (2002): ''The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village'' * Honorary fellow, St Mary's College, Twickenham (2003). (He later resigned from the position in protest of management decisions at the college made by its principal,

Philip Esler Philip Francis Esler (born 27 August 1952) is the Portland Chair in New Testament Studies at the University of Gloucestershire. He is an Australian-born higher education administrator and academic who became the inaugural chief executive of the ...

) *President of the

Ecclesiastical History Society The Ecclesiastical History Society (EHS) is a British learned historical society founded in 1961 to foster interest in, and to advance the study of, all areas of the history of the Christian Church through twice yearly conferences and publication ...

(2004–2005) * Honorary doctorates from the universities of

Durham Durham most commonly refers to: *Durham, England, a cathedral city in north east England **County Durham, a ceremonial county which includes Durham *Durham, North Carolina, a city in North Carolina, United States Durham may also refer to: Places ...

Hull Hull may refer to: Structures * The hull of an armored fighting vehicle, housing the chassis * Fuselage, of an aircraft * Hull (botany), the outer covering of seeds * Hull (watercraft), the body or frame of a sea-going craft * Submarine hull Ma ...

, and

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...

, and from the

Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (PIMS) is a research institute in the University of Toronto that is dedicated to advanced studies in the culture of the Middle Ages. Governance The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Toronto, currently F ...

, Toronto * Honorary Member of the

Royal Irish Academy The Royal Irish Academy (RIA; ), based in Dublin, is an academic body that promotes study in the natural sciences, arts, literature, and social sciences. It is Ireland's premier List of Irish learned societies, learned society and one of its le ...

(2012) *

Honorary Canon Canon () is a Christian title usually used to refer to a member of certain bodies in subject to an ecclesiastical rule. Originally, a canon was a cleric living with others in a clergy house or, later, in one of the houses within the precinct of ...

Ely Cathedral Ely Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Ely, is an Church of England, Anglican cathedral in the city of Ely, Cambridgeshire, England. The cathedral can trace its origin to the abbey founded in Ely in 67 ...

(2014)

Works

Books

* ''Humanism, Reform and the Reformation: The Career of Bishop John Fisher'' (1989; transferred to digitally printed hardback and paperback in 2008) (Editor; co-edited with Brendan Bradshaw) (1989) (2008, hardback) (2008, paperback) *'' The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400 to 1580'' (1992; subsequent editions in 2005 and 2022) (1992) (2005) (2022) * (1997; transferred to paperback in 1998, subsequent editions in 2002, 2006, and 2014) (1997) (1998) (2002) (2006) (2014) * '' The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village'' (2001; transferred to paperback in 2003) (2001) (2003) * "The Shock of Change: Continuity and Discontinuity in the Elizabethan Church of England", in ''Anglicanism and the Western Catholic Tradition'' (2003, edited by

Stephen Platten Stephen George Platten (born 17 May 1947 at Southgate, London, Southgate, Middlesex), is a retired Anglican prelate, the last to serve as Bishop of Wakefield (diocese), diocesan Bishop of Wakefield in the Church of England. Consecrated as a ...

) * ''Faith of Our Fathers: Reflections on Catholic Tradition'' (2004; subsequent edition in 2006) (2004) (2006) * ''Walking to Emmaus'' (2006) * ''Marking the Hours: English People and their Prayers 1240–1570'' (2006; transferred to paperback in 2011) (2006) (2011) * ''Fires of Faith: Catholic England Under Mary Tudor'' (2009; transferred to paperback in 2010) (2009) (2010) * ''Ten Popes Who Shook the World'' (2011) * ''Saints, Sacrilege and Sedition: Religion and Conflict in the Tudor Reformations'' (2012; transferred to paperback in 2014) (2012) (2014) * ''Reformation Divided: Catholics, Protestants, and the Conversion of England'' (2017) * ''Royal Books and Holy Bones: Essays in Medieval Christianity'' (2018) * ''John Henry Newman: A Very Brief History'' (2019) * ''A People's Tragedy: Studies in Reformation'' (2020)

Other

* "Eamon Duffy in Conversation with Raymond Friel", in ''The Hope That Is Within You'' (Audio CD, 2017)

References

External links

Duffy's faculty page

Red Cross Lecture 2015: Fact, Fiction And The Tudor Past
{{DEFAULTSORT:Duffy, Eamon 1947 births Living people 20th-century Irish historians 20th-century Irish male writers 20th-century Roman Catholics 21st-century Irish historians 21st-century Irish male writers 21st-century Roman Catholics Alumni of the University of Cambridge Alumni of the University of Hull Fellows of Magdalene College, Cambridge Fellows of the British Academy Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London Historians of the Catholic Church Irish emigrants to the United Kingdom Irish historians of religion Irish Roman Catholic writers New Blackfriars people People educated at St Philip's School People from Dundalk Presidents of the Ecclesiastical History Society Reformation historians Roman Catholic scholars