John Antony Bossy (30 April 1933 – 23 October 2015) was a British historian who was a professor of history at the

University of York The University of York (abbreviated as or ''York'' for Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a public Collegiate university, collegiate research university in York, England. Established in 1963, the university has expanded to more than thir ...

Career

Bossy was educated at

Queens' College, Cambridge Queens' College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Queens' is one of the 16 "old colleges" of the university, and was founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou. Its buildings span the R ...

, where he was inspired by Walter Ullmann. He lived and lectured in London (1962–66) and Belfast (1966–78) and was a member of the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...

at Princeton. Bossy specialised in the history of religion, particularly in that of Christianity during the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

period and beyond. According to some commentators, his approach fused together elements of disciplines such as sociology and theology. His Ph.D. thesis was written on the relations between French and English Catholics during the period of the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

which contained within it the seeds of later work regarding Michel de Castelnau. He frequently wrote for the ''

London Review of Books The ''London Review of Books'' (''LRB'') is a British literary magazine published bimonthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews. History The ''London Review of Book ...

'' and published series of articles in the journals '' Recusant History'' and '' Past & Present''. In 1991 ''The Embassy Affair'' won the British Crime Writers' Association CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction and (jointly) the Wolfson History Prize. He moved to the University of York in 1979, where he was professor of History until his retirement in 2000. In 1993 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.

Works

* ''The English Catholic Community, 1570-1850'' (1979) * 'The Mass as a Social Institution, 1200-1700' ''Past & Present'', Vol. 100, Issue 1, 1 August (1983) * ''Christianity in the West, 1400-1700'' (1985) * ''Peace in the Post-Reformation'' (1998) * ''Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair'' (1991; second edition 2002) * ''Under the Molehill: An Elizabethan Spy Story'' (2001) * ''Disputes and Settlements: Law and Human Relations in the West'' (2003) – edited by Bossy *

References

External links

Open-access articles and book reviews by John Bossy
from '' Past & Present''. Accessed 12 Nov. 2015.
jid=BCH&bespokeId=13660&isSpecialArticle=Y Open-access articles by John Bossy
from '' British Catholic History''. Accessed 12 Nov. 2015. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bossy, John 1933 births 2015 deaths 20th-century English historians 21st-century English historians Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge Fellows of the British Academy Historians from London Historians of the University of York Historians of Christianity Historians of the early modern period Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars People from Edmonton, London Wolfson History Prize winners