# Eamon Duffy

Eamon Duffy FSA FBA KSG (born 1947) is an Irish historian. He is the emeritus professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Cambridge, and a fellow and former president of Magdalene College.

## Early life

Duffy was born on 9 February 1947, in Dundalk, Ireland. He describes himself as a "cradle Catholic". He was educated at St Philip's School and the University of Hull. He undertook postgraduate research at the University of Cambridge, where his doctoral advisers were Owen Chadwick and Gordon Rupp.

## 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 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, Leo I, Gregory I, Gregory VII, Innocent III, Paul III, Pius IX, Pius XII, John XXIII, and John Paul II.
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 professor. In 2004 he was elected as a fellow of the British Academy.

## 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 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)
* President of the Ecclesiastical History Society (2004–2005)
* Honorary doctorates from the universities of Durham, Hull, and King's College London, and from the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Toronto
* Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy (2012)
* Honorary Canon, Ely Cathedral (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) ISBN 0521340349 (1989) ISBN 978-0-521-34034-2 (2008, hardback) ISBN 978-0-521-09966-0 (2008, paperback)
* The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400 to 1580 (1992; subsequent editions in 2005 and 2022) ISBN 0-300-06076-9 (1992) ISBN 978-0-300-10828-6 (2005) ISBN 9780300254419 (2022)
* Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes. Yale University Press. (1997; transferred to paperback in 1998, subsequent editions in 2002, 2006, and 2014) ISBN 0-300-07332-1 (1997) ISBN 0300077998 (1998) ISBN 0300091656 (2002) ISBN 0300115970 (2006) ISBN 978-0300206128 (2014)
* The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village (2001; transferred to paperback in 2003) ISBN 978-0300091854 (2001) ISBN 978-0300098259 (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) ISBN 1853115592
* Faith of Our Fathers: Reflections on Catholic Tradition (2004; subsequent edition in 2006) ISBN 978-0826474797 (2004) ISBN 978-0826476654 (2006)
* Walking to Emmaus (2006) ISBN 978-0860124238
* Marking the Hours: English People and their Prayers 1240–1570 (2006; transferred to paperback in 2011) ISBN 9780300117141 (2006) ISBN 9780300170580 (2011)
* Fires of Faith: Catholic England Under Mary Tudor (2009; transferred to paperback in 2010) ISBN 978-0300152166 (2009) ISBN 9780300168891 (2010)
* Ten Popes Who Shook the World (2011) ISBN 978-0300176889
* Saints, Sacrilege and Sedition: Religion and Conflict in the Tudor Reformations (2012; transferred to paperback in 2014) ISBN 1441181172 (2012) ISBN 9781472909176 (2014)
* Reformation Divided: Catholics, Protestants, and the Conversion of England (2017) ISBN 9781472934369
* Royal Books and Holy Bones: Essays in Medieval Christianity (2018) ISBN 9781472953230
* John Henry Newman: A Very Brief History (2019) ISBN 978-0281078493
* A People's Tragedy: Studies in Reformation (2020) ISBN 978-1-4729-8385-5

### Other

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