# Eamon Duffy

Eamon Duffy (9 February 1947–) is an Irish historian. He is a professor of the history of Christianity at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow and former president of Magdalene College.

## Quotes

* Marian devotion is very deeply embedded in Ultramontane papalist Catholicism, and has been for centuries. The Virgin in the nineteenth century, apparitions of the Virgin, play an enormous part in focusing Catholic loyalty, Catholic identity, and also in offering a dimension of Christianity... If you've got a very rigid, hierarchical, masculinely-dominated form of Christianity, the tender, nurturing, feminine element in Christianity can only be rescued by some sort of balancing act. This I think was an enormous strength in nineteenth century Catholicism over and against say nineteenth century Fundamentalist Evangelicalism - with which it has a great deal in common in some respects - but where I think it has an edge is in this feminine dimension.
** Interview (1999)
* The reason the Pope is the Pope is that he is the custodian of the relics of St Peter.
** Quoted in Andrew Brown, 'Bones of contention', Times2 (18 October 2001), p. 2
* I do not think there is a Christian shape to history in the sense that things move according to God's plan in any discernible way. I think a Christian approaches history with a sense that human life matters and has meaning and that it is both possible and important to tell the truth. Perhaps that constitutes a Christian approach to history because none of those things can be taken for granted now, even among people practicing history. There are people who practice history who think that it is a branch of the creative arts in the sense that we impose patterns on the past. I believe that we discover patterns in the past.
** Confronting the Church's Past An interview with Eamon Duffy (16 June 2004)

## Quotes about Eamon Duffy

* Duffy's aim is to redress an old historiographical imbalance. He has admirably succeeded in this, even if at the cost of another imbalance. This is, as it stands, a very illuminating and satisfying book, which takes a major step towards better understanding of the English Reformation.
** Margaret Aston, review of The Stripping of the Altars, The English Historical Review, Vol. 109, No. 430 (February 1994), pp. 113-114
* The Stripping of the Altars by Eamon Duffy, professor of the history of Christianity at Cambridge and a former president of Magdalene College, is the most important study of our time in the field of early modern English religious history. It has completely changed our view of the reception of Protestant theology under the Tudors.
** Stanford Lehmberg, review of The Stripping of the Altars, The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 40, No. 1, Special Fortieth Anniversary Issue (Spring 2009), p. 110
* Eamon Duffy's The Stripping of the Altars takes its place besides A. G. Dickens' The English Reformation as a landmark book in the history of the Reformation, and with this book the author assumes commanding rank in the revisionist camp.
** Ann Eljenholm Nichols, review of The Stripping of the Altars, The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Autumn 1993), p. 751
* The most beautiful history book of the year is Marking the Hours: English People and their Prayers, 1240–1570... Eamon Duffy examines surviving copies of the Book of Hours, the most intimate book of the late Middle Ages, tracing the marks left by readers — everything from laundry lists scribbled in the margins to personalised versions of prayers. This richly illustrated book takes us back into the hearts and souls of the English long ago.
** Ruth Scurr, 'Piety, palaces, prewar prescience', The Times Books (18 November 2006), p. 14