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EDMUND BURKE AND THE MONASTERIES OF FRANCE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2005

DEREK BEALES
DEREK BEALES
Affiliation:
Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
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Abstract

Burke's Reflections contains a section of about ten pages on the monasteries of France, deploring not only the confiscation of their property but also the destruction of the institutions themselves, which are defended for their contribution to learning, beauty, and agriculture and for their general social role. Their ‘superstition’ is vindicated as preferable to that of the philosophes. Burke maintains that they could and should have been reformed, rather than suppressed. This discussion of monasteries has been almost wholly ignored by commentators and editors. The following article considers these pages against the reality of French monasticism, itself a neglected theme, and shows their centrality to Burke's critique of the Revolution.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , June 2005 , pp. 415 - 436
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

I owe a profound debt to two scholars who have with great generosity read drafts of this article and shared with me their deep knowledge of the field: Dr I. C. Harris and Dr T. J. Hochstrasser. Their comments, as well as telling me much that I did not know, have enabled me to improve my argument at many points. But they are not, of course, to be held responsible for my final text. I have also benefited from the advice of Dr R. L. Wokler and from the reactions of my hearers when I delivered versions of this article as papers to the History Department of Queen's University, Belfast, under the aegis of Dr R. Butterwick, and to the History Society of St John's College, Cambridge.