Please note that the CAS has no formal affiliation with any of these institutions, organisations or societies and accepts no responsibility for the content of any external links.
What is Catholic Material Culture?
Material Culture encompasses a wide range of things regarding Catholic Heritage in this context it means physical artefacts including, paintings, textiles, church plate, relics, furniture and book bindings.
Many religious archives now contain artefacts and books as well as paper records. If you need advice on caring for material objects in your collections the following resources will be useful and CAS Members have access to The Care of Artefacts in Archival Collections, by Naomi Johnson and Claire Marsland, 2020: £6.00. This publication is also available to purchase, see Publications
For any further information about caring for Catholic Material Culture please email us : catholicarchivesociety@gmail.com
Useful Resources for Research:
British Catholic Material Culture Group 1538-1829
Grace, Piety & Memory: The Material Culture of British Catholics 1534-1850. This booklet is offered as a short guide to understanding the challenges of caring for, documenting and interpreting this heritage. The fruit of two years’ research by the British Catholic Material Culture Research Group, it presents case studies, bibliographies and links to resources.
It can be downloaded here from the second paragraph of the British Art Network Website. https://britishartnetwork.org.uk/research/british-catholic-material-culture-1538-1829/
The Fabric of Resistance Project -The British Academy https://sites.google.com/ushaw.org/fabricofresistance/home
Unpicking John Morton’s ‘Cope’ https://www.durham.ac.uk/departments/academic/archaeology/research/archaeology-research-projects/unpicking-archbishop-john-mortons-cope/
‘Rags of Popery’: Dressing and addressing disrupted faith in the material culture of Roman Catholics in early modern England by Mary M. Brooks
Tessa Murdoch, ‘Revitalising Antiquities : Sacred Silver and Its Afterlives in Post-Reformation England’, In Walsham A, Wallace B, Law C, Cummings B, (eds) Memory and the English Reformation, (Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 207-222.
Jesuit Collections: ‘Hot Holy Ladies’ and ‘How bleedeth burning love ‘Online Exhibitions https://www.jesuitcollections.org.uk/#3
The Religion, Collections and Heritage Group
https://religioncollections.wordpress.com
Catholic Church Patrimony
https://www.cbcew.org.uk/patrimony/
Museum Catalogues:
Museum Catalogues which contain Catholic Material Culture items can be useful tools for comparison. You may find an identical item to the one in your collection or they may provide you with useful context on a historical period. Using the search terms ‘relics’, ‘chalice’, ‘vestment’, ‘Catholic’, ‘rosary’, can be a good place to start.
Caring for Catholic Material Culture
See the Caring for Our Heritage page of this website
catholicarchivesociety.org 