ABSTRACT
This difference between biographies written by English Catholics and those translated from Latin languages can be explained partly by the fact that England was a hostile environment for Catholics, and the opprobrium of society and persecution under the law brought quite enough suffering on Catholic heads without going in search of more. Perhaps more significantly, though, it suggests a different temperament, less inclined to sacramental enactment, more given to reflection and internalization (if one wishes to stress it positively) – or (looking at it another way) suppression – of feelings. English Catholics were aligned ideologically with the Latin South, but they were also a product of English society and, while some went into exile, embracing more fully the culture of their adoptive countries (the flamboyant Tobie Matthew, for example, being more akin to the Mediterranean than the English temperament), they shared qualities with their Protestant cousins that differed from the inhabitants of the Latin lands of (inter alia) polychronicity, emotional affect and Inquisition.
