The Mirror of Cruelty: A Compendium of Atrocities Committed Against Catholics in the Sixteenth Century

The sixteenth century, which heralded the end of the Middle Ages and the commencement of the Early Modern Era, was a time of tremendous religious upheaval and social ferment. The nebulous conglomeration of movements often referred to as the "Reformation" led to a wave of bloodshed and persecution which engulfed most of Europe for at least a hundred years. The present volume offers a translation of a particularly graphic literary portrayal of tortures and atrocities committed against Catholics during that time--the Speculum Haereticae Crudelitatis [The Mirror of Heretical Cruelty], by Arnold Havens (1540-1610). Havens was a Carthusian monk, an accomplished historian and scholar, and a prolific author. His Mirror of Cruelty is a remarkable and unique literary achievement, describing in gruesome and chilling detail an extensive catalogue of disturbing, inhuman and often bizarre acts of abuse. Most of these have not been available in any English-language sources until now, or have been presented only in abridged and bowdlerized forms. Havens drew the overall plan of his work from another book which enjoyed a wide, underground circulation at the time--the notorious Theatrum Crudelitatum [Theatre of Cruelties], by Richard Verstegan, a kind of nightmarish picture-book of atrocities committed against Catholics. A selection of illustrations from that book are included in this volume.

Robert Nixon is a Benedictine monk of the Abbey of the Most Holy Trinity, New Norcia, Western Australia, and a Roman Catholic priest. He serves as Director of the New Norcia Institute for Benedictine Studies, and is dean and liturgy coordinator for his monastic community. His publications include many translations of Medieval and post-Medieval Latin works, such as Crown of the Virgin by Ildephonsus of Toledo, Humility and the Elevation of the Mind to God by Thomas a Kempis, and adaptations into English verse of the poetry of Popes Urban VIII and Alexander VI. Articles of his have appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including the Revue Benedictine, the American Benedictine Review, and Ecce Mater Tua. He is a former senate member of James Cook University (Australia), an honorary professor of the Universidad Politecnica de Nicaragua, and an honorary academician of the Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna, and was awarded the Faculty Medal in Theology by the Australian Catholic University.