He observes, 'Luther's earlier adversaries thus wrote few masterly or attractive works, yet it remained all-important to the Catholic cause that Protestant contentions should not go unanswered.' (Pg.

The interest of Spaniards in this approach to religion was not limited to a handful of choice spirits: it became almost a literary mass-movement.' (Pg. He notes, 'Since Spanish mysticism stands among the most striking phenomena of the Catholic Reformation, the problems surrounding its origin assume a special importance at this stage of our inquiry. In addition I hope to make it cleear that this Reformation went far beyond these two simple ideas, that it involved not only a sharpening of Catholic definitions but a choice between rival emphases offered to the Catholic Church.' in this book I shall try to use each in its appropriate place: Catholic Reformation for the more spontaneous manifestions, Counter Reformation for the developed movement with resistance and reconquest high on its agenda. it seems equally clear that the Catholic Reformation was a slow starter and the Lutheran Reformation an exceedingly rapid one. He wrote in the Preface to this 1969 book, 'Counter Reformation or Catholic Reformation? Was it not quite obviously both? Some of the tributaries to the stream of revival are discernible before Luther. He has written other books such as The English Reformation, The Long European Reformation: Religion, Political Conflict and the Search for Conformity, 1350-1750 (European History in Perspective), The Reformation in Historical Thought, etc. Arthur Geoffrey Dickens (1910-2001) was an English Professor of History at King's College London, then Director of the Institute of Historical Research and Professor of History in the University of London.

The Counter-Reformation by A.G. Dickens