Dr Liam Temple

Biography

Liam is Adjunct Research Fellow at the University of Notre Dame Australia and Capuchin Fellow in the History of Catholicism at the Centre for Catholic Studies at Durham University.

Liam is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He also currently serves on the executive committee of the Catholic Record Society. Between 2019 and 2023 he served on the committee for The History of Women Religious of Britain and Ireland (H-WRBI).

Liam is interested broadly in the history of religion, and his current research examines the largely unexplored history of the Capuchin Franciscans, including their presence in Britain from the start of the seventeenth century to the present day. This includes their presence as missionaries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as well as their history as a fully-fledged province from the 1870s onwards. This has evolved into wider interests in the history of Franciscanism, the history of the Catholic religious orders, and the history of the Catholic Reformation.

Much of Liam’s current work has been undertaken in partnership with the Capuchin Franciscans of Great Britain and Australia. As a result, he is also interested in the ways in which religious groups and secular historians can work together on projects, and the community engagement and impact potential that can result from such partnerships.

Research expertise and supervision

History of Catholicism
Historical theology
Franciscanism
History of religion
Mysticism and mystical theology

Books

Monographs

The Capuchins, Transnational Catholicism, and Britain, 1580-1700 (Oxford University Press, under contract)
Radical Poverty: The Capuchins and Catholicism in Britain, 1850-2021 (Bloomsbury, under contract)
Mysticism in Early Modern England (Boydell & Brewer, 2019)

Edited volumes

The Oxford History of British and Irish Catholicism, Vol II, co-edited with John Morrill (Oxford University Press, 2023)

Book chapters

2024. ‘The Capuchins in England and the Franciscan centenary celebrations of 1924’ in B. Abbot (ed.), Celebrating 800 Years of Franciscans in the British Isles (Franciscan Publishing). Forthcoming.
2019. ‘George Herbert’, in R. Rittgers and V. Evener (eds.), Protestants and Mysticism in Reformation Europe (Brill), pp. 328–48.

Journal articles and proceedings

2024. ‘Through a glass darkly? Modern Catholicism in Britain and Ireland through the ‘Catholicism in Numbers’ datasets’, British Catholic History. Forthcoming. Co-authored.
2023. ‘Roundtable discussion: The History of British and Irish Catholicism: Past, Present and Future’, British Catholic History, 36, pp. 255-279. Co-authored.
2021. ‘Protestant readers of Catholic spirituality in seventeenth-century England’, Catholic Archives, 41, pp. 81–98.
2019. ‘Mysticism and Identity among the English Poor Clares’, Church History, 88, pp. 645–71.
2017. ‘The Mysticism of Augustine Baker, OSB: A Reconsideration’, Reformation and Renaissance Review, 19, pp. 213–30.
2017. ‘“Have we any mother Juliana's among us?” The Multiple Identities of Julian of Norwich in Restoration England’, British Catholic History, 33, pp. 383–400.
2016. ‘Returning the English “Mystics” To Their Medieval Milieu: Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe and Bridget of Sweden’, Women’s Writing, 23, pp. 141–58.

In the media

2024. ‘Carlo Acutis: what the first ‘millennial saint’ says about the Catholic church’s future’, article in The Conversation, May 2024 (18,000 views as of August 2024).
2024. ‘Who preaches to the Pope? The unique history of the Preacher to the Papal Household’ in The Conversation, forthcoming September 2024.
2024. ‘800 years of the Franciscans in England’ article in The Tablet, forthcoming September 2024.
2023. ‘In the footsteps of Saint Francis’ article in The Tablet, July 2023.

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