Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Sources

Catholic Encyclopedia, "Penal Laws" (New Advent)

New Advent online edition, accessed 2026

Citation Formats

General Reference

APA Style

BibTeX

The Penal Laws entry of the 1907 to 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia, hosted at New Advent, surveying the English and Irish statutes penalizing Catholics from the Elizabethan settlement onward. Its account of Elizabeth I's reign states that under the 1585 Act against Jesuits, Seminary Priests and Other Such Like Disobedient Persons, which made it high treason for a Jesuit or seminary priest to remain in England at all, over 150 Catholics died on the scaffold between 1581 and 1603, a figure the entry gives as exclusive of those executed earlier in the reign.

Facts
Citation
Author
Catholic Encyclopedia editorial staff (1907 to 1912 edition) 1
Publisher
New Advent (online edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia) 1
URL
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11611c.htm 1
Source Type
reference 1
Assessment
Reliability Tier
1
Reference-encyclopedia tier 3, a century-old Catholic reference work with an evident institutional viewpoint on its own subject; used here only for its specific execution-count figure, which is consistent with the independently reported range of roughly 150 to 200 given elsewhere for the same 1581 to 1603 span, and recorded as debated below rather than as a single settled number.
Sources
Claims Backed By This Source (15 claims)

This source backs 15 claims across the atlas. As facts: 10 well-attested, 2 scholarly debate. As cited relationships: 2 connected. Plus 1 entities citing it as a general reference with no single fact or relationship attached.

Disposition By Topic

  • Religious Events, 15 claims: 10 well-attested, 2 scholarly debate, 2 connected, 1 general references.

Well-attested

10

Scholarly debate

2

General References

1
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.