Bruno Boute, a graduate of Leuven University, has recently published
a study of the involvement of academic institutions with the benefice system in
the early modern period. In this book he focuses on an anomaly: medieval
privileges that provided academics at Leuven with access to the Post-Tridentine clerical job market. Despite their
anachronistic flavour in a regional job market characterised by its openness
for graduates, these privileges were considered vital for the survival of the
university and of Catholicism. This conundrum, addressed via the analysis of
the privileges and the conflicts they provoked in Leuven colleges, local church
administrations, Brussels secretariats and Roman palaces during the archducal period
(1588/1598-1621/1625), leads to refreshing explorations of a fabric of academia
in the making and of the multiple worlds of early modern catholicism. Many
Irish scholars at Leuven, including Archbishop Peter Lombard of Armagh (d. 1625), feature in the work To purchase visit http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=210&pid=7209