ABSTRACT
Anglo-Catholics and Catholics were naturally more sympathetic, but the occasional kind words of the anti-medievalists give point to the paradoxical nature of their not being completely united in their acclamation. The paradoxicality of the Anglo-Catholic position is heightened by the notion that they were medievalistically invigorated by Sir Walter Scott, whose works were, however, overtly anti-Catholic. The Monastery is the locus classicus of Scott’s apparently deliberate socially and psychologically self-protective ambiguity. The chief Victorian Catholic religious medievalist commonly identified as “romantic” were Kenelm Henry Digby, Augustus Welby Neale Pugin, De Lisle and John Patrick Stuart, the third Marquess of Bute. Anglicans are separated from the Catholic world by their impoverished ritual and their corresponding ignorance of the language of Catholic worship. The Anglican Church is barren because it has neglected its Catholic heritage; whereas the Middle Ages are a “true gage” by which to measure “the stammering Churches” and restore “Their unity of ritual voice”.
