ABSTRACT
The introduction into the formal corpus of Church teaching of a direct relationship between the reception of first communion and the question of age took place in an almost accidental, tangential manner. The translation and publication in England of both continental first communion texts and homegrown books by the mid-nineteenth century bear witness to the arrival of the ritual in England. The recent tracing of the origins of the rite in France has been facilitated by a wealth of archival documents, including contemporary biographies, published catechisms and local diocesan regulations. For England the task is far more complex because throughout the period of the ritual's initial development and extension the life of English Catholics was subject to the penal laws issued in the wake of the Protestant Reformation in that country. It was not until the First Catholic Relief Act of 1778 that bishops, priests and schoolmasters were finally freed from the risk of prosecution and arrest.
