Following the formal proscription of the formation of Catholic religious houses in England in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, English Benedictine communities were established on the Continent from 1606 onwards. At the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, there were three independent houses belonging to the English Benedictine Congregation in France. The Revolution presented the English monks with a very real and tangible threat to their existence and securities, introducing a series of decrees that impacted on monastic life greatly. The monks responded to these incursions not by assuming the role of passive victims, or religious refugees caught up in a foreign conflict, but rather showed themselves to be shrewd operators, adept at playing the game of revolutionary politics and by navigating legal niceties. This article will illustrate that the monks’ sophisticated networks of information gathering and sharing allowed them to coordinate more coherent response strategies to the Revolution amongst other British and Irish exiled communities, whilst also permitting themselves to employ a series of delaying tactics. The impact of the monks’ responses to the Revolution, however, extended beyond British and Irish exiles, and impacted directly on the local French populations, through their work in the ‘refractory Church’.

中文翻译：

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对革命的回应：1789-93 年法国大革命中英国本笃会修士的经历

在新教改革之后正式禁止在英格兰建立天主教会后，英国本笃会社区从 1606 年开始在欧洲大陆建立。1789年法国大革命爆发时，在法国有三个独立的房屋属于英国本笃会。革命对英国僧侣的生存和安全构成了非常真实和切实的威胁，引入了一系列对修道院生活产生重大影响的法令。僧侣们对这些入侵的反应不是扮演被动受害者或卷入外国冲突的宗教难民的角色，而是表现出自己是精明的经营者，擅长玩革命政治游戏和驾驭法律细节。本文将说明僧侣们复杂的信息收集和共享网络使他们能够在其他英国和爱尔兰流亡社区中协调更一致的革命应对策略，同时也允许他们采用一系列延迟策略。然而，僧侣们对革命的反应的影响超出了英国和爱尔兰的流亡者，并通过他们在“耐火教堂”中的工作直接影响了当地的法国人口。