View source for Kenelm Henry Digby

{{other people||Kenelm Digby (disambiguation)}}
{{More footnotes needed|date=June 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2019}}
'''Kenelm Henry Digby''' (c. 1797 – 1880) was an Anglo-Irish writer, whose reputation rests chiefly on his earliest publication, ''[[The Broad-Stone of Honour]], or Rules for the Gentlemen of England'' (1822), which contains an exhaustive survey of medieval customs. The work was subsequently enlarged and issued (1828–29) in four volumes, entitled ''Godefridus'', ''Tancredus'', ''Morus'' and ''Orlandus''.<ref>{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Digby, Kenelm Henry|volume=8|page=262}}</ref>

Digby's exposure to [[Walter Scott]]'s novel ''[[Ivanhoe]]'' as a youth encouraged him to romanticize the Middle Ages. ''Broad-Stone'' contributed to the [[Young England]] movement's feudalist ideology and influenced many of Digby's Cambridge contemporaries. The book inculcated in readers ideas of chivalry and staunch Catholicism and stressed the importance of the heart’s knowledge over intellectual learning, presenting historical figures as role models. Digby's revival of medieval principles helped young men of his day construct their idea of what being a "gentleman" means.

==Life==
Born at [[Clonfert]] in [[County Galway]], he was 15 when his father died in 1812. He moved to England to attend Petersham High School near London. From 1816 to 1819, he went to [[Trinity College, Cambridge]],<ref>{{acad|id=DGBY814KH|name=Digby, Kenelm Henry}}</ref> where some members of the university advocated reform and even republicanism; Digby, however, favoured a strong monarchy, the Church, and chivalry. At Cambridge, he read [[Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson|Alfred Tennyson]] and [[Arthur Hallam]]; his close friends there were George Darby, [[Julius Hare (theologian)|Julius Hare]], [[William Whewell]], and [[Adam Sedgwick]]. In summer, he travelled across Europe sketching old castles and writing.

[[Ehrenbreitstein Fortress]], a massive medieval fortification in Germany, gave him the title ''The Broad-Stone of Honour''. He published the book in a single volume in 1822, and the beliefs he explored while writing it seem to have contributed to his conversion to Catholicism in 1825. After that, he rewrote and expanded the one volume into four, published in 1828–29: ''Godfridus'', containing a general introduction (named after [[Godfrey of Boulogne]], a Crusade hero); ''Tancredus'', discussing chivalry’s discipline and applauding Christianity (for [[Tancred, Prince of Galilee]], another Crusade hero); ''Morus'', bashing the Reformation as the death of chivalry and religion (after [[Sir Thomas More]]); and ''Orlandus'', which detailed Digby's idea of chivalric behaviour (after [[Ariosto]]'s ''[[Orlando Furioso]]'').{{Citation needed|date=June 2014}}

From 1831 to 1841, Digby published ''Mores Catholici, or Ages of Faith'', an eleven-volume "[[panegyric]]" on the medieval period. It was often referred to by Catholic writers, and sections of it were reprinted as late as 1942.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Gleason |first=Philip |date=1971 |title=Mass and Maypole Revisited: American Catholics and the Middle Ages |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25018873 |journal=The Catholic Historical Review |volume=57 |issue=2 |pages=249–274 |jstor=25018873 |issn=0008-8080}}</ref>

==References==
*{{cite DNB|wstitle=Digby, Kenelm Henry|volume=15}}
*''Memoir of Kenelm Digby'' by Bernard Holland, first published 1919; paperback, Fisher Press, 1992 {{ISBN|1-874037-05-1}}
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{Commons category-inline}}
*{{CathEncy|wstitle=Kenelm Henry Digby}}
*[[hdl:10079/fa/beinecke.digby|Kenelm Henry Digby Collection]]. James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

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[[Category:1790s births]]
[[Category:1880 deaths]]
[[Category:Date of birth unknown]]
[[Category:Place of death missing]]
[[Category:19th-century Anglo-Irish people]]
[[Category:19th-century English writers]]
[[Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge]]