Miles Pinkney

Miles Pinkney (1599–1674), alias Thomas Carre or Carr, was an English Catholic priest of the Old Chapter. A point of contact for English Catholics with Cardinal Richelieu, some of whose works he translated, he was also a founder of the St. Augustin convent in Paris.

Life

He was brought up at Broomhill in the bishopric of Durham. He was sent when very young to the English College at Douai, was admitted among the clergy per tonsuram 13 June 1620, and was ordained priest by special dispensation 15 June 1625, Afterwards he was appointed procurator of the college, and he held that office till 1634, when he undertook the project of founding a monastery of canonesses of St. Augustin at Paris, where he resided as their confessor till his death. The foundation of this monastery preoccupied him through much of his life. After a seizure with a palsy he became almost paralysed for nearly twelve years before his death, which occurred in the monastery, then situated in the Rue des Fossés Saint Victor, Paris, on 31 October 1674.

He was a great friend of Richard Crashaw the poet, and saw his Carmen Deo Nostro through the press.[1] Arras College in Paris was in 1667 much expanded by him, though it was not completed till many years later, when Dr. John Betham was appointed to preside over it. Carre was respected by the court of France, especially by Cardinal Richelieu, who was a munificent benefactor to the English Catholics abroad through his mediation.

Works

His works are:

Notes

  1. Thomas N. Corns, A History of Seventeenth-century English Literature (2007), p. 266.

References

Further reading