Cressy, Hugh Paulinus

Cressy, Hugh Paulinus (krĕ`sē), 1605–74, English Benedictine monk. He was educated at Oxford and converted to Roman Catholicism in Rome in 1646. His Exomologesis (1647) is an apologia for his conversion. His most ambitious work, however, is his Church History of Brittany, or England (1668), one of the first attempts at objective church history. He edited the work of several Catholic mystics—Walter Hilton's Scale of Perfection, Friar Augustin Baker's Sancta Sophia, and the Revelations of Divine Love by Juliana of Norwich. Cressy served as chaplain to Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II.