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Foreign Intruders: Anti-Jesuit Narratives in Poland–Lithuania during the Reigns of Stephen Báthory and Sigismund III, 1576–1632
Author(s): Robert Aleksander Maryks (Author), Michał Nowakowski (Author)
- Publisher: Brill
- Publication Date: October 30, 2025
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 196 pages
- ISBN-10: 9004727000
- ISBN-13: 9789004727007
Book Description
Foreign Intruders is the first study in English to examine the rise of anti-Jesuit literature in Poland–Lithuania during the reigns of Stephen Báthory and Sigismund III (1576–1632), a period of profound political and religious change. Through an analysis of theological treatises, political pamphlets, speeches, and poetry, the book reveals how fear of the Jesuits transcended confessional divides, uniting Protestant and Catholic critics alike. It examines key figures like Jakub Niemojewski, Andrzej Wolan, Marcin Czechowic, and Jan Brożek, while reassessing long-debated texts and their attribution, including Monita privata and Equitis Poloni in Jesuitas actio prima.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Maryks and Nowakowski have produced a work that is both an archival resource and a warning. Religious fear rarely centers on theology. It focuses on identity, sovereignty, and the narratives communities create to protect themselves from imagined threats. As this book shows with impressive clarity, those narratives can endure through the centuries.”
Massimo Introvigne, Center for Studies on New Religions. In: Bitter Winter, March 17, 2026.
Massimo Introvigne, Center for Studies on New Religions. In: Bitter Winter, March 17, 2026.
About the Author
Robert Aleksander Maryks, Ph.D. (Fordham University, New York), is Professor of Early Modern History and Literature at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. He has published extensively on the history of the Jesuits, including the monographs Saint Cicero and the Jesuits(Ashgate, 2008) and The Jesuit Order as a Synagogue of Jews (Brill, 2010), as well as a dozen co-edited volumes. He is the founding editor of the Journal of Jesuit Studies and of several Jesuit-related series at Brill.
Michał E. Nowakowski is a doctoral candidate at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland. His research focuses on Catholic–Calvinist polemical literature, Jesuit political and social thought, and early modern diplomatic theory.