CRESSY, HUGH (PAULINUS SERENUS). - English Benedictine theologian, b. at Thorpe-Salvin (Yorkshire) ca. 1605; d. at East Grinstead (Sussex) on 10 Aug. 1674. Having come to Oxford in 1619, he was a fellow of Merton College in 1627. Having received Anglican Orders, he was chaplain first to Lord Wentworth, then to Lord Falkland, and visited Ireland in 1658. With Charles Berkeley, later Lord Falmouth, he travelled on the continent, and became a Catholic in Rome in 1646, later publishing in Paris (1647), where he received further instruction from Henry Holden, doctor of the Sorbonne, the Exomologesis, in which he set out the reasons for his conversion. In the monastery of St. Gregory at Douai he became a Benedictine (1649), taking the name Serenus. In 1660 he was sent to London as chaplain to Catherine of Braganza, the Catholic consort of King Charles II, and from 1669 to East Grinstead as chaplain to the Caryll family.
He published: Church History of Brittany or England, from the Beginning of Christianity to the Norman Conquest (Rouen 1668); the second part, From the Conquest Downwards, was discovered in manuscript at Douai in 1856. He also published, under various titles, the writings of the English medieval mystics (W. Hilton, the Cloud of Unknowing) and Sancta Sophia of the ven. A. Baker; Certain Patterns of Devout Exercises (Douai 1657); Roman Catholic Doctrines and Novelties (London 1663); A Non Est Inventus (ibid. 1662) and various pamphlets of apologetics and controversy. Of particular note are his refutations of the anti-Catholic writings of Dr. Stillingfleet (1672-74). C.'s writings are learned, inspired by fervour and zeal. In controversy he is courteous, though he always strikes home.