Cambridge professor, 1884–1891
The Creightons arrived in Cambridge in late November 1884 and were deluged with invitations to social engagements. Interaction with academic society after ten years led to new friendships, especially for Louise. One such new acquaintance, Beatrice Webb, who became Louise's firm lifelong friend, wrote of her, "She has, I think, a warmer heart and a larger mind than her husband's". Creighton had already corresponded with Acton and now met him in person, as he did other Cambridge notables, such as Robertson Smith, the Hebrew and Arabic scholar, and Alfred Marshall, the economist.
From his arrival in Cambridge, colleagues turned to Creighton for his advice. He contributed to changes in the historical tripos and its examination, providing candidates with more choice and more open-ended questions. Crowder writes, "As a historian he was concerned with what the past had to tell about the character of the actors and their times rather than with the accumulation of information".
Creighton lectured twice a week at the university, preparing extensively, but lecturing without notes. He also preached in the Emmanuel College chapel. A colleague said of his preaching style, "He did not care for eloquence, indeed he despised it; what he aimed at was instruction, and for this he always looked more to principles than facts". He lectured more informally to undergraduates at Emmanuel College once a week. He supported Cambridge's two new women's colleges, Girton (founded 1869) and Newnham (1871), and taught informal weekly classes at Newnham. Two students from those classes, Mary Bateson and Alice Gardner, later became professional historians; both were mentored by Creighton.
Creighton was given to undertaking any work he was asked to do. In 1885 he accepted two appointments that added substantially to his workload. A long-planned journal of history, The English Historical Review was launched with Creighton as its editor, and he became a residentiary canon of Worcester Cathedral. Crowder writes that Creighton had no illusions about the work editing the journal would entail: "he accepted out of duty, before any editorial policy had been framed, quite apart from his goal of promoting interest in the discipline and improving research".
The canonry at Worcester required the holder to be in residence there for a total of three months every year. Creighton fitted this into his academic schedule: he and his household lived in the cathedral close there during university vacations. During the weeks of his residence he preached in the cathedral every Sunday evening to large congregations. He contributed to the cathedral's intellectual and liturgical life, giving lectures and bringing visiting scholars to lecture to the clergy of the diocese.
Creighton's experiences at Worcester led him to consider how a relationship of competition between a cathedral and the parish churches of the diocese could be turned into one of cooperation, a subject on which he would write scholarly articles. He did not overlook the grim side of city life. He joined the Worcester Diocesan Penitentiary Association and was moved by the plight of prison inmates. In a sermon at the Sanitary Congress of Worcester in 1889 he spoke about the effect of harsh physical life on the moral life:
Emmanuel College was the alma mater of the Rev John Harvard, after whom Harvard College in the US is named. In November 1886, the college marked its 250th anniversary in November 1886 and Creighton, accompanied by Louise, attended the celebrations, representing Emmanuel. During the extended visit, they met prominent American men of letters, including the historian of the American West, Francis Parkman; the future supreme court justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.; and the poet and critic James Russell Lowell. Creighton received an honorary Harvard doctorate.
In February 1887 volumes III and IV of Creighton's History of the Papacy were published by Longmans. These volumes narrowed the focus to specific popes, chiefly, Sixtus IV, Alexander VI and Julius II, and covered a period of a little over half a century, bringing the narrative to 1518 and the start of the Reformation. In his approach of maintaining historiographical balance and considering individuals as products of their historical eras, Creighton did not single out anyone for special condemnation, even the Borgia pope, Alexander VI, whose "exceptional infamy", Creighton felt, was "largely due to the fact that he did not add hypocrisy to his other vices".
Creighton invited Acton to review the two volumes for The English Historical Review. Acton had by this time developed what the historian J. P. Kenyon has called "his hatred of the papacy, [which], inflamed by his historical studies, knew no bounds". Acton's review was largely hostile, implying that Creighton's methods were not those of a "scrupulous and self-respecting writer", and commenting adversely about "the economy of evidence, and the severity with which the raw material is repressed". In the following weeks there were contentious exchanges between the two men, polarising eventually into their two views of history, Acton's normative approach versus Creighton's more relativist one. Acton's strictures led Creighton to reconsider his own position and become slightly more judgmental. In an 1895 paper he would write that the papacy, "which had been established for the promotion of morality" had in fact "provided the means for the utmost immorality".
