Historians of the modern period are well acquainted with the traditional discourse surrounding the Reformation and the subsequent development of ‘Protestantism’. Typically, this discourse involves analysing confessional perspectives, ecclesial and institutional structures, and key individuals. Thankfully, scholars such as Thierry Wanegffelen, Olivier Christin and Natalie Davis have stretched the boundaries of this field’s historiography and helped reveal thicker angles of examination – even while demonstrating continued concern for the research questions of scholars before them. The collective contributions of both volumes of Un Parcours en Protestantisme continue such endeavours to broaden the methodological approaches to studying religion and spirituality in this period and, particularly, among French Protestants.

In fact, their titular metaphor provides an apt description of their purpose – ‘pathways’. Though attentive to the mainstay paths of studying Protestant identity, the contributions in these volumes demonstrate an attempt to take a different route than previous travellers. For the renowned scholar Yves Krumenacker, whose collected essays form volume i, Chemins de traverse, the goal is to take the ‘side roads’ to ‘enrich’ the picture of Protestantism by enlarging the inventory of sources studied in this pursuit (p. 10). For the editors of volume ii, Julien Léonard and Noémie Recous, the goals are simultaneous: to honour the legacy of Krumenacker’s work in compiling a mélange that solicits original research from his students and colleagues (p. 11) while also focusing on the historical circumstances of subjects along the ‘pathways’ of Protestantism between the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries in France (p. 7). The subtitle of volume ii, ‘fellow travellers’, indicates both the primary historical subject of the contributions in this volume and stands as a current relational metaphor for the contributors themselves to Krumenacker and his work. These two works make up consecutive volumes in the nearly-fifty-volume Chrétiens et Sociétés: Documents et Mémories collection edited by the Laboratoire de Recherche Historique Rhône-Alpes. Published since 2003, these volumes collect difficult to access chapters and essays to make them more accessible and, often, honour a retiring scholar.

In volume i, Krumenacker articulates his purpose, which is to build on the traditional image of Protestantism by giving nuance and explicating the cultural and intellectual imaginations of Protestants living between the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Borrowing Hubert Bost’s striking image of histoire buissonnière – roughly ‘hooky history’ in English – Krumenacker desires to contribute to the field while dodging formal institutions, practices and patterns of thought as much as possible; instead, he hopes to attend more closely to the unspoken nature of the way of life for Protestants of this era (p. 9). This volume is a collection of his previously published essays ranging from 1995 to 2020, though most of the essays are clustered within the 2010s. Krumenacker’s inventory of new sources includes non-traditional or under-investigated materials such as children’s books, hairstyle controversies and imagined genealogies. Additionally, he explores more thematic topics such as the Protestant engagement with (or absence from?) colonisation/evangelism (p. 232), their counterintuitive concept of night as a positive image (p. 309) and how Protestants constructed their own ‘genealogies’ or histories of faith (p. 351). Here is where Krumenacker demonstrates his brilliance: masterfully identifying, collating and analysing disparate and/or nontraditional sources to creatively display their relevance. Krumenacker’s blend of readability and the massive subject scope across these chapters demonstrates not just the contribution of his total career, but also his skill in curating the current volume. Naturally, there are some entries that stick to the main highways of Huguenot studies and find their way into more traditional, insider discussions (pp. 119ff, 89ff). However, Krumenacker’s selections are no monoculture of contributions; rather, they are a helpful, one-volume and appropriately contemporary map of the sideroads that is traversable for outsiders and insiders alike.

The contributions of volume ii are more diverse as the contributors were called to produce original research inspired by the interests and career of Krumenacker. As such, these thirteen chapters are divided into four sections to capture some of the dedicatee’s extensive interests: roots of the Reformation, high stakes confessional conversations, confessional resistance and resiliency and, finally, historiography and modes of producing history. The challenge of a thematic Festschrift of this type, let alone representing the expansive influence of Krumenacker, is soliciting contributions that both stand alone as fresh works of scholarship and fall along a direct ‘route’ of study. Accordingly, some of the contributions in this volume are more straightforward in their choice of subject, even if working to select atypical subjects – see Boisson and Borello’s chapters studying individual Huguenot pastors (pp. 81, 189). Of course, there are multiple entries that fulfil both of these aims – Quentin Roca’s chapter on the unifying nature of friendship with Theodore Beza, Léonard’s chapter on the conversion of Anne de Coligny to Lutheranism, Wenjing Wang’s chapter on the appropriation of Albigensian into Huguenot identity, and Christine Chadier and Pierre-Jean Souriac’s thorough investigation of lists. Finally, two essays provide such remarkable insight and originality that they deserve reading even apart from their appropriate place in this collection – Raymond Mentzer’s chapter on poor pastoral conduct among sixteenth-century ministers and Sarah Rouvière’s exciting exploration of Protestants who escaped from confessional prison in Vivarais.

Overall, the volumes of Un Parcours en Protestantisme deliver appropriate tribute to Yves Krumenacker while also curating research which examines the questions animating so much of Krumenacker’s work: who were the French Protestants, really? What was their self-perception? How did they situate themselves within their own historical imagination? Readers are taken along the ‘pathway’ to hear from the luminary himself while also tracing his impact through the writings of his colleagues and students. Any reader of these books will walk away animated by Krumenacker’s curiosity and aware of how he shaped the field of study. Collectively, these two volumes would be well-situated on comprehensive examination reading lists for doctoral students seeking to make an original contribution to modern religious scholarship. They are particularly useful in their display of important methodologies and research questions that have driven the field for the past twenty-five years.