This book comes to us as part of the 500-year anniversary of the publication in Basel of the Erasmus edition of the Greek New Testament by the Basel printer Johannes Froben. The author is a life-long Anglican, born in England but resident in Basel since 1969 and is a Swiss citizen. As well as this he was a church warden in the Anglican parish in Basel for many years. This book is his contribution to the Erasmus celebration to focus on the long history of relations between Basel and the English church. The book is very interesting especially in two respects. It looks at connections between England and Basel from the perspective of Basel. In so doing it sheds a very particular light on matters that were usually viewed from the perspective of England. In so doing it touches on the Council of Basel (1431–49) called at the instigation of King Henry V of England and in which two English bishops participated but in the midst of controversy. A young secretary at the council, Enea Silvio Piccolomini later in 1460, as Pope Pius II, gave Basel the licence to establish a university. Erasmus later inscribed his name in the Matriculation book of the university and the first English student did so in 1471. Much later in 1967 a young Australian priest also signed the same very large book. There are numerous stops on the way in the sequence of stories that make up the book. One of the more noteworthy and less noted is the collaboration between English and Basel evangelicals in missionary activity. Two things came together in the last years of the eighteenth century to establish a working relationship between the Basel-based German Christian Society and the Church Missionary Society in England along with Bible societies in each city. In turn a Basel Mission Society established a training college whose graduates often went to CMS postings and CMS candidates were also trained at the Missionshandlung Basel. This collaboration proved both flexible and effective in promoting the great missionary outreach of the nineteenth century.

Relations between Basel and England occupy the first half of the book. In the second half the second theme emerges, namely the emergence of an Anglican parish in the city. In the nineteenth century English aristocrats travelled with their households to Basel en route to the mountains of Switzerland. They often had a chaplain in their company and when in Basel they sought locations for holding services for the company. Hotels were often used. From such transient beginnings and to cater for an increasing number of ex patriot residents in Basel, chaplains were established. Initially there were chaplains for the summer tourist seasons, but later on a more permanent basis. The Colonial Church and Schools Society undertook this challenge. Later the society was transformed into the Commonwealth and Continental Church Society. In 1860 chaplains had to be registered by the bishop of London or Gibraltar. These reasonably unusual arrangements were changed in 1955 when on local initiative a Chaplaincy Association was formed under Swiss law to employ a chaplain to be licensed by the bishop. The Swiss Reformed Church in Basel allowed services to be held in the St Nicholas Chapel in the cathedral. The first full-time chaplain, the Revd Alan Borthwick, commenced in 1957. The chaplaincy is now part of the recently created diocese of Europe.

This book tells an interesting story of the connections between England and Basel over a 900-year period and by telling them from a Basel perspective sheds fascinating light on them. It also tells an intriguing tale of how a nationally formed church tradition in England interacted with a similarly nationally formed but different religious tradition. It also shows how political events shaped the emerging organizational arrangements for an Anglican parish to come into being in an independent city state and nation. The formation of the diocese of Europe is a similar story on a broader scope. Both things illustrate the kinds of institutional compromises that are necessary to sustain such nationally formed traditions in another culture and jurisdiction. The book is an insider’s account of how that happened and the ambiguity of cultural adjustments.