Due to their status as religious refugees and theological misfits, the Huguenots have long fascinated historians. Their paper trail is truly astounding; the Huguenots wrote not only escape narratives and theological tracts, but also printed volumes of sermons and theological tracts. It is this mountain of written sources that has attracted countless scholars to study the surprisingly easily-accessible Huguenots. Indeed, the Huguenots themselves were the first to write Huguenot historiography, leaving historians with a significant body of partisan and parochial sources through which to sort. Aside from their theological claims, however, sermons have largely been marginalised as a useful set of data. In fact, Philip Must's book demonstrates well that these sermons are under-examined in their capacity to reveal both Huguenot community self-fashioning as well as political theory. Though certainly not novel in its articulation of Huguenot politics and theology, Must's key contribution is in his methodology.

Specifically, Must argues here that sermons – both preached and, crucially, printed – were instrumental in shaping a Huguenot identity following the Edict of Nantes. This identity was essentially a ‘hybrid of religious particularism and political loyalism’ (p. 215). In attempting to distinguish themselves from their Catholic opponents, the Huguenots justified a position of absolutism that included a space for loyal, yet Reformed French subjects. Importantly, Must limits his scope to the period after the fall of La Rochelle at the hands of Richelieu and Louis xiii. Cleverly, the author selects sources that have an appropriate distance from the Wars of Religion as well as a sharp drop-off coinciding with the coming Revocation of 1685. During this period, from 1629 to 1685, an increase in printed sermons was accompanied by a ‘shift in tone’ which demonstrated, according to Must, that reading audiences were more amenable to sermons and less to the ‘acerbic text’ of the previous epoch. Whether or not this is true, Must does helpfully reorient readers to new sources. He also profiles the previously-undervalued political contributions of seventeenth-century sermons.

Must divides his book into three sections in order to build his case. Somewhat unhelpfully, the sections are not clearly identified in the table of contents. Must's first section consists of one chapter which uses three pastors – Charles Drelincourt, Jean Daillé and Jean Mestrezat – as representatives of the training, networks and responsibilities of Huguenot ministers in their social elements. More of an overview of Huguenot pastors in general, this chapter accomplishes its main goal of highlighting the importance of the sermon in the life of pastors; thus, Must can accurately claim that sermons are both important and representative of Huguenot politics and theology in general. In his more robust second section the author shows how preachers during this period used sermons as a way to construct (and reinforce) their heritage as ‘God's chosen people’ (p. 101). Furthermore, preachers also use Catholics as a negative example; in this way, Catholics are useful markers for Huguenot identity in that they serve as a definitive ‘other’ against which to draw distinctives.

In the next chapter Must reads a number of politically-driven sermons in order to trace the Huguenots’ strategy of ‘being engaged as Huguenots’ in the political sphere (p. 103). In participating in the political discourse, the Huguenots were engaging in ‘political acts in their own right’ (p. 104). The author then summarises the history of royal policy towards the Huguenots, highlighting the Huguenot engagement with the two bodies theory. A major component of Must's argument is that the Huguenots intended to keep their identity while bolstering the rhetoric of absolutism. This paradox forced the Huguenots to outdo all other French subjects in their overt obedience to the crown – a via hugonottorum – and to convince the crown that doing so was in its best interests (pp. 129–30). The ingenuity here is, as before, using sermons as source material. Must admittedly assumes faithful transmission of the sermons from the aural to written medium; moreover, he also admits his assumptions about how convincing and ubiquitous sermons were as agents of change. While relying on the work of other scholars for these assumptions, the author none the less effectively carves out a space for printed sermons as important and valuable contributions to Huguenot political thought.

In his third section, Must uses case studies of specific sermon topics that highlight the themes of Huguenot identity formation and political absolutism. The author's main example – stretched over two chapters – comes from sermons discussing marriage. According to Must, the Calvinist understanding of marriage was one that ‘desacralised’ marriage. This position demonstrates a key example of Philip Benedict's ‘weak theory’ of confessionalisation; namely, the Huguenots defined marriage in dialogue and competition with the prevailing Catholic perspective. For the Huguenots, the nature of marriage was more heavily rooted in Old Testament texts than in sacramental theology. Of greater importance is the author's discussion of the overpoweringly political use of the marriage analogy. In a wide range of sermons, political allegiance is framed in terms of marital fidelity. Not only is male headship a key element of linking marital and political theology but Must proves convincingly that the idea of ‘marital indissolubility’ was a foundational metaphor for Huguenot obedience to the king (p. 190). Must concludes his text with a short chapter on the continuity of these themes in refugee sermons.

In summary, Must's book is an excellent study of Huguenot sermons. The author is creative in his repurposing of otherwise ‘religious’ texts for their political relevance. The author is also successful in arguing his thesis while remaining within the limits of his sources; in other words, Must does not grasp for a larger importance of Huguenot sermons than the data indicates. In this way, his book remains consistent with the profile of the St Andrews Studies in Reformation History series. Perhaps the text could have benefited from more examples from preachers in southern France. None the less, this text is a handy addition to any seminar on early modern preaching and/or rhetoric. Furthermore, it is an excellent example for doctoral students of how to craft their dissertation into a first monograph.