Aidan Nichols has produced a slender but well-researched volume on the history of the Canons Regular of Prémontré, more generally known as the Premonstratensians or ‘Norbertines’, in England and Scotland from the 1870s to the present day. While the author claims the book is a ‘modest essay’ and ‘not the last word on its chosen subject’, he is almost certainly correct in asserting that it is ‘the fullest account available hitherto’ (p. viii).

Across ten short chapters Nichols traces the attempts of two European abbeys, Tongerlo in Belgium and Frigolet in France, to establish new communities in England and, to a lesser extent, Scotland. Tongerlo established presences in Lincolnshire, including at Crowle and Spalding, with the Church of St Norbert at the former being ‘the only church in Britain with this exclusive patronage’ (p. 12). It also established an important presence in the Miles Platting area of Manchester. While Nichols suggests that the abbots of Tongerlo ‘appear to have enjoyed a relatively coherent concept of what they wished to achieve in the East of England’ (p. 22), it would have been beneficial to unpack this concept further. How did the leadership of the order understand the situation in England? How did they try to ensure that a true Premonstratensian spirit prevailed at their new and relatively small foundations? At one stage it is mentioned that these establishments ‘scarcely differed in scale from the normal presbyteries of the secular clergy’ and that leadership wished to produce a ‘schedule of life’ to end this confusion (pp. 26–7). But what this entailed, and what the reaction was within these new communities, is left unsaid.

Frigolet managed, despite several suppressions in France during the period, to establish several presences in England and Scotland. The most important was undoubtedly at Storrington, where visitors to the priory included the poet Francis Thompson and the controversial priest George Tyrrell. Perhaps the most unusual part of this history is the relationship the canons had with the Empress Eugénie, Napoleon iii’s widow. At her invitation they established a presence at Farnborough at her private mausoleum, where they were to pray for the deceased members of the family while also hosting guests who ranged from Queen Victoria through to ‘Bonapartist devotees or the simply curious’ (p. 59). A handful of other presences were established, including at Weston-in-Arden, Bedworth and Ambleside. A Scottish venture, in the form of a presence at Wigtown and Whithorn, was a short-lived expedition across the border.

Tracing the history up to the present day, the last chapters explore the eventual union of the various French and Belgian presences of the order in England and the problems this generated. Nichols argues that the canons enjoyed a ‘golden age’ in the 1950s with the establishment of a novitiate at Storrington in 1952. While disagreements were common, they were also ‘a matter of esoteric knowledge’, as ‘to post-War English Catholics at large, Storrington was becoming well-known and respected’ (p. 99). Perhaps the most interesting element of this section of the book for historians is Nichols’s comments on the missing archival material from Storrington. Commandeered as a military base during the Second World War, the archival records from the priory disappeared and have never been recovered, leading to a ‘sense of discontinuity’ (p. 103) for the later Norbertines when the property was returned to them. A reflection on how this has impacted the narrative of the book, and what other possible sources could be used to overcome such an absence, would have been appreciated here.

The mileage that readers will get out of this volume will vary depending on their background knowledge of the subject area and their own research interests. Experts interested in the history of the Catholic religious orders and institutes, or the history of Catholicism in Britain more generally, will find much of value. A more general readership, however, may well struggle with the brevity with which some topics are passed over. The very short introduction of just two pages, ‘Introducing the Premonstratensians’, for example, gives precious little introductory information on who the founder, St Norbert of Xanten, actually was, nor indeed does it offer a detailed description of the history of the Premonstratensians and their approach to religious life. Throughout the book the same brevity is applied to topics such as Irish immigration into England and Wales, the Oxford Movement, anti-Catholicism, the Modernist crisis and the Second Vatican Council. Written with an assumption that a (presumably Catholic) audience would have a knowledge of such events and moments, the book would have benefitted from explaining the importance of such to non-specialists. Observations such as ‘it betokened the advent of the New Aniconicism associated with architectural Functionalism in its Catholic embodiment’ (p. 20) would undoubtedly leave a general reader non-plussed.

The book is unquestionably well researched, and the footnotes are testament to the amount of archival work in France and Belgium underpinning the narrative Nichols has carefully reconstructed, although a section in the bibliography listing the various archives would have been beneficial. At times an awareness of the most recent work in specific areas is missing in the citations, such as pointing readers towards Peter Guilday’s English Catholic refugees on the Continent, published in 1914 (p. 5) for information on English Catholic religious communities in exile. Since then, the scholarship of James E. Kelly, Liesbeth Corens, Laurence Lux Sterritt and Caroline Bowden, to name just a few, has redefined that field and should be pointed towards as a result.

Overall, Nichols’s book will be of value to those interested in the history of the Catholic religious orders and the history of Catholicism in Britain from the nineteenth century onwards. While slender, the volume preserves an important narrative and highlights the experience of a religious order that precious little attention has been devoted towards before. It is to be welcomed as an important contribution to our wider understanding of the male religious orders in Britain and it is hoped that it signposts others to continue such work.