Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin’s Catholic Europe 1592–1648: centre and peripheries makes a challenging contribution to the often neglected field of comparative European history and its study of the development of early modern post-Tridentine Catholicism outside of the Catholic heartlands of Italy, the Iberian peninsula and France. In his study Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin sets out to analyse the development of Catholic renewal and the implementation of the Tridentine decrees in those areas bordering the Catholic heartlands, i.e Britain and Ireland, the Netherlands, Austria, the Czech crown lands, Hungary, Poland and the Balkans. After contextualising the scope of the problem in chapter one, the following two chapters are devoted to the principal case studies, divided geographically between those on the western margins of Europe and those in central and eastern Europe. Chapter four, which looks at papal policy towards the Ottoman Empire, sets the background to the study of Catholic missionary activity in the Ottoman dominated Balkans (chapter five).

Not surprisingly, given its wide geographical remit, the author shows how there existed different models based principally around the presence or not of Catholic monarchs, the presence of other religious minorities, geographical considerations such as population density, the relative influence of Rome-educated, post-Tridentine clergy, and the role played by the social elites in influencing the spread of Catholic renewal. In central and eastern Europe royal patronage played a fundamental role in making the social elites champions of Catholic renewal, although this was tempered by the presence of other religious minorities, the practical limits of royal power, or the lack of Rome-educated clergy with sufficient linguistic abilities that was all too apparent in the case of Hungary. At the same time the ability of Catholic monarchs to exert substantive or limited coercive force had very different effects, as the contrasting examples of Austria and the Czech crown lands on the one hand, and that of Hungary and the Balkans on the other, clearly show.

The author also demonstrates the fundamental role played by the creation of a European-wide network of seminaries, colleges and university institutions in order to provide for the education of both Tridentine-imbued clergy and of the noble elites. In this regard, the Jesuits played a fundamental role in both maintaining and converting the noble elites to Catholicism, although they had to share this role with the more traditional orders with whom they had frequent jurisdictional conflicts. Furthermore, in the case of the central European and eastern European models, the adoption of Catholicism reinforced noble privilege, and became proof of political loyalty. Finally, Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin also underlines the significant role played by women in the maintenance of Catholicism and its propagation, especially in regards to devotional practices, be it in those kingdoms that had Catholic monarchs or in those where Catholics were persecuted. Nevertheless, this is an area that needs further research as the important role played by women as transmitters of devotional practices was also evident outside the Catholic and Protestant faiths, as the examples of the conversos and Moriscos in Spain clearly show.

The other set of models that form this analysis were those kingdoms in which Catholicism represented a minority religion in Protestant multi-kingdom or unitary states, as were the cases of the Tudor and Stuart crowns and Calvinist Holland. In the case of the latter, the fate of Catholicism was intrinsically linked to Holland’s revolt against Spanish dominion. At the same time, however, the Dutch Reformed Church was not interested in the mass conversion of Catholics so that although the institutional hierarchy of the Catholic church was suppressed, it continued to survive as a domestic but tolerated religion. In the case of England, the survival of Catholicism was essentially linked to its maintenance among elements of the English gentry, and then was dependent on links to the continent and the English college system for its survival.

The survival and renewal of Catholicism in Ireland, on the other hand, the author explains in terms of the English crown’s primary concern to eliminate the native Catholic elites and not to convert them to Protestantism. This ran counter to the practice in central and eastern Europe where the Catholic crowns actively sought to bring the local elites into the Catholic fold. As a result, the survival and renewal of Catholicism in Ireland became, by default, a question for the Old Irish and Old English Catholic elites. In the Irish political scenario of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the author attributes an earlier and greater role in this renewal to the Old English elites, owing to the earlier presence of post-Tridentine Catholic mores and seminary priests in Old English areas. He ascribes this, in part, to the greater economic prosperity of the Old English elites vis-à-vis the Gaelic Irish elites (p. 58). Nevertheless, this use of the presence of seminary priests as a barometer of Catholic renewal is very selective as it is logical that priests, who were educated in the Old English Jesuit-dominated continental college system, should seek out the support and protection of patrons in their areas of origin. Moreover, given the generalised bias against admitting non-Old English students into the Irish Jesuit run continental colleges throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, only an analysis of the sources of all the religious orders involved in Catholic renewal in Ireland, and the matriculation registers of continental universities, could clear up the question of the geographical and chronological spread of Irish Catholic renewal. Finally, the author shows how the success of Irish Catholic renewal ensured that religion rather than language would be the common denominator of Irish nationalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

At times, the broad range of data from such a wide variety of kingdoms appears to be overwhelming. Quite possibly, the study might have benefited from a more in-depth focus involving fewer states. This author would also have liked to have seen some evidence of statistical studies on sacramental and devotional practices in the different kingdoms. Lastly, the absence of a map is a definite drawback given the cross comparative nature of the work.

Despite these minor considerations, the book represents a pioneering study in comparative early-modern European Catholicism. It contributes to the understanding of the role of religion and the Catholic elites in early-modern European kingdoms, and to the importance played by seminary colleges in the education of the Catholic elites.