Scholarship over the past fifty years in the field of religious history in Europe has been occupied with exploring the contradictions of institutional confessionalisation, simultaneous political and social programmes for religious unity, and the strongly held convictions that catalysed these conversations. Between 1500 and 1700, these concerns animated the discourse and, importantly, the social experience and imaginative world of Europeans. Detailed and influential case studies illuminating these very dynamics from historians such as Denis Crouzet, Yves Krumenacker and Alain Tallon have shaped historical research by providing granular, thick case studies of confessionalisation and attempts at unity in a fracturing religious landscape. Many have followed these luminaries in this model of scholarship – providing contributions to the field that have added contour and richness to the picture through additional detailed case studies. Despite the good work done in this respect, a lacuna has emerged that Éric Suire attempts to address.

In this book Suire submits a much-needed overview and summary of the religious landscape of the period for students and historians alike. Suire purposes to provide an achievable, readable overview of the changing religious landscape in Europe across these transformative centuries for non-experts. In addition, his book provides a valuable summary of recent historiography in these fields for historians and students looking to engage on the periphery or outside of their normal scope of research. Displaying echoes of his earlier work on Jansenist spirituality and religion in France, this book follows Suire’s more recent pattern of examining a broad subject scope and supplying readers with valuable connective tissue to contemporary scholarship. What acutely interests Suire is how Christianity, a ‘structural and ancient element of European society’, fundamentally remade social structures and contributed to the ‘engine of modernization’ in Europe (pp. 10, 11). Ultimately, he observes, religious changes over this long period of time demonstrate a cadre of ‘institutional tools for discipline and social control’ enacted in various contexts (p. 268).

To trace these developments and provide the sinews uniting general content overview and relevant historiography, Suire divides his work into five major sections. Each section has individual chapters which themselves are divided under headings and closed with a short conclusion often tying together the historiographical threads of the chapter. These conclusions are particularly insightful and demonstrate the unique skill of the author (for example, p. 144). Section 1 examines the initial shock and impact of the Reformation by exploring its origins, the desires of reformers, responses to the reformers and the accompanying aftershocks of the seismic shifts of the period. Though perhaps the most summary-oriented, this section none the less provides helpful value in its summation. For instance, Suite correctly identifies communion as the centre of gravity for theological controversy around which other question orbit (p. 57). Section ii moves beyond strictly intellectual or theological questions to explore the outcomes of formalised confessional divisions – in world evangelism, confessional warfare and politics of peace. Section iii takes a more traditional approach by examining the case study of the papacy and pontifical state in the Catholic world of 1500–1700. Here Suire writes three chapters which treat the fluctuating prestige of the papacy, its governance and political functionality, and the surprising reappropriation of pilgrimage to Rome becoming a successful ‘instrument of catholic reconquest’ and rallying point for modern Catholics of Europe (p. 145).

Sections iv and v broaden to take a more expansive view of their subject material. By first examining political power and religious life in France, England and Spain, Suire successfully surveys these three different religious climates and the trials that confessionalisation faced in each case. Notably, Suire identifies how the Spanish monarchy played a heavy financial and propagandising support role in solidifying Spanish Catholic unity (p. 196–8) while religious dissension faced different circumstances and outworkings in France and England. The author’s ability to be fulsome yet succinct shines in this chapter as he integrates these narratives together, examining commonalities and, most importantly, pinpoints the differences to fill out the picture of political power and its effect on religious mentalities. Lastly, Suire’s fifth and final section examines a collection of religious minority groups – both inside of and peripheral to Christian Europe. Though non-Christian and marginalised Christian voices have received important attention in recent historiography and Suire is right to highlight them, this section feels the most disconnected and hodge-podge. A few important and recent studies are noticeably missing that could have bolstered this section (for example, Nicholas Terpstra, Religious refugees in the early modern world). Despite this slight misgiving, Suire helpfully addresses the phenomenon of ghettoisation of Jewish populations in Europe and the surprising moderation and pragmatism of Christian leaders dealing with converted/deconverted Muslims.

Few monographs balance accessibility, breadth and historiographical awareness with the skill of Suire’s Catholiques, protestants, minorités religieuses en Europe (1500–1700). This volume draws from English, French and German scholarship in a way that unites the sometimes-divergent threads of conversation. Moreover, Suire succeeds in weaving these threads into a contemporary and intelligent narrative that can serve to polish the edges of lecture notes for academics tasked with teaching survey courses in the early modern world, but who are not necessarily research experts. Similarly, this book could serve as an excellent primer for comprehensive reading lists to put graduate students in touch with the contours of the story of religion in post-Reformation Europe and recent methodologies. Finally, Suire’s more subtle interpretive contributions will be useful to field experts recognising his astute process of framing, selection and deselection present in this volume – see especially contributions such as chapter v, ‘La Contre-Réforme des savants’. This book will provide initial traction for discussion among graduate students, teaching faculty and research experts alike. In this way, it will be a valued contribution of its kind.