This is a very welcome and useful study of Catholic life in the so-called Holland Mission between c. 1566 and c. 1700. No such book existed in English at all, and even those reading Dutch have so far had to rely on L. J. Rogier's study of 1945–7. Parker's book thus fills a real gap, offering a modern and very successful reassessment and reinterpretation of the position of Catholics and their Church in the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic.

The position of Dutch Catholics was considerably easier than that of their coreligionists in early modern England. Although by 1580 the Reformed had been granted the monopoly of public worship, no one was forced to attend the Reformed Church. Nevertheless, the authorities frequently reminded Catholics of their inferior status, by punitive measures against public manifestations of Catholic life, and by forcing communities to pay large sums of ‘recognition money’ in return for limited rights to discreet, communal worship. Parker argues that the ‘intersection of Calvinism and Catholicism’ profoundly affected Catholic identity, but he rejects the older view that that the Holland Mission became Augustinian in its ethos and theology under the influence of the dominant Calvinist religion. He also denies that there was something uniquely Dutch about Catholic life in the Mission. Instead, he emphasises the many ways in which Dutch Catholicism was thoroughly baroque, and focused on the universal character of the Roman communion. As a result of the Dutch Revolt the Church lost all its property as well as most of its personnel. The need to start with a clean slate gave the apostolic vicars some unexpected opportunities to put Tridentine reforms into practice; secular priests were all seminary-educated long before this was a reality elsewhere, for instance, and the religious ethos was thoroughly Tridentine. Yet Parker also shows that the Church depended on the laity, highlighting the many ways in which it relied on elite families and the hundreds of ‘spiritual maidens’ who supported the clergy. The clergy's constant need for financial support and patronage, as well as the fierce competition and conflicts between regular and secular priests, gave lay men and women much leverage. Yet Parker stresses that, on the whole, clerics and laypeople saw eye to eye; Catholic reform could emerge without compulsion from Church and State, but as the result of ‘the active collaboration of laity and clergy’. My only regret about this book is the poor standard of copyediting. The notes and bibliography, especially, are marred by many typos and inconsistencies in Dutch and Latin titles. Yet otherwise Faith on the margins is essential reading for all students of the Dutch Golden Age as well as of the Counter-Reformation.