Jansenism has a complex history, and one which is dominated by perspective. From that of the Catholic Church it was the teaching of a troubling heretical sect which contained a political dimension that dangerously challenged the authority of the papacy. From the perspective of Protestants, the Jansenist challenge to the Catholic Counter-Reformation seemed to establish an interpretation of the doctrine of grace with which it was in sympathy. It elevated grace as a mean of salvation for a depraved humanity and endorsed Calvinist ideas of predestination. However much, by the eighteenth century, these deeply pessimistic views of the human condition were in decline, in the seventeenth century such teaching burned brightly. It was in their attitudes to morality, penance and the eucharist that the rigorism of the title of Palmer's book is most evident. Palmer's thesis is that Jansenism arose at a time when these issues were being resolved in Protestant theology in England and consequently it was influential in the development of English theology. Moreover Jansenist anxiety about morality was in accord with English Protestant concerns, and both adopted rigorist responses to it. The Jansenist attack on Catholic moral laxity was directly comparable to the Puritan anxiety about High Church Laudianism. Equally the Anglican ‘holy living’ tradition, which emphasised moral strength and fortitude, seemed to resonate with Jansenist focus on conversion from sin to salvation.

Until now, historians who have compared Jansenism and Protestantism – of various hues – such as Bernard Cottret and René Taveneaux, have tended to suggest that the two had little contact and influence on each other. This is where Palmer makes a significant contribution to the field of seventeenth-century religious history. His claim, and one which is impressively evidenced, is that not only was Jansenist theology widely read in England but that it exerted an influence on the development of Protestant thought. The chapter on ‘Transmission into England’ argues that Jansenist works influenced not only those Anglicans who might be obviously receptive to their ideas, such as Isaac Barrow, but also churchmen like Tillotson and Stillingfleet. By the 1650s and 1660s Jansenist works were widely translated into English and attracted attention as the Jesuit onslaught on Jansenism took hold in France. Nor was it only clergy who read Jansenist theology: Edward Hyde, the duke of Ormond and John Evelyn were among laymen of influence who bought and read it. Perhaps it was to be expected that some at the Restoration Stuart court would be keen to read ‘detoxifying perceptions of Catholicism’ (p. 85).

In Europe the Jansenists challenged the rising authority and claims to infallibility of the pope; and in England Protestants like Jeremy Taylor used the same arguments to assert the modest and limited claims for the establishment of the Church of England. In such moderate middle territory, Jansenism and Anglicanism could meet theologically. They shared a worry about the growth of mysticism and sectaries, especially those which embraced political rather than soteriological objectives. But at the core of Jansenist congruence with Protestantism was its emphasis on a moral rigour and the demands made on mankind of ‘the individual's ascetic journey to God’ (p. 244). Both relied on an interior reformation that rested on individualism. Here perhaps is one of the less perceptible differences between them, since Puritanism took half a century to give up its stress on the importance of communal responsibility for guilt and sin.

Palmer's book offers a convincing and well-evidenced case for the reappraisal of one of the roots of seventeenth-century English Protestantism. As he claims in the conclusion, this tradition later gave rise to Pietism and Anglican Evangelicalism – including Methodism. In this sense the transmission of Jansenist theology into England had enduring consequences. The only criticism that can be made is that this book, both in writing and form, bears too many of the trademarks of its origins in a doctoral thesis. Too many subordinate clauses and lengthy chapters mean that the reader requires a degree of rigour and asceticism that corresponds with the subject. Nevertheless it repays the effort and is an important contribution to historical theology.