Catholic and Reformed: The Roman and Protestant Churches in English Protestant Thought, 1600-1640 by Anthony Milton (review)

104BOOK REVIEWS For those interested in CarmeUte history the reward to be gained from reading this book is a sensible conclusion to a long debate about the early days of the reformed order in France. The debate has centered around the extent to which French Carmelite nuns have honored the legacy of St. Teresa of Avila as expressed in her constitution of the reformed CarmeUtes. For the larger audience of historians interested in the CathoUc Reformation the reward is fourfold. The first reward is a series ofmulti-dimensional portraits, the smaUer ofwhich are presented without much editorial comment, which reveal both the halos and the warts of many French and Spanish participants in the CathoUc Reformation during the period 1583-1629. These portraits occupy a significant portion of the book. EspeciaUy important among the portraits are those of Pierre de Bérulle, the titular head of the group that brought the Discalced CarmeUte nuns to France, the first two superiors of the Paris convent, Mères Anne de Jésus and Anne de Saint Barthélémy, and Père Denys de la Mère de Dieu, the fiercest CarmeUte opponent of BéruUe's methods ofgoverning the French CarmeUte nuns independently of the order. Woven around the portraits is a finely nuanced account of the intricacies of Franco-Spanish-Papal relations, especiaUy for the period 1590-1610. A third part of the reward is a set of concrete examples of the ways in which the decrees ofthe CouncU ofTrent concerning the reform of convents and monasteries by bishops chaUenged previously accepted modes of reUgious governance and the methods used to resolve the resulting conflicts—usuaUy either trial and error or compromise. FinaUy, and perhaps unintentionaUy, Morgain's account makes it painfully clear how rigidly early modern clerics regulated the Uves of women reUgious and tried to control their thoughts. The clerics did not question their own motives or actions, or realize how unsuccessful their efforts of thought control often were. One wonders ifthe clerics reaUzed how strongly their thoughts and actions were influenced by other women, many of whom were not reUgious. Particularly striking is the influence of the christology of the CarmeUte nun Anne de Saint-Barthélémy on the spirituaUty of Pierre de BéruUe. J. Michael Hayden University ofSaskatchewan Catholic and Reformed: The Roman and Protestant Churches in English Protestant Thought, 1600-1640. By Anthony MUton. [Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History] (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1995. Pp. xvi, 599. $79.95.) Some thirty volumes have appeared as part of this series to 1995. About onefourth concern topics on Tudor England. This chronological imbalance may reflect the influence of John Morrill, one of three series' editors and a Stuart BOOK REVIEWS105 speciaUst, who has been instrumental in identifying outstanding dissertations and overseeing them into print. Anthony MUton, since 1995 lecturer in history in the University of Sheffield, completed his dissertation under MorriU's supervision m 1989 and reformulated it for this book. MUton is a gifted young historian with other -works to his credit and a work in progress about the British delegation at the Synod of Dort (1619), which wUl be pubUshed under the auspices of the Church of England Record Society, founded in 1991· MUton's is on aU accounts a triumphal achievement. He has written a convincing study characterized by clarity of thought, Uterary grace, exhaustive archival research, and a close reading of contemporary printed sources. He describes and assesses how divines strove to identify the nature of the EngUsh Church in relation to alternative churches existing abroad. He examines the divisions within the Church of England, whose doctrinal and ideological identity was StUl far from certain even by 1640. Different groups within the church debated just how the English Church should be understood as being both "CathoUc and Reformed." In their quest for answers, they considered what the church's precise relationship was with the Reformed Churches on the continent , and to what degree the church had truly separated hersetf from the Roman CathoUc Church. MUton's method is to analyze the ways in which the Roman CathoUc and the Reformed Churches were understood by EngUsh Protestant divines m...