Calvinists and Libertines : Confession and Community in Utrecht 1578-1620

Why did the Netherlands, after the Dutch Reformation, emerge as the most religiously tolerant country in Europe? The causes lie in the fierce resistance offered by people known as `Libertines' to the attempts of Calvinist reformers to make the Dutch Republic into a theocratic `New Israel'. Nowhere was this conflict between Calvinists and Libertines more intense than in Utrecht, a city at the heart of the Dutch Reformation. Benjamin Kaplan's fascinating case-study placed Dutch religious developments within their broader European context, and increases our understanding of the European Reformation as a whole.