Religious Choice in the Dutch Republic. The Reformation of Arnoldus Buchelius (1565-1641).(Review)

Judith Pollmann's skilful and perceptive study of the diaries and other personal writings of Aernout van Buchell, Religious Choice in the Dutch Republic. The Reformation of Arnoldus Buchelius (1565-1641) (Manchester: U.P., 1999; pp. 288. 45 [pounds sterling]), is an important contribution to the religious history of the early Dutch Republic. Van Buchell, a lawyer and antiquarian from Utrecht, was the illegitimate son of a canon of one of the town's five chapters, with uncertain claims to nobility. His social position was somewhat equivocal: he was not quite a noble, remained just outside the political elite of Utrecht and, though by profession a lawyer, saw himself more as a …