Even in adversity, Catholics exercised considerable agency in post-Reformation Utrecht. Through the political practices of repression and toleration, Utrecht’s magistrates, under constant pressure from the Reformed Church, attempted to exclude Catholics from the urban public sphere. However, by mobilizing their social status and networks, Catholic Utrechters created room to live as pious Catholics and honourable citizens, claiming more rights in the public sphere through their spatial practices and in discourses of self-representation. This book explores how Catholic priests and laypeople cooperated and managed to survive the Reformed regime by participating in a communal process of delimiting the public, continuing to rely on the medieval legacy and adapting to early modern religious diversity. Deploying their own understandings of publicness, Catholic Utrechters not only enabled their survival in the city and the Catholic revival in the Dutch Republic but also contributed to shaping a multi-religious society in the Northern Netherlands.

Genji Yasuhira is a senior lecturer at Kyoto University, Japan. In 2019 he earned his PhD with distinction from Tilburg University, the Netherlands. Prior to his appointment at Kyoto University in 2023, he held a position as Cross-border Postdoctoral Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Note on References
Introduction
Part I. Reformed Governing Strategies
1. Repression: Dynamics of Anti-Catholicism
2. Toleration: Limited Recognition and Connivance
Part II. Catholic Survival Tactics
3. Foundational Infrastructure: Social Status and Networks
4. Spatial Practices: The Making of the Urban Landscape of Coexistence
5. Discourses of Self-Representation: Public, Private and Conscience
Conclusion
Appendices
Bibliography
Archival Primary Sources (Het Utrechts Archief [HUA])
Published Primary Sources
Secondary Literature