348BOOK REVIEWS personality in dealing with contemporaries while herself walking that "way." She investigates in Part I Teresa's outstanding talents and basic principles. Part II looks at the external factors which influenced her humanitas, the historical milieu, culture, society, and the church politics of her country and time. Part III estabUshes how and why Teresa can be called a "singular phenomenon" in that she practiced what she preached. Did she truly motivate others to draw nearer to God? How did she manifest her personality in concern for the Reform and in her leadership of the monasteries she founded? Part IV explores the relationship between Teresa's humanness and Christ's humanitas. This touches on her relationship with God, on the uniqueness of Teresa's mysticism and theology which resulted in a powerful missionary zeal. Lastiy, the summary in Part V demonstrates the specific contribution Teresa's life as witness has made toward estabUshing the identity of a Christian and indirectly the identity of a Christian theologian. In 510 pages, the book Uves up to the expectations it raises. One is startled at seeing a six-page Ust of abbreviations plus 2,581 footnotes, and a bibliography of 926 books and articles. Whatever has appeared about Teresa ofAvUa in EngUsh , French, German, Latin, and Spanish seems to be included. This veritable Teresian encyclopedia would be an asset to every Carmelite Ubrary, and each province should have at least one copy. Despite these formidable statistics the book is not stuffy, but rather refreshing and instructive. SisterJosephine Koeppel, O.C.D. Carmelite Monastery Elysburg, Pennsylvania Conversion, Politics and Religion in England, 1580-1625- By Michael C. Questier. [Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History.] (NewYork: Cambridge University Press. 1996. Pp. xiv, 240. $59.95.) Dr. Questier has written an interesting and provocative book which should be read by anyone working in the area of Elizabethan and Jacobean reUgious history. Entering the battle over the nature of"EngUsh CathoUcism" and when/ if England became a "nation of Protestants" through an examination of the phenomenon of conversion to and from the Church of Rome, he reminds those working in the field that religious allegiance was for some sixteenth- and seventeenth-century men and women a question of conversion and obedience to God's grace, not merely of obedience to the commands of the monarch or a way ofpreserving property. In establishing that as his goal, Dr. Questier then encounters some methodological problems. How does one establish the reUgious beliefs of the majority of EngUsh Catholics or of English Anglicans? How significant are the examples of conversion which Dr. Questier produces? Is there a difference between the conversion narratives of the clergy and those of the laity? How many of these narratives of conversion are there? BOOK REVIEWS349 While Dr. Questier's analysis of the conversion narratives themselves is significant , the question remains: how significant is conversion for the mass of the people? Religious motivation is difficult to assess: how many men and women simply went along with the changes because they were mandated by the queen? How many were devoted to the old religion simply because they did not like the new? How many people accepted the priests' definition of what it meant to be a member of the Church of Rome? In dealing with these conversions and with his analysis of recusant literature, Dr. Questier lumps together clergy and laity, those residing in England and those living in exUe. Does that clarify the material, or does it muddy the issue? His use of evidence is also interesting . He uses Cardinal William AUen in exUe (p. 14, n. 6) as a reUable source for the state of Catholics in England andJohn Pym (p. 6, n. 9) as a reliable source for the granting of de facto toleration to Catholics. Neither source seems reliable . Problems with the use of evidence and its significance continue in the work. In Chapter Six Dr. Questier cites my article onJames I and his Catholic subjects without mentioning that the material I present is limited to the city of London and Middlesex county,which are not representative ofthe entire realm. He then uses the material to argue that the king...