ABSTRACT
Toleration was another important governing strategy of the Reformed political authorities in Utrecht. With its qualitative and quantitative analyses of the toleration of Catholics, this chapter examines how the magistrates publicly recognized and non-publicly connived at their presence or behaviour in spite of official prohibitions in the city. Tolerated Catholics were priests who tried to reside or stay in the city, women who attempted to contribute to the rehabilitation of the Catholic community, public office holders, and applicants for citizenship. Deploying toleration as a political practice of social engineering, the magistrates curbed the public church’s attempts at Reformed confessionalization of the urban public sphere, while maintaining discriminatory treatment of Catholics in everyday life.
