A.J.B. Johnston establishes the secular and religious contexts of life at Louisbourg and traces the mixed fortunes of three religious groups: the Récollets of Brittany, who acted as parish priests and chaplains; the Brothers of Charity of Saint John of God, who operated the King's Hospital; and the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre-Dame, who ran the local school for girls. Drawing on the extensive material in the Archives of the Fortress of Louisbourg, Johnston notes the groups' remarkable persistence in the face of personnel shortages, financial burdens, and conflicts with secular authorities and rival religious bodies. Not the least of their problems was the profound parsimony of the Louisbourgeois who declined to build a parish church or pay a compulsory tithe. Yet despite this independent stance, the author demonstrates, religion was at the centre of family and community life. Life and Religion at Louisbourg contributes substantially to the social as well as the religious history of New France.

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"[Life and Religion at Louisbourg] serves as a model of what is possible to say about religious life in the eighteenth century. Combining study of fairly complete collections from French archives stored on microfilm at Louisbourg with first-hand access to archaeological evidence and a comprehensive grasp of the new wealth of historical material on popular religious life in eighteenth-century France, Johnston describes the religious practices and attitudes of the three religious orders and the common folk of the town. Lively where anecdotal material appears, thorough where statistical evidence is relevant and careful where it would be unwarranted to speculate, Johnston enlightens the reader and simultaneously points the way to further research." Tom Sinclair-Faulkner, Studies in Religion.
"[Life and Religion at Louisbourg] adds significantly to our knowledge of the colony ... Johnston presents as clear and complete a picture of what happened to his Louisbourg subjects as we are likely to get." Richard Place, The Eighteenth Century.
"A comprehensive and helpful examination ... of an untypical and isolated community." Patricia Birkett, Archivaria.
"A pleasant book, accessible to the honest reader ... No one will doubt the interest and value of Life and Religion at Louisbourg whether for the history of Catholicism in North America or for that of the Atlantic region." Pierre Trépanier, Canadian Historical Review.