2 - Governing Religious Difference

Summary

This chapter offers an analysis of toleration as legal practice and administrative discretion, which finds its origins in canon law. This chapter articulates common frames of reference to toleration: a qualification of evil, the preservation of outward unity and social trust, economic benefit, and the duty to protect public peace and order – all interests that could inform a particular decision on whether to tolerate certain practices. Toleration entailed a spectrum of practices of coexistence, which may be characterised as incorporation through marginalisation. This marginalisation commonly had a spatial aspect. The visibility of minority religiosity tended to be constrained through practices of segregation or specific rules about the expression of identity in public. Moreover, toleration was intended to be temporary, and often appeared to be tentative, and legally fragile.