The networks created and maintained by post-Reformation English Catholics allowed them to participate in patronage and clientage, one of the most dominant systems of late medieval and early modern Europe. Multiple ties across overlapping networks provided individuals and families with numerous connections that fulfilled diverse purposes. Friendships and new and renewed kinship ties made up a family's social network; some members of that social network collaborated on projects that resulted in additional bonds of a person's cultural network; connections made in the previous two fields could amplify political position and authority, which in turn buttressed social standing and power. All of these networks created additional ties with new individuals and thus provided new opportunities for affinity. Cultural networks in particular created space for people with conflicting ideologies to find common ground, or what social scientists call homophily. As a result, people developed relationships based on their similarities rather than focusing on their differences. These multiple, overlapping connections in turn generated another network: the patronage network. For all elites, the patronage network was a tool of social, cultural, economic, and political commerce. For Catholics the patronage network was also a matter of survival: not only of their religion, but also their bodies, their families, and their livelihoods.

Access to patronage was not guaranteed for anyone, even for elites. Patrons could not risk their own reputations or honor on unworthy clients, and Catholic recusants could be high-risk clients. Regardless of religious identity, one had to have a good name and display the right qualities – self-restraint, honor, and trustworthiness – in order to accumulate the social credit necessary to be a client or to assemble a clientele.