Reviewed by: Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation by Peter Marshall Korey D. Maas Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation. By Peter Marshall. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2017. xix + 652 pp. + 22 plates. Over the past generation, those pressed to recommend a readable and reliable history of the English Reformation have faced a quandary. A.G. Dickens' venerable The English Reformation (1964) has not only grown long in the tooth; many of its conclusions have been subsequently and persuasively challenged by scholars such as J. J. Scarisbrick, Eamon Duffy, and Christopher Haigh. Despite the import of their findings, however, this revisionist school has not produced anything like a major overview for mainstream readers. Peter Marshall's book is advertised as just such an overview, the first in a generation—and rightly so. Organizing seventeen chapters into four chronological yet broadly thematic sections, Marshall skillfully and lucidly guides readers through the complex vicissitudes of the English church in the sixteenth century. The first section, "Reformations before Reformation," establishes the late medieval context in such a way as to emphasize that the changes of the sixteenth century were neither inevitable nor merely reactionary, but were in important respects "a flowering of late medieval developments" (xvii). Part two, "Separations," narrates the events still most familiar to a popular audience: the Luther affair and its reverberations across the channel, Tyndale's New Testament and the mediation of continental evangelicalism, Henry VIII's marital crisis and the ambiguous status of English religion following his break with Rome. Section three, "New Christianities," picks up in the final decade of Henry's reign, when that ambiguity allowed [End Page 484] proponents of various theological visions to vie for royal support— and when the same ambiguity made it just as likely that advocates of each would be silenced and suppressed. It proceeds through the brief reign of Edward VI and the tenuous evangelical establishment crowned by Cranmer's Prayer Book, and concludes with the equally tenuous but ostensibly successful reestablishment of Roman obedience under Mary I. The final section chronicles the first three decades of Elizabeth I's rule; its title, "Unattainable Prizes," illuminates the potentially counter-intuitive stopping point. By 1590 the old faith had been effectively reduced to the dissenting posture of a minority; but it had also become clear—not least because of still, and increasingly, divergent Protestant visions—that a realm united in a common faith would remain beyond reach. Marshall's outline, then, is hardly novel. But the synthesis of previous research, complemented by his own insights and interpretations, is masterful. Limpid prose and arresting anecdotes ensure that, even at 600 pages (with, as the preface forewarns, "a lot of names"), the mainstream reader will remain engaged. Other readers, including this one, will lament the lack of bibliography, and even the choice of endnotes rather than footnotes. Some will be put off by the occasionally jarring anachronism or too-clever colloquialism; the early Henrician supremacy as sports car test-drive comes immediately to mind (230). Minor quibbles aside, though, and despite the gestures to mainstream readers, Marshall's book is a monument of scholarship. Marshall consistently, if subtly, nods toward ongoing academic debates, while explicitly stating many of his own convictions up front. The "lot of names" mentioned above, for example, serves to emphasize the decisive role continually played by individual agency—and the impact of events on real human beings. Although by no means embracing an ideological history from below, Marshall is clearly dismissive of the still sometimes heard claim that England's Reformation was simply an "Act of State." He gives equally short shrift to the notion that religion itself was only a secondary, or even tertiary, concern of those involved, a mask behind which to hide political or economic motives. With an eye toward wider implications, he also notes with some regularity the manner in which the Tudor Reformation did not merely change the religion of the [End Page 485] realm; it also changed the way many, even into the present, would come to understand the nature of religion itself. Given what Marshall here accomplishes, and the flair with which he...
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May 7, 2024
Natalya Davidko 
Open Access
