Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation

ISBN: 0300170629

Author: Marshall, Peter

Condition: new

WINNER OF THE 2018 WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZECenturies on, what the Reformation was and what it accomplished remain deeply contentious. Peter Marshalls sweeping new history-the first major overview for general readers in a generation-argues that sixteenth-century England was a society neither desperate for nor allergic to change, but one open to ideas of reform in various competing guises. King Henry VIII wanted an orderly, uniform Reformation, but his actions opened a Pandoras Box from which pluralism and diversity flowed and rooted themselves in English life.With sensitivity to individual experience as well as masterfully synthesizing historical and institutional developments, Marshall frames the perceptions and actions of people great and small, from monarchs and bishops to ordinary families and ecclesiastics, against a backdrop of profound change that altered the meanings of religion itself. This engaging history reveals what was really at stake in the overthrow of Catholic culture and the reshaping of the English Church.