Reformation Reputations

Recent trends in English Reformation history eclipsed the powerful part played by prominent personalities in the making of religious change. Inspired by the quincentenary of Luther s protest against the papacy in 1517, Reformation Reputations reasserts the value of a biographical perspective on these developments. all the essays in this valuable volume bear out the editors observation . They highlight the agency that their subjects exercised in crafting their own reputations in the present and for the future. (Alexandra Walsham, Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 110 (2), 2024)

This appears to be the first book, featuring interdisciplinarity, dedicated to exploring the rich history of the Reformations by investigating the topic with reference to reputations. This well-appointed volume features two dozen figures and tables, along with a twenty-six page index. Each of the ten chapters is lavishly documented, and there are plenty of provocative suggestions for additional research. The editors and the publisher should be congratulated on a handsome volume that is certain to stimulate considerable discussion. (Thomas A. Fudge, Journal of Religious History, Vol. 46 (2), June, 2022)

This wide-ranging volume opens with an expansive introductory chapter by the editors that, at 157 pages, is the length of a short book. The introduction and the essays that follow offer valuable analyses of the ways in which the reputations of English Reformation figures were forged, reworked, and contested in shifting contexts, all the way down to the present day. (Karl Gunther, Church History, Vol. 91 (1), March, 2022)

Each article and the splendid introduction are first-rate. Women are not overlooked in the collection. Susan Wabuda reexamines Anne Askew, burned at the stake for heresy by King Henry VIII in 1546, and immortalized in Foxe s Actes and Monuments. In an especially intriguing contribution, Rachel Basch considers Margaret Cranmer, Anne Hooper, and Elizabeth Coverdale . (Thomas M. McCoog, S. J. , Journal of Jesuit Studies, Vol. 9, 2022)

Crankshaw and Gross are writing neither Reformation history nor memory study. They are considering lives remembered across time. Noting that remembering required print, and that printed reputations could provoke printed responses, they provide a very useful table of autobiographical and biographical works through 1718. This fine collection gives historians of religion much to ponder. As we watch the heroes of the English Reformation swing we must ask what our parts are in this process of reputation building. (Norm Jones, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 73 (1), January, 2022)

Each of the essays in this volume offers new understandings of the men and women who shaped England s religious politics in the sixteenth century. The volume as a whole is a timely reminder of the historical significance of `the power of individual agency . (Mary Morrissey, Renaissance and Reformation, Vol. 43 (4), 2021)