'The importance of this book is that it affords opportunity to look broadly and comprehensively at the religious life of women and men before and after the separation from the Roman obedience and so take the measure of that life that in the continuum of English church history it can be noted and honored.'-David Siegenthaler, Anglican Theological Review 'A valuable source of information supported with excellent illustrations and bibliography.'- Choice

astonishing and magnificent piece of work.'-Edward T. 'Revisionist history at its most imaginative and exciting. A wholly compelling book, this will appeal to any reader who wants to enter and understand another world.'-Benjamin Schwarz, Atlantic Monthly

' vigorous and eloquent book, a work of daring revision and a masterpiece of the historical imagination. 'This is a remarkable and significant work of historical 'revision,' which cannot be dismissed as a product of nostalgic longing for a Catholic past.'-Anne Murphy SHCJ, John Pridmore, The Way A monumental and deeply felt work.'-Gabriel Josipovici, Times Literary Supplement ' at last gives the culture of the late Middle Ages in England its due, and helps us to see the period as it was and not as Protestant reformers and their intellectual descendants imagined it to be. 'The first serious attempt by a historian to restore Mary's reputation in more than four hundred years.'-Simon Denison, Sunday Telegraph has a fascinating story to tell.'-James Bowman, Sunday Telegraph 'Unfailingly temperate, judicious, and scholarly. 'Sensitively written and beautifully produced, this book represents a major contribution to the Reformation debate.'-Norman Tanner, Times 'A magnificent scholarly achievement, a compelling read, and not a page too long to defend a thesis which will provoke passionate debate.'-Patricia Morison, Financial Times 'With the publication of this book, a kind of map or illustrated atlas of late medieval English Christianity, English Reformation studies will never be the same again.'-Patrick Collinson, Times Higher Education Supplement Duffy sweeps the reader along through its six hundred pages by a style which eschews both jargon and pedantry, by his lively and absorbing detail, his piercing insights, patient analysis, and his vigor in debate.'-Peter Heath, Times Literary Supplement 'This book will afford enjoyment and enlightenment to layman and specialist alike.

Duffy stripping of the altars