Prayer Book and People in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England by Judith Maltby (review)

BOOK REVIEWS121 religious history and neglect pertinent European-wide changes that shaped confraternal aspirations and behavior. There are many jewels among these excellent essays, though this brief review can include mention of only two others. Konrad Eisenbichler traces the history of Florentine youth confraternities from their origins in the fifteenth century through Savonarola's reorganization of the youth and finally to clerical limits on the young laymen's independence; these clerical controls are most evident in prohibitions against lay doctrinal instruction, including presentation of any sacred dramas without explicit clerical permission. Nicholas Terpstra provides a method to study confraternities and charity that widens the focus from a single confraternity or city to broader and more complex problems of charity. With a comparative study of cities from Venice to Rome, Terpstra identifies three varieties of confraternal civic welfare in the sixteenth century: reforms that simply followed confraternal institutional models, a second type in which charity was institutionalized through existing confraternities, and thirdly charitable institutions that "expropriated" confraternities. Despite the large number of recent studies on European confraternities there remains significant problems that are still not fully researched. In this volume there is only one essay that focuses on women in confraternities. Other remaining problems include the art patronage of the confraternities, the brotherhoods ' role in recruiting support for social and political programs, and finally the role of confraternities in structuring the emotional and intellectual formations of early modern women and men. Maureen Flynn and Ann Ramsey offer provocative hints that this last problem will become a fruitful area of future research . James R. Banker North Carolina State University Prayer Book and People in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England. By Judith Maltby. [Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History] (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1998. Pp. xvii, 310. $64.95.) Here is a subject of immense importance,yet one which is exceedingly difficult to write. Those men and women who quietly conformed to the Elizabethan settlement and embraced its liturgy and ceremonies were often dismissed by godly preachers as "cold statute protestants," a dismissal which, Maltby argues, historians have tended unconsciously to accept, relegating conformity to the margins of historical inquiry. This is surely right, and Maltby's exploration of the evidence for "prayer book Protestants" between 1560 and 1640 is an important and welcome discussion. In truth,however,the title is misleading as the heart of the work (chapters 3, 4, and 5) centers upon an analysis of nearly thirty petitions produced in defense of the established church in the heady months of 1641-42. She focuses attention upon the activities of Sir Thomas Aston, an im- 122BOOKREviirws portant gentleman of the Cheshire county community, who failed to secure election to the Long Parliament and spent the following two years in "petitioning ,writing and publishing on behalf of the established church." The fifth chapter attempts a detailed social analysis of the subscribers to the two Cheshire petitions in support first of episcopacy and then of the liturgy in February and December, 1641, respectively. Maltby is at pains to emphasize the "free expression " of "ordinary parishioners," and her discussion tends to gloss over the influence that might have been exercised by local gentry or leading parishioners. From Cheshire and the politics on the eve of the Civil war, an earlier chapter moves back in time, seeking evidence of conformist sentiments in church court cases of dispute between parishioners and clerics for failure, whether from nonconformist scruples or neglect, to conduct the services as enjoined by law. A brief conclusion returns to the lay-clerical relationship, repeats the concern that historians be more careful about categorizing past religious experiences, and touches on contemporary Anglican definitions of its own past. The appendices very helpfully lay out much of the data gathered and analyzed in chapters 3-5. The decision to attempt an impressionistic survey of conformity from 1570 to 1642 in only fifty-two pages almost undermines the case for taking parish conformists seriously before 1640-42. Perhaps most problematic here is Maltby's use of church court material. Some of the cases brought by parishioners against their incumbents for failing to serve the cure as required by law must disclose a desire for...