Popular Religion in Sixteenth-Century England. Holding Their Peace by Christopher Marsh (review)

460BOOK REVIEWS business (in omnibus causis), the individual cases or Causae themselves, listed alphabetically by the geographic location from which they arose, and a brief supplement to the Causae listing two cases without specified location (sine dioc). Indices of names, including patronymics, and places are provided for consultation. Various conciliar luminaries, including Giuliano Cesarini and Nicholas of Cusa, appear in less exalted functions, not as political leaders or as polemicists but as participants in the judicial business of the council. Others, like Guillermus Hugonis, archdeacon of Metz, and Ludovicus de Garsiis, appear frequently as legal experts deeply involved in the judicial affairs of the council. The indexing is made harder to use because it is based on a sequence of numbers assigned to the subdivisions of the Causae, modified by the column numbers assigned the bulk of the volume in place of page numbers. Thus the first reference to Cusanus, as Nicolaus de Kusa, appears in 453860, a case from Speyer recorded in column 860. Without a doubt, this is not an easy compilation to use. The researcher needs to know curial structures, procedural terminology, Latin place names, and the indexing system of the book. Nonetheless, this project opens the records of the Council of Basel for research not just on its judicial business, carried on in competition with the Roman curia, but for inquiries into the numerous topics litigated in Basel by clerics from throughout Europe. Thomas M. Izbicki Johns Hopkins University Early Modern European Popular Religion in Sixteenth-Century England. Holding Their Peace. By Christopher Marsh. [Social History in Perspective.] (NewYork: St. Martin's Press. 1998. Pp. Lx, 258. $49.95 cloth; $19.95 paperback.) Over the last two decades, accounts of "popular religion" have undergone an astonishing transformation. On the cover of this important new survey, as one telling indication, we find no demons,witches, or pagan images, but an example of orthodox religious art from a rural East Anglian community. Throughout his book, Christopher Marsh emphasizes the commanding position of the Christian Church in local religion, with two-thirds of the argument dedicated to layfolks "within" and "alongside" the Church, and only the very last section examining activities "beyond" the official framework. Magic, long believed to be at the heart of the commoners' universe, occupies a mere eight pages. This set of priorities is in tune with a period of intensive historiographical interest in mainstream religion, but perhaps remarkable from a former pupil of Margaret Spufford and someone best known for his work on the Family of Love. Marsh embarks on a most impressive tour deforce through the vast body of secondary literature and presents us with a distinctly post-Revisionist thesis. The English people, to put it crudely, may have been happy with the old reli- BOOK REVIEWS461 gion, but they conformed throughout the turbulent stages of the Reformation in the interest of social harmony and emerged with an eclectic type of Protestantism based on time-honored moral values and good Christian fellowship. The author does not take kindly to extremist interpretations (Christopher Haigh), but highlights recent work on lay creativity, dogmatic flexibility, and local negotiation. The argument stresses the coexistence of tolerance and intolerance , the attractions as well as burdens of pre-Reformation practices, and the need to differentiate between religious radicals and a much more pragmatic majority. The author is acutely aware of the delicate problems of terminology, source material, and scholarly preconceptions. Above all, his account is balanced , at times painfully so. It would be impossible to accuse him of failing to see both sides of an argument. And yet, no such undertaking can hope to give equal weight to all facets of the topic. This is predominantly a work of early modern social history. Marsh is not so much trying to look into people's souls, but at their collective experience in a period of religious and social upheaval. In his assessment, "continuity" prevailed even in liturgical practice,parish administration, and religious dissent. Given the loss of intercessory institutions, increasing government interference, and an ever more fragmented confessional spectrum, medievalists remain to be convinced. Overall, however, Marsh has provided us with a most useful and entertaining survey (it is probably the...