The Quiet Reformation: Magistrates and the Emergence of Protestantism in Tudor Norwich by Muriel C. McClendon (review)

book reviews335 phasis on literacy—in conjunction with the Word. Such was always Calvin's lens and, as faithful scholars, could profitably be ours. Catharine Randall Fordham University The Quiet Reformation: Magistrates and the Emergence ofProtestantism in Tudor Norwich. By Muriel C. McClendon. (Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1999. Pp. xvii, 340. $55.00.) This interesting account of Norwich corporation's responses to Tudor religious changes makes a welcome contribution to our understanding of the urban Reformation in England. Although Norwich was England's second largest city, and noted as a center of mUitant Protestantism under EUzabeth, this is the first monograph devoted to its experience of the Reformation. Professor McClendon is also the first historian to exploit the abundant records of the city's courts, particularly the Mayor's Court, in a study of reUgious change. Her main arguments are clearly stated. The rulers of Norwich put the interests of their city first. They showed a high degree of soUdarity in containing internal disagreements and avoiding occasions for interference by external authorities such as had taken place during the fifteenth century. Professor McClendon draws attention to three broad responses to the Reformation on the part of Norwich's magistrates. First, they complied promptly with government poUcies , taking advantage of them wherever possible. The acquisition of the newly dissolved house of the Black Friars in 1540, for example, and the redirection to it of much civic ritual, underlined the corporation's authority. Secondly, they sought to prevent open religious divisions. There were strong differences of reUgious opinion within Norwich, as aldermen's wUls suggest and proceedings recorded in the Mayor's Court books show. But whenever these differences resulted in abusive words or deeds, magistrates did their best to defuse tensions. Recorded punishments were Ught and many proceedings seem to have petered out. At no stage was there a hunt for heretics or recusants. Only two inhabitants¦went to the stake under Queen Mary, both for pubUc expressions of dissent which were hard to ignore. Professor McClendon describes a poUcy of defacto toleration of diversity of reUgious opinion so long as it did not manifest itself in disruptive acts. Thirdly, after EUzabeth's accession,when Protestants were probably in the majority on the corporation for the first time, the city's rulers embarked on a vigorous enforcement of social discipline. Cases of various sorts of misbehavior, such as theft, vagrancy, "evU rule," and sexual misconduct, were punished in far greater numbers, and more severely, than ever before. "Godly rule" as implemented in Norwich meant above aU the curbing of misbehavior which seemed to threaten the social order, but not the close enforcement of reUgious uniformity. Norwich magistrates, as always, showed a certain forbearance in the face of diversity of opinions. This useful monograph does not 336BOOK REVIEWS pretend to be a complete history of the Reformation in Norwich. Such a history would have to give fuller accounts of the implementation of reUgious change in the city's many parishes, of the changing attitudes of the broad middling groups of citizens, of the ways in which the church courts meshed with the city courts, of the part played by the clergy, and of the contribution made by the exiles from the Netherlands who settled there in the 1560's. But aU future historians of sixteenth-century Norwich wiU have to take account of Professor McClendon 's original, stimulating, and perceptive study. Ralph Hoijlbrooke University ofReading Catholics in Britain and Ireland, 1558-1829- By Michael A. MuUett. [Social History in Perspective.] (New York: St. Martin's Press. 1998. Pp. xn, 236. $55.00.) The period of time from Queen Elizabeth's accession to the throne of England to the Third Reform Bill has drawn the attention of several modern authors anxious to prove that Roman Catholicism underwent a sea change during 250 years of persecution. Continuity with the medieval past, according to Professors John Bossy and Hugh Aveling, was simply lost. Tridentine models of worship and governance swept away previous English medieval practices. Professor MuUett's admirable survey of the period does not dispute this conclusion directly,but renders it almost unimportant. The author treats the Roman Catholic Church within the larger framework...