A study of one of the most important aspects of Reformation in England: its impact on the status of the dead. This book explores attitudes towards the dead in pre-Reformation religious culture, and traces the uncertain progress of the 'reformation of the dead' attempted by the Protestant authorities.

Introduction ; 1. The Presence of the Dead: Memory and Obligation before the Reformation ; 2. Debates over the Dead: Purgatory and Polemic in Henrician England ; 3. 'Rage against the Dead': Reform, Counter-Reform, and the Death of Purgatory ; 4. The Regulation of the Dead: Ritual and Reform in the English Church, c.1560-1630 ; 5. The Estate of the Dead: The Afterlife in the Protestant Imagination ; 6. The Disorderly Dead: Ghosts and their Meanings in Reformation England ; 7. Remembering the Dead: Commemoration and Memory in Protestant Culture ; Conclusion ; Bibliography of Printed Primary Sources ; Index

This is a very good book. Well written, judicious, thoroughly researched, with generous acknowledgements to the work of others in the field, the book might be thought to be a work of synthesis. It is in fact much more. It brings a new perspective to the on-going debate on the English Reformation, tells the reader much that is new on the doctrinal shifts that took place, and places it all in the context of social and cultural movement.

Review from other book by this author Peter Marshall's detailed and finely balanced examination of the English priesthood in the age of Reformation is a superb example of the fresh insights still to be found in this enduringly contentious area ... The precision and poise of this study means that we are provided not only with an account of the priesthood but also with a fascinating and delicately-constructed picture of the wider English religious scene between c. 1500 and 1553 ... One of the greatest strengths of this work is the way in which it manages to quell the more strident voices of polemicists both past and present and let us hear the faint, at times almost inaudible, voices of ordinary people ... In both its wider perspective and its detailed perception, this work offers a rare level of insight. The disputatious world of Reformation history stands very much in need of this type of approach to balance the equally necessary, but more argumentative, works on this subject. Ecclesiastical History `major contribution to revisionist historical literature on the English Reformation ... Marshall works his way through wills, ecclesiastical court documents, churchwardens' accounts, and the results of episcopal visitations with great balance, skill, and sophistication. Another major contribution of Marshall's work is his analysis of anticlericalism.' Church History `An original and richly detailed study of the parochial priesthood in the English church from Henry VII to the Protestant Edward VI.' Religious Studies Review `Marshall's interesting and well-documented study enhances our knowledge of lay attitudes' Albion `a readable, historically sound and well-balanced study which constitutes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the early English Reformation.' Theological Book Review `a judicious book. Marshall deftly steers the reader through a wide range of sources...We emerge... with an enlarged perception of prevailing platitudes as well as changing attitudes.' Times Literary Supplement `makes a scholarly and nuanced contribution to the debate... Dr Marshall has produces an impressive analysis of the attitudes of early Tudor parishioners to their priests which does indeed, as he intended, 'illuminate something of the nature of "popular religion" in the early sixteenth century, and the impact of reform on the interaction of the ordinary Christian and his pastor'.' English Historical Review