A blockbuster of a book...A rich study of aspects of the life of one parish viewed through the eyes of its devoted clergy and leading parishioners.
ECCLESIOLOGY TODAY
As a 'thick-description' of pre-Reformation parish life, it can be set alongside Eamon Duffy's Voices of Morebath.... a most welcome exemplification of 'what it was like' to be a late medieval parishioner, written by one of the pathbreakers of revisionist interpretations of pre-Reformation religion.
HISTORY
The context The Right Ordering of Souls provides is essential for the story of the church and as a backdrop of the English Reformation.
FIDES ET HISTORIA
A monograph which offers the most in-depth and stimulating account of a single medieval English parish yet to be written.
JOURNAL OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY
This is a splendid book, and one that everyone interested in either 'popular religion' or the history of Bristol in the late Middle Ages will want on their shelves. . . . [H]ighly recommended.
SPECULUM
Provides an exceptionally rich picture of pre-Reformation life within the parish of All Saints', Bristol, which will surely become a firm fixture in the libraries and reading lists of those working on religious and parish history.
REVIEWS IN HISTORY
A wonderful study of a unique archive which not only contributes to the field of late medieval ecclesiastical history, but also to discussion of late medieval Bristol. It will serve the interests and learning of undergraduate and graduate students, historians, and the general public more widely. It should be taken as a study of a single parish with wider applications.
NOTTINGHAM MEDIEVAL STUDIES
It will be widely welcomed and much used..An important contribution to the ongoing reconstruction of the fuller pre-Reformation English church.
BRITISH CATHOLIC HISTORY
An excellent study of an important subject and can be thoroughly recommended to all who are interested in the history of Bristol.
BRISTOL & GLOUCESTERSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY
Here, in a series of chapters covering such topics as lay testamentary bequests, the foundation of chantries and anniversaries, maintenance of the church fabric, and the lay management of the parish, [Burgess] lays bare the rich tapestry of All Saints' devotional life.
- Nigel Saul, Journal of British Studies