REVIEWS & ADVANCE NOTICES:

"Festschrifts run the risk of dating quickly, but Researching the English Reformation constitutes a significant collection of essays that meaningfully and consequentially speak to each other and so deserves to be read widely. Scholars of the field will glean a great deal from these chapters, written in praise of a historian whose work has shaped the field. Students of the Reformation will benefit from seeing the difficulties of doing Reformation research discussed so frankly."  --Ecclesiology (2026) 1–6

"This book is a tribute to a fine scholar, and the finest tribute is that it is a collection of first-class scholarship inspired by, stimulated by and in conversation with Patterson's work. A roster of our best church historians contribute incisive, eye-opening, new perspectives on the religious worlds of early modern England, both by bringing new material to light and by helping us to see afresh what has been before us all along."  --Alec Ryrie, Durham University

BOOK JACKET DESCRIPTION

Researching the English Reformation studies the history and historiography of early Anglicanism in order to pay tribute to the scholarship of W. Brown Patterson. Three of the volume’s sections are inspired by Patterson’s research monographs. The first taking its cue from Patterson’s study of Thomas Fuller, analyses the intersection of mythology and historiography surrounding the English Reformation. The second, following Patterson’s study of William Perkins, turns to the general theological and political contours of early modern England. The third pans out in both geography and chronology, thus emulating Patterson’s award-winning study of King James VI and I. The fourth and final section analyses how, in the nineteenth century, the early modern period was reinvented by the Parker Society and the Oxford Movement.

CONTENTS

1 Introduction

 Benjamin M. Guyer and William E. Engel

2 William Brown Patterson: Life and Career

 George Core and George Poe

Part 1 Historiography, I: Reformation England

3 Matters Overlooked: Straightening Out the Story of the Reformation

 Diarmaid MacCulloch

4 A Fatal Conceit? Early Stuart Projects for the Ecclesiastical History of England

 Anthony Milton

5 Doubt and Commitment in Thomas Fuller’s Church-History of Britain

 James Ross Macdonald

Part 2 Within and beyond Early Modern England

6 Remembering the King: Roger Williams and Anne Sadlier Debate the King’s Book and Ecclesiastical Authority

 Scott N. Kindred-Barnes

7 The Natural Desire to See God: Early Modern Catholic and Reformed Interpretations of Aquinas

 Paul Dominiak

8 Richard Hooker and Multiple Platonisms

 David Neelands

9 ‘The Whole Congregation at One Instant Pour Out Their Petitions’: Addressing the Challenges of Implementation in the Use of the Book of Common Prayer

 John N. Wall

Part 3 Negotiating Monarchy

10 Supreme Governess: the Intersection of Theology and Politics in Richard Hooker’s Apologetics

 Torrance Kirby

11 Investing in Good Will: James VI, Religious Innovation, and the Royal Burgh of Perth

 Margo Todd

12 The Sacred and the Secular, as Evinced by English Printed Responses to the Death of William III in 1702

 Nicholas Tyacke

Part 4 Historiography, II: Victorian Reformation

13 The Victorians, William Perkins, and W.B. Patterson

 Lori Anne Ferrell

14 ‘Handing Down the Principles of Laud’: History & Propaganda in John Henry Newman’s Tractarian Battle for the Church of England

 Peter B. Nockles

for abstracts of individual chapters CLICK HERE and scroll down