The Blind Devotion of the People: Popular Religion and the English Reformation

The religious revolution known as the 'Reformation' must rank among the most crucial and transforming events in English history. Yet its original reception by the English people remains largely obscure. Did they welcome the innovations - or did they resist? By what internal motivations were their responses determined? And by what external influences were their attitudes shaped? These are the key issues explored by Robert Whiting in this major investigation, based primarily on original research in the south-west. Dr Whiting's controversial conclusion is that for most of the population the Reformation was less a conversion from Catholicism to Protestantism than a transition from religious commitment to religious passivity or even indifference.