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FDU PRESS
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| Scholarly Review |
 | Domesticating the Reformation: Protestant Best Sellers, Private Devotion, and the Revolution of English Piety
ISBN# 0838641091
Reviewed by: Stephen B. Dobranski
Studies in English Literature |
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In Domesticating the Reformation: Protestant Best Sellers, Private Devotion, and the Revolution of English Piety, Mary Hampson Patterson explores how widely purchased printed texts may have contributed to the spread of Reformation thinking in sixteenth-century England. "Domesticating" in the book's title refers to both the efforts of English writers to adapt Continental reformist ideas for their lay readers and, more specifically, these writers' attempts to present practical instructions for establishing a godly, Protestant household. After carefully laying out and qualifying her argument about reformist devotional literature and its relationship to England's changing religious consciousness, Patterson dedicates most of her book to detailed readings of three reformist texts by, respectively, Thomas Becon, John Norden, and Edward Dering and John More. While Patterson takes unnecessary pains to justify her examination of these popular, nonliterary works and also spends a little too much time reviewing their basic theological ideas, she is a thorough reader and lucid writer, and her discussion of the three works' distinguishing features is often compelling. Patterson is no deconstructionist: she does not pursue the works' possible inconsistencies or contradictions: on the contrary, she accepts that these writers mean what they seem to say, and she emphasizes how the three works avoud controversial positions and establish broadly accepted Protestant principles. If she is on less sure ground each time she speculates that these works were influential - much more evidence would be needed beyond the works' multiple reprintings - she nevertheless demonstrates persuasively that strenuous domestic piety was an important part of the reformist enterprise. The value of this book lies in its detailed exploration of how theological concepts such as providence, free will, and the Incarnation were communicated to lay readers during the sixteenth century and how these three popular works provided a clear Protestant explanation of achieving redemption along with suggestions for adopting Protestantism's devotional implications into daily life.
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