This major new study re-examines one of the most controversial issues of early modern history: the impact of the English Reformation upon the English people. It represents an advance from the conventional reign-by-reign narrative to a more incisively thematic approach. Drawing on the author's own research in church art as well as in written records such as wills and parish accounts, and evaluating the findings of other recent historians, it forcefully challenges several of the currently fashionable interpretations of this crucial era.