Going to Church in Medieval England
Nicholas orme
(YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 496 PP, £20)
Tablet bookshop price £18 • tel 020 7799 4064

Some 30 years ago, Yale University Press published Eamon Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580. The stir that book caused has subsided. Duffy’s contention, supported by a vast array of cross-disciplinary sources, that the late medieval Church was vibrant, diverse and deeply relevant to people’s lives, drawing intense lay involvement and investment, has quietly passed into the mainstream. While there are a variety of positions on the impact and reception of the changes to religion brought about in the three generations following Henry VIII’s break with Rome, the range and vigour of pre-Reformation faith have been amply demonstrated.

Going to Church in Medieval England by Nicholas Orme, emeritus professor of history at Exeter University, is a distinguished and highly accessible contribution to the unfolding scholarly landscape of this subject (see, for example, Professor John Harper’s ongoing website project on the experience of medieval worship, or Dr Clive Burgess’ pioneering work on Bristol parishes). It asks, who went to church and what happened when they did? How did parishes function? How, when and where were the sacraments administered? How did church layout affect usage?