How the English Reformation was named. The politics of history, c. 1400–1700. By Benjamin M. Guyer. Pp. xiv + 220 incl. 1 fig and 1 table. Oxford–New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. 978 0 19 286572 4

Abstract

sharp. The second section of Overell’s work takes not individuals but texts as the subjects of its case studies. The first of these focuses on Il beneficio di Cristo and its first English translation, undertaken by the aforementioned Edward Courtenay. Overell’s detailed analysis opens a window into theological fluidity and exchange in the early reformation, as identities crystallised and changed the context of a many-layered text. The next two chapters range over more texts, focusing on the polemics of Pier Paolo Vergerio and various contemporary accounts of the recantation, remorse and death of Francesco Spiera. The latter of these, which might be familiar to some readers from Overell’s article on the topic, is particularly deft: the case study demonstrates the strengths of Overell’s approach in its movement not only across time and countries but also between an event that was itself stagemanaged and its many and purposeful interpretations. The next chapter, focused on three texts published in , is also particularly strong, showcasing not only a range of possible reactions to nicodemites but also the ways in which individual compassion could mitigate ideological condemnation. The last two chapters in this section move from the crisis for English Protestants of  to the reign of Elizabeth I, ‘the queen of Nicodemites’ (p. , quoting Peter Marshall). This focuses first on writers who urged against persecution and then on those, both Protestant and Catholic, who continued to write against those they perceived as nicodemites. Among the latter are texts we have already encountered, now reinterpreted and given new meaning under a new religious settlement. Indeed, as Overell shows in her final chapter, many of these texts continued to find new meanings across the seventeenth century and beyond as readers still grappled with what true spiritual devotion could and could not encompass. This is an important book, which in its subject and approach, particularly in its focus on cultural exchange, makes an important contribution to the historiography. It is deeply researched and clearly written. Yet both the greatest strength and the greatest weakness of Overell’s work is her refusal to define her terms and to boundary her study. She admits that the term ‘Nicodemite’ is so imprecise that there is a case that it could be ‘best abandoned’ (p. ), and she leaves it uncapitalised to emphasise that it was not a movement. It was, she argues, a ‘great spectrum of behaviour’ (p. ): so great, in fact, that ‘people suspected of nicodemism did much the same as everyone else, only more fervently and fearfully’ (p. ). There is much that is admirable in illuminating fear, concealment and ambivalence as near-universal early modern religious experiences, but this lack of distinction means the analysis is perhaps more fruitful when applied to texts than to individuals.