In Riches and Reform, Bess Rhodes explores the wealth and administration of St. Andrews's ecclesiastical institutions over a period that spans both sides of the Scottish Reformation of 1560. The institutions in question include St. Andrew's Cathedral, the Franciscan friary, the Dominican friary, the university (consisting of St. Salvator's College, St. Leonard's College and St. Mary's College), Holy Trinity Parish Church, and the Church of St. Mary on the Rock.

The first chapter is a delightful tour of medieval St. Andrews, taking in the burgh's long history, institution by institution. Rhodes presents this with a lightness of touch that stops the steady flow of information becoming overwhelming, which is a real strength of the whole book. However, although she offers some comparison to other Scottish towns, she makes little mention of the wider European urban context, which is a notable omission considering St. Andrews's international connections. Chapter 2 maps out the institutions’ income and assets up to the eve of the Reformation, building up a picture of how these assets were accumulated over time. Perhaps unsurprisingly, St. Andrews is shown to have been incredibly wealthy, a large proportion of this wealth being pulled in from the rest of Scotland.

Chapter 3 then explores how this wealth was managed, dispelling some of the older myths about the apparent maladministration within the pre-Reformation church, at least within the context of St. Andrews. The administration is shown to have been healthy, proactive, and ably staffed. Chapter 4 explores the donations made to the various institutions, whether in cash, rent, lands, or otherwise, and to whom and why they were given. Perhaps the most surprising finding here is how donations still flowed into these bodies right up to the Reformation crisis, the church showing little sign of decline, indicating commitment to the old faith.

Chapter 5 concerns feuing, heritable long-term leasing of property. This single aspect of land tenure gets a chapter in its own right, as it has long been held by historians that feuing was a major contributing factor to the institutional decline of the pre-Reformation church. The argument has been that by converting its land from short-term renewable leases to long-term feuing, the church was trading the immediate gains of up-front payments for long-term declining rental income. One of Rhodes's major findings completely overturns this: the church appears to have had a clear strategy for feuing certain unprofitable lands while retaining core assets. The church is shown to have raised considerable funds in the process. So, despite the bad reputation feuing has had among historians, it seems to have been a profitable and positive strategy of land management, at least until the Reformation crisis came and less prudent measures had to be taken, which are explored in the last three chapters.

Chapter 6 primarily focuses on the “unofficial” settlements caused by the immediate impact of the Reformation, with fleeing clerics offloading assets, or assets being seized by Protestant incomers. The counterpart to this comes in chapter 7, which discusses the official settlement, when nationwide legislation came into force during the personal reign of Queen Mary. Here we see the continual dismemberment or redirection of the old church's assets. A major finding seems to be the apparent crisis of legitimacy concerning the church's wealth after the Reformation. The extent of the nonpayment of rents and tiends are clearly and precisely shown to have been a massive problem for benefice and asset holders after the old church was swept away. Finally, chapter 8 concerns the more long-term impact through the Marian Civil War era, up to 1580, when the young James VI started taking on full power. The cumulative implication of the preceding three chapters makes it clear that the thorough dismantling of the old church's institutional and financial structures seems to have been so complete that Rhodes makes the convincing argument that any effort by the Stuart monarchs to bring back episcopacy was always going to be a matter of closing the stable door after the horse had already bolted: the resources were simply no longer there.

One of this book's greatest strengths is in how precise and pertinent everything is in telling the story of St. Andrews. Even the footnotes, which are a wonderful treasure of information, keep the focus exact and firm. The downside of this intense focus is that St. Andrews was, and still is, a very odd place, and awareness of how it might fit into the wider Scottish or European urban or Reformation experience is lacking. This is a shame, as many of Rhodes's findings are dynamite. For example, St. Andrews's ecclesiastical institutions are shown to have been incredibly wealthy prior to 1560, and Rhodes builds a precise picture of how rich and for how long. Yet this can only apply within St. Andrews. This misses the wider problem in Reformation scholarship, in how far the wider church may have suffered or been dilapidated simply because St. Andrews and the larger ecclesiastical institutions became a drain on the wider church's wealth and talent. However, this could be unfair as a criticism: it is perhaps no bad thing for a historian to solely confine oneself to something that one can comment on with full conviction rather than airily suggesting conclusions for areas where this evidence does not necessarily apply. Accordingly, Riches and Reform makes it implicitly clear that much more work needs to be done by historians on both pre- and post-Reformation church assets.

Otherwise, my only real criticism is about the index. Given how precise the rest of the volume is, at only two pages, it is next to useless. If the reader wants to search for certain topics, such as craft guilds, royal taxation, or even any of the mentioned streets of St. Andrews (surely of interest to the general reader), they are left to their own wits. This may have been an editorial decision under the assumption that ebooks and their search functions will soon be universal, but it is to be regretted all the same.

That aside, this is a clearly written and precisely organized book. There is a joy in the detail and the accuracy, and some of the findings have major implications for our understanding of Reformation Scotland.