This splendid study of Robert Barnes (1495–1540) surpasses previous works in giving us a full and perceptive picture of a figure who, though overshadowed by contemporaries, held an important place in the early English evangelical movement.

Barnes was an early promoter of Luther's views, first expressed in Barnes's 1525 Christmas Eve Cambridge sermon—an important, initial manifesto of Cambridge evangelicals. This led to years of exile and then work as an ambassador enjoying royal patronage, as Barnes tried to broker agreements between Henry VIII and German Lutherans. Barnes wrote important theological treatises which Maas argues gave Barnes a significance beyond the sixteenth century into the seventeenth. He wrote the first Protestant history of the Papacy, introducing historiographical traditions into Reformation controversies.

Maas's book clearly lays out Barnes' life with all its zigs and zags to his martyr's death, just two days after Thomas Cromwell met his end. Maas carefully unweaves the many strands of Barnes's activities and shows how for fifteen years he was close to the center of the emerging Reformation, both in England and on the Continent. Major elements in Barnes' theology including justification, the sacrament of the altar, and views of church, state, and supremacy are expertly discussed by Maas and Barnes's affinities with Luther and Wittenberg views are shown.

Maas's insightful work will be a definitive source on Barnes, highlighting his key roles and importance in the English church context. His expert use of sources and judicious judgments make this a model study.