George Gifford is quite possibly the most quoted and least studied of all Elizabethan religious writers. Always a reliable source for a verbal zinger, Gifford's works are routinely mined by scholars seeking to make a point about the religion of the “common sort.” Typically, authors wrench these quotations from their original context, much in the manner of the devil quoting scripture. Finally, in this revision of the author's doctoral dissertation, we have a fine and efficient study that places Gifford and his writings solidly in their context.

Timothy Scott McGinnis argues that Gifford's writings must all be read in the context of his primary identity as a pastor, not as if he were a “Tudor anthropologist” (in Alan Macfarlane's memorable words). McGinnis is critical, as was John Craig before him, of the way in which scholars such as Christopher Haigh have used Gifford's words to paint a grim picture of the state of religion in the parishes. Rather, he argues that a character such as Atheos in Countrie Divinitie tells us little about parishioners and much more about what the godly thought of themselves and their mission. For Gifford, Atheos represents “an idealized ignorance” (13), which allows Gifford to promote his pastoral agenda of getting more and better preaching in the parishes. His readers were not to take Atheos as a sign of the failure of reformed ministry to change the religion of the common sort but as a challenge and an opportunity—if only the government would give them the necessary resources.

Following a lengthy but engaging biographical chapter, with a helpful explanation of the ecclesiastical politics of Maldon, McGinnis gives us three chapters on Gifford's responses to the three enemies of the church: popery, separatism, and witches. Gifford was less concerned with missionaries than he was with the persistence of popish errors in the Elizabethan church, and this was for him another opportunity to push for more and better pastoral ministry. His strong support for his clerical brethren is also on display in his rejection of separatism. While he agreed with many separatist theological positions, Gifford felt that it undermined respect for the ministry, and, Augustinian to the core, he held that “unity trumped purity” (107). He also defended scripted prayer on the grounds of pastoral need: the spiritually immature needed the certainty, clarity, and consistency of common prayer, and their needs preceded any benefit associated with the spontaneous prayer demanded by separatists. Gifford's tendency to offer unexpected priorities is seen in his work on witches as well. He argued that the real danger from witches was not external (from maleficium) but spiritual; attributing power to witches insulted the sovereignty and providence of God. Thus, witches were reconfigured in his mind as a pastoral problem, for which the solution was not witch hunts but preaching.

Throughout these interesting chapters, McGinnis sets Gifford in the context of his contemporaries, such as Richard Greenham and William Perkins. He gives strong evidence for the claim, which I have already made in work on Greenham, that parish ministry engendered approaches different from those whose experience was largely limited to the library and university. At the same time, he shows that such pastoral experience did not turn everyone into Greenham clones. Gifford, who actually hailed from Greenham's parish of Dry Drayton (but had left it before Greenham's tenure began), felt himself pulled into Elizabethan church politics by his pastoral ministry as surely as Greenham was driven to avoid them. It is useful to be reminded that the experience of parish ministry, which we are only beginning to examine in a thoroughgoing manner, is a complex one, and no one iconic figure will be able to represent it for us. In this respect, McGinnis's book is an important contribution to a developing field. This makes it all the more regrettable that there is no archival work on Maldon and its parishes here. Parish registers, wills, and tax records all exist for the relevant years, and using them would have enriched McGinnis's discussion of the social and religious divisions in Maldon, as well as the impact of Gifford's lengthy ministry. This lapse does not diminish the value of the author's analysis of Gifford's published works; it does, however, create an obvious opening for some additional work on Gifford.

No author should be expected to include every remotely relevant book in his notes and bibliography. However, in a book nicely sensitive to the currents of historiographical debate, it is surprising to see the definitive work of Thomas McCoog, SJ, missing from the citations on the Jesuit mission in the 1580s. Otherwise, the notes and bibliography will serve students well as a guide into ongoing debates in the field. Although this fine book deserves to be widely read by scholars, it is not for them alone. Students will find it accessible thanks to the author's care in explaining events and debates with which specialists will be all too familiar. While even in paperback this book is too expensive for classroom adoption, it ought to be acquired by libraries at any school in which Elizabethan history is taught.