This volume presents twelve comparative case studies about the causes and character of the Reformation. The editors make clear in the introduction that in their view no over-arching thesis about the Reformation emerges from these studies. However, they write that this collection highlights that ‘the Reformation made its greatest impact whilst its nature was not clearly defined’ (p. 16). Other recurring themes in the volume include discussion of the distortions in thinking about the Reformation caused by national historiographic traditions. By Reformation, the Protestant Reformation is meant in this volume in its distinct Lutheran and Reformed guises.

The chapter by Christoph Volkmar compares the reception of ideas about religious reform in Ducal Saxony and Electoral Saxony. Volkmar writes that the 1485 dynastic division of the Wettin lands provides ‘almost perfect laboratory conditions for comparing opposite reactions to the Reformation’ (p. 19). The two Saxonies had no substantial differences in their social, economic or administrative structures, with nothing to set them apart until the Luther affair. Princes emerge as decisive figures in shaping responses to the Reformation in the German lands. While Duke George was a champion of humanist reform, in 1519 he identified Luther as a heretic. Meanwhile Electors Frederick and John moved from a conventional late medieval piety to support the Lutheran cause. Howard Louthan compares the Reformation in two lands under the same Habsburg ruler after 1526, considering religious change in the Austrian archduchies and kingdom of Bohemia and its associated lands. Louthan finds useful points of comparison between Austria and Bohemia in thinking about religious life before Luther’s movement, the chronology of reform, the emergence of Anabaptists and the role of universities and nobilities. Béla Vilmos Mihalik considers the progress of the Reformation in the lands of the Hungarian kingdom that became divided after 1526 between the Ottomans, the Habsburgs and rulers of Transylvania. Mihalik highlights the consequences for religious life of the different political and legal contexts of these three emerging states. He also identifies the importance of ongoing connections between communities across the former Hungarian kingdom.

Maciej Ptaszyński offers comparative analysis of the advance of Lutheranism in the states on the southern coast of the Baltic sea. Ptaszyński identifies common elements in the reception of ideas about reform between the duchy of Mecklenburg, the duchy of Pomerania, Royal Prussia and Ducal Prussia. Networks of reformers and preachers across the region were in close contact with Luther and Wittenberg. There were also connections between towns from Rostock and Stralsund to Gdańsk and Königsberg. City elites responded in a variety of ways to the spread of Lutheran ideas, anxious to avoid any threats to public order. The role of sovereigns proved decisive. Sigismund i undertook a military campaign to suppress heresy in Royal Prussia while Albrecht of Hohenzollern imposed Lutheranism in the newly constituted Ducal Prussia. Göran Malmstedt considers the relative progress of Lutheran reform in Denmark-Norway and Sweden-Finland. Malmstedt observes that Lutheranism spread more quickly to Denmark than elsewhere. In 1536 Christian iii defeated rebels who opposed his succession. Christian then imposed reform measures and imprisoned all the Catholic bishops whom he held responsible for the civil war. Malmstedt argues that alongside the extent of royal control over the Church, the pace of reform was determined by connections between Denmark’s towns and German Lutheran states and universities.

Essays by Amy Nelson Burnett and Christine Kooi analyse the Reformation in the Swiss lands and the Low Countries. There was a complex pattern of reception of Reformed ideas in Swiss towns and villages. After short wars between Reformed and Catholic members of the Confederation a compromise settlement allowed the Swiss lands to retain a common political identity. Kooi argues that national historiographical traditions in Belgium and the Netherlands have obscured the diverse and shifting pattern of religious change across the Low Countries. Influenced by both French- and German-speaking lands, the character of religious life across the Low Countries was eclectic and profoundly impacted by violent persecution and long years of war. Richard Rex compares the Reformations in England and the French monarchy, analysing ‘what it was that ultimately made one an overwhelming success and the other a mitigated failure’ (p. 190). Support for the Reformed cause spread quickly in some parts of France in the 1550s and 1560s. Valois monarchs then faced a stiff challenge in attempting to impose Catholic religious uniformity. France’s institutional complexity, the role of the nobility, the number of large towns and the disruptive role played by the Genevan republic all stymied efforts to eradicate the Reformed Church. Henry A. Jefferies compares the Reformation in the three British kingdoms. Jefferies raises concern about the limits of existing historiography on the Reformation in Ireland that often identifies the rejection of reform as primarily determined by political alienation from Tudor governance. Jefferies credits the influence of friars in late medieval Ireland to explain resistance to ideas about religious reform in the sixteenth century. However, he suggests that ‘it is conceivable that the Reformation could have succeeded in Ireland’ (p. 239).

Two essays consider the reception of the Reformation in the Iberian peninsula (Michel Boeglin) and Italian lands (Simone Maghenzani). Boeglin assesses the successful role played by the Inquisition in repressing networks of reformers in the late 1550s. Maghenzani offers a striking conclusion that by the 1550s ‘the syncretism of heterodoxies that made up the Italian Reformation had run its course’ (p. 285). The volume also includes a valuable discussion by Liudmyla Sharipova about the impact of reform in Eastern Orthodox societies. Sharipova assesses the consequences of the missionary energy directed by Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists towards Orthodox communities in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Royal Hungary and the principality of Transylvania. She assesses the different approaches taken by Latin Churches towards Orthodox clergy and communities and analyses the significant impact of church union projects.