This collection of essays is the second produced by an interdisciplinary research network that Jessica Martin and Alec Ryrie, along with Judith Maltby and Natalie Mears, have assembled for the purpose of examining “the whole question of worship and devotion in the early modern period” (3). The first, Worship and the Parish Church in Early Modern Britain (Surrey, U.K: Ashgate, 2008), centered on devotion in the public sphere. This one addresses the spiritual habits of individuals, families, and small group gatherings. Martin and Ryrie refer to the early modern period as “shifting and fluid” in their introduction (3), and indeed, a theme running through these twelve articles is the shifting and fluid quality of private and domestic devotion in Britain following the Reformation. Leaders of every major confession and persuasion sought to influence the religious habits of the faithful at home, as with public worship. Catholics were forced to adapt traditional practices to the constraints of a new status quo, while Protestants sought a thoroughgoing reformation of the early modern household, breaking new and uncertain ground in the process.

Accessing the private devotional experiences of past ages is a formidable research task, the editors acknowledge. This explains why there have been relatively few attempts, and why a volume like this one is needed. While the majority of the contributors are scholars of English—only four of history—literary criticism plays a minor role in the articles presented. Most are historical surveys of primary written material: godly living manuals, prayer collections, religious poetry, sermons, diaries, commonplace books, and biographies. The authors make an effort to compare what was taught formally with what was actually received and appropriated, as indicated in biographies and personal writings left behind. One methodological exception is Tara Hamling's essay (“Old Robert's Girdle: Visual and Material Props for Protestant Piety in Post-Reformation England”), which explains how Protestants used various images and objects for devotional purposes in private and domestic settings, despite their iconoclastic approach to public worship spaces.

In the first two chapters, Ian Green and Jane Dawson present a bird's-eye view of the topic, describing various early modern attempts at reformed devotion in England and Scotland, respectively. While manuals such as Richard Rogers's Seven Treatises and Daniel Featley's Ancilla Pietatis held considerable sway in shaping private and domestic spirituality in England, Scotland's course is notable for the authoritative role its Kirk played in reforming both public and private worship—something Dawson says “became one of the distinctive aspects of Scottish Presbyterianism to the end of the eighteenth century” (34). Both of these well-organized essays affirm the importance of clerical initiative, but also highlight the fervent piety many lay men and women demonstrated in their homes and prayer closets. Sometimes they were deemed too fervent: In a later chapter, Kate Narveson discusses “Clerical Anxieties about Lay Scripture Reading in Early Modern England,” pointing out the dilemma of ministers who sought to promote diligent Bible reading in the home without also cultivating what they considered a dangerous sense of lay independence. The other essays in this volume similarly address specific aspects of private and domestic devotion, such as changing views of privacy and private prayer, the evolution of Psalm singing as both a recreation and an exercise, and the adaptation of well-known pre-Reformation conventions by Protestants or by Catholics.

The two editors’ chapters contain some of the most substantive and interesting observations in the collection. Jessica Martin, formerly a fellow in English at Trinity College, Cambridge, employs historical and literary analysis to describe the ways Protestant clergy approached Christ's Passion (“English Reformed Responses to the Passion”). Protestants generally preferred to focus attention on the theological significance of Christ's suffering, she demonstrates, rather than the actual historical scene, a commonplace in Catholic devotion. Alec Ryrie, Professor of the History of Christianity at Durham University, writes about the unease Protestants experienced when night fell, and discusses the measures they took to guard against its spiritual dangers (“Sleeping, Waking and Dreaming in Protestant Piety”). Sleeping and dreaming, he says, “were spiritually troublesome because they were beyond the sleeper's control; but they were also spiritually potent and revealing for exactly the same reason” (91). Dreams were viewed as reflections of the soul: if they were morally pure, they testified to the validity of one's faith; if not, they raised doubt. Studies like these confirm that it is possible to gain a useful understanding of the private religious experiences of the past, however difficult the endeavor.

One minor element of the book which some may find unhelpful is the editors’ repeated use of prayer as a metonym for the whole range of devotional activities people observed during the period. The introduction begins: “This is a book about how people in early modern England and Scotland prayed when they weren't in church” (1). Later, in the course of previewing the essays, they write, “How did people do daily prayer? How did they mark the times of their lives and integrate them [into] the wider praying community of Christians . . . ? The rest of the book's contributors focus on different aspects of that question” (5). But it seems a stretch to conceive of all that is presented in the book's last eight chapters as simply varieties of “daily prayer.” Given that it was common in early modern Britain for ministers to delineate, and for laypeople to practice, a suite of devotional exercises (Rogers's Seven Treatises laid out no less than eight private “helps” to a godly life, of which prayer was one), it might be better to avoid using prayer as a shorthand for “spiritual life” in academic discourse on this period.

Martin and Ryrie modestly claim that this volume “offers a basis” through which “we can begin to discern the private work of prayer in closet and sitting room; in field, wood or bedchamber” (7). The diversity of subjects and methodologies featured in it will make it a valuable resource for anyone interested in researching early modern religion, literature, or culture.