This is a very welcome addition to Brill's Companions to the Christian Tradition series in which it joins A companion to John Wyclif: late medieval theologian (2006) edited by Ian Levy. A comprehensive one-volume up-to-date introduction to Lollardy that is both accessible to students and useful to researchers has been overdue for a while. Until now the go-to introduction for students has been Malcolm Lambert's excellent Medieval heresy (now in its third edition published in 2002) but its wide-ranging scope limits its coverage of Wyclif and Lollardy to two chapters. Richard Rex's The Lollards (2002) is accessible but deeply unsympathetic to its subject. Other works are either more specialised, not as comprehensive, or becoming a little dated. Hornbeck's own book, What is a Lollard? (2010), for example, is one of a number of more recent monographs that represent a new generation of research on late medieval English religious dissent that necessitates the production of a new general introduction.

There are a number of reasons to recommend this volume. It brings together a large body of research and introduces it to the uninitiated. It will also serve as an invaluable resource for anyone with knowledge of the field. Rather than making a new intervention in debates about Lollardy or offering a new approach to Lollard studies it provides an extremely well-informed synthesis and assessment of research to date by three of its leading scholars. Alongside this it lays out the basic architecture of the topic, making it a very useful work of reference, aided by a comprehensive index. Hornbeck provides the lion's share of content, namely the introduction and conclusion and chapters on people, practices, beliefs, trials and legacy. Fiona Somerset and Mishtooni Bose contribute a chapter each, on Lollard writings and on their opponents, respectively. These different parts cohere very effectively and the chapters by Somerset and Bose significantly enhance the volume by offering treatments of specialist areas by leading experts.

One of the things the book does really well is to identify – and debunk – the myths that pervade the historiography of Lollardy. This is important in a general introduction to a topic that is fraught with the contestations of confessional histories and about which such nonsense continues to be peddled. This is perhaps the volume's most avowed aim and it achieves this without being overly prescriptive and by identifying the parameters of our knowledge and the questions that remain unanswered or contested. Thus it self-consciously eschews any one meta-narrative of Wyclif and Lollardy, and instead provides a sharply critical tool-kit for examining historiographical approaches and the problems posed by the evidence. The introduction, for example, helpfully sets the study of Lollardy as heresy within a longer tradition of heresiography that began with the Church Fathers and shaped modern historiography. There is also an imaginative composite potted history of Wyclif and Lollardy drawn from late medieval and early Protestant polemicists that does much to illustrate the long-standing assumptions that have been questioned by more recent scholarship. There is also a useful introduction to the terminological minefield of Wycliffite/Lollard/lollard and the different ways in which scholars have sought to connect or disconnect these categories.

All of the chapters provide excellent surveys by laying out the basics and engaging with scholarly arguments and approaches to the sources. Their organisation might, however, surprise some readers in that chapter iii, ‘Their practices’, precedes chapters iv and v, on ‘Their beliefs’ and ‘Their writings’, respectively. The rationale for this arrangement rests on Hornbeck's appreciation of the insights of the subdiscipline of practical theology, which sees practice as being as important as theology in the formation of belief. More specifically, though, it is intended as ‘a riposte to intellectualist accounts of lollardy and as a word of encouragement for us to begin the study of lollardy as close as possible to the flesh-and-blood lives of the people we study’ (p. 60). Such good intentions should be applauded but it is ironic that the volume is strongest on the intellectual history of Lollardy rather than its social history. For this reason, it is tempting to think that it would have benefitted from the input of an out-and-out historian who would have provided a productive disciplinary balance to the expertise of its three contributors whose backgrounds lie in theology, literary and manuscript studies. This is doubly ironic, especially given the above statement about getting ‘as close as possible to the flesh-and-blood lives of the people we study’, because it might have helped counteract the trend in the last couple of decades which has seen Lollard studies become less historical and more theological and literary in emphasis.

One of the aspects of the social history of Lollardy that might have received fuller treatment is its appeal. Whilst there is lucid discussion of the positive components of Lollard spirituality (pp. 69–75) the volume could have addressed more comprehensively research on what drew individuals, families and groups to Lollardy in the first place, and why they risked life and limb to hold and communicate their beliefs and remain part of dissenting groups and networks. Scholarly debate about these questions has compared Lollardy with less heterodox aspects of late medieval religion, and it is a pity that the volume does not engage more explicitly with this as it represents one of the most exciting and promising developments in the field.

These criticisms should not detract from the overall achievement of this important book. It is a thoroughly ‘post-confessional’ (although Hornbeck prefers the term ‘professional’) introduction to Lollardy that represents much of what is best in new Lollard scholarship. Its publication marks a major milestone in a field that has left behind the old stereotypes and polemical entrenchments to enter a new phase of research and study based on firmer understanding of what we know, and more critical and imaginative approaches to ongoing questions.