This compilation of 13 chapters by different authors aims to present ‘a reflection on the roots of Catholic and Protestant thinking on law and its place in society’ (unpaginated introduction by the editor). Its title is therefore somewhat misleading, for the book for the most part is not concerned with, much less concentrated on, the legal consequences of the Reformation, which turn out to have been slender. There is a tension permeating the book between its title and this aim, with the result that the book includes much that might better have found a home in a book with a different title.

This is not an easy read, for although packed with scholarship, the writing is for the most part dense. Four chapters stand out both for content and readability.

The first is a typically trenchant account, by Frank Cranmer, of ‘How the English and Scots Reformations Shaped Ecclesiastical and Secular Law in Great Britain’, starting with the reminder that ‘the Henrician Reformation was not primarily about theology but about governance’ (p 24) and concluding that by 1662 the Church of England was ‘an ecclesiastical hybrid … [in which] Martin Luther seems largely to have been forgotten’ (p 25). Following a careful review particularly of the Scots legal writers, the author’s conclusion is that ‘so far as Western canon law was concerned, the broader legal effects of the English and Scots Reformations were by no means a clean break with what had gone before’ (p 43), and this was so of secular law in the two kingdoms as well.

Chapter 3 by R H Helmholz, ‘The Reformation and Legal Change: The Persistence of Medieval Canon Law’ is, as is his wont, carefully crafted and a pleasure to read. Based on research, much of it by the author himself, on the actual practice in ecclesiastical courts and legal education, it puts beyond doubt the thesis expressed in the title to the chapter and extending both north and south of the line dividing Protestants from Catholics. ‘When King Henry VIII’s ministers shut the door on the canon law faculties in the English universities, the closure did not in itself eliminate reference to the texts of the canon law. They found a place in lectures of the civil law’ (p 52). The author puts forward an intriguing idea, namely that medieval canon law survived so widely as part of an increasing acceptance by the secular courts of legal pluralism (pp 64–65).

The third chapter to which I draw attention is chapter 10, ‘Equity and Conscience’ by Richard Hedlund, which poses the question: ‘did the English Reformation bring a change to the use of conscience in equity?’ (p 201). The conclusion is in the negative, namely that ‘the juridical use of conscience in equity remained much the same … equity’s conscience … withstood the external theological upheavals’ (p 201), a conclusion in line with so much else in this collection of essays. This conclusion emerges from perceptive treatments of the themes ‘Conscience in Early Christian Theology’, ‘Conscience in Scholastic and Catholic Theology’ and ‘Conscience in Protestant Theology’, which lead on to sections entitled ‘Conscience in the Medieval Court of Chancery’, a difficult subject given that ‘medieval Chancery judgments were not, as a matter of course, recorded and published’ (p 217), and ‘Conscience in the Tudor/Reformation Court of Chancery’. Here the author draws attention to the tension between conscience as a rational exercise, based on objective moral precepts, and the Lord Chancellor’s ‘personal discretion on how to determine cases, looking at whether the parties had acted unconscionably’ (p 219). It is shown persuasively that the flexibility of the equity jurisdiction was challenged at the time of the Reformation, but independently thereof, and gradually was formalised by later Tudor Chancellors who were increasingly trained common lawyers.

Finally, I commend the editor’s own brief concluding chapter 13, ‘The Reformation and its Impact on the Law of Charities and Social Welfare’, which shows that despite fundamental changes in England such as the dissolution of the monasteries and the suppression of chantries, the latter along with the ‘doctrine and vain opinion’ of Purgatory and Masses (p 280), an extraordinary legal volte-face occurred whereby eventually in 1990 gifts in wills for the celebration of masses were held charitable (p 282), whilst secular education rapidly expanded. This chapter does not look more widely at Europe where comparisons could usefully be drawn.

That leaves the remaining nine chapters. Some of these seem rather out of place in such a collection, for example the lengthy chapter 4, ‘Legislative Authority in the Anglican Communion’ by Richard Deadman, which although authoritative in its own right strayed very far from the Reformation and the rather different aim behind this book. Those seeking summaries of Catholic and Calvinist perspectives on canon law, conscience and natural law will find these in chapters 5 and 6 (by Luke Beckett OSB and Paul Goodliff) but their relevance to the legal legacy of the Reformation is distant. The conclusion of chapter 7, ‘Natural Law and Human Law’ by Stephen Coleman and Norman Doe purports to be that ‘one legacy of the Reformation is the persistence of natural law thinking’ (p 151), but to describe this as a ‘legacy’ is to confuse post with propter. Chapter 8, ‘Catholic and Protestant Approaches to Church–State Relations’ by Helen Costigane, is a mine of information on how the Catholic, English, Scots and Lutheran churches faced and continue to face the issue of ‘how to relate to the civil authority while being true to the Gospel message … what role ought the state have in guaranteeing freedom of religion while not getting involved in spiritual matters, and how a “state” church relates to or critiques civil society’ (p 171). That then leaves chapters 9, 11 and 12 on Catholic and Protestant Approaches to Particular Areas of Law. The ‘areas’ are Marriage Law and Education Law by Russell Sandberg, Human Rights by David McIlroy, and Criminal Law by Matthias Schmoeckel.

For this reviewer, Sandberg’s sociological invocation of the ‘entropic complexity’ of the common law (p 178) is a novel one, although the attention drawn to ‘grubby compromises and an unwillingness if not downright refusal to consider comprehensive reform’ (p 179–180) is reassuringly down to earth. In marriage and education law, the reformation made little change (p 181). Later sections of this chapter exhaustively cover later legislative changes, whereby through ‘a pragmatic and often chaotic approach … the law slowly, inelegantly and often inadequately’ has played a significant role (p 197).

McIlroy shows that ‘for nearly 200 years after the Reformation, Catholic and protestant thinkers across Europe were engaged in a common enterprise of debating and developing the idea of natural law’ (p 250), although the chapter ends with the rather tame conclusion that ‘the influence of Christian theology on the history, formulation and content of human rights cannot be ignored’ (p 259).

Schmoeckel’s erudite and wide-ranging chapter argues that ‘the differentiation of a substantive criminal law as a separate subject of law was a consequence of the Protestant Reformation and its associated idea of social discipline’ (p 272), notwithstanding that the first criminal code, that of the Tyrol (1499), well preceded the Reformation (p 261).

Notwithstanding the effort and scholarship that has gone into this curate’s egg of a book, I doubt it will find many readers, particularly at such an exorbitant price.