The London parish provides historians with a wealth of evidence for the local impact of the Tudor Reformations. It is welcome, therefore, that in Five Parishes in Late Medieval and Tudor London Gary Gibbs has explored some of this material in order to begin a broader conversation about the experience of reform by the urban communities whose lives were profoundly altered by religious change. Although the volume is part of Routledge's Microhistories series, Gibbs's analysis is not strictly microhistorical (saving chapter 4). Gibbs surveys five London parishes from the fifteenth to the late sixteenth centuries. The parishes—Allhallows London Wall, St. Michael Cornhill, St. Stephen Coleman Street, St. Botolph Aldgate, and St. Peter Westcheap—each receive between eighteen and thirty-two pages of analysis. This, therefore, is a comparative study whose conclusion—that churchwardens were the “arbit[ers] of change” (178) during this era of dramatic transformation—reminds readers of the potential for longer and more detailed studies. Any one of these parishes could yield its own book-length study, as could other London parishes whose records are equally, if not better, preserved.

An additional chapter tying together some of the threads revealed within the case studies would have been welcome, as readers are left to reflect on the significance of some of Gibbs's findings for themselves. Each of the chapters is driven by Gibbs's close reading of surviving churchwardens’ accounts, and it is clear that Gibbs has a genuine enthusiasm for these sources. Their richness is evident in the detail provided and the range of topics covered. Although historians of the parish have become accustomed to working with these records, many questions still remain, and more are provoked here. For example, in his case study of Allhallows London Wall, Gibbs examines the evidence for the church's extraordinary income. Fund-raising initiatives were an integral part of supplementing parish income. In 1528–29, for example, there was a collection toward the construction of a new aisle. Tables of contributors (itemizing the value of their contributions) appear in churchwardens’ accounts, and Gibbs suggests that the order in which the donations were recorded reflected broader social relationships within the parish, that they were “a public recognition of philanthropy” (34).This implies that the records were public documents.

This theme is revisited in the study of St. Botolph Aldgate. Here Gibbs describes a conflict between a reform-minded churchwarden, Robert Owen, and a conservative chantry priest, William Green. Gibbs examines the conflict, in part, through what is described as the “writing strategy” of the author of the accounts (121), which laud Owen and vilify Green and the curate. Yet it is unclear how the accounts were written or compiled. Was Owen the author? For whose benefit was his conflict with Green recorded? We know that it was common for the parish masters, along with the curate and churchwardens, to audit accounts. At St. Nicholas Shambles, Newgate, for example, this took place in the parsonage during the December following the two-year tenure of its churchwardens. The names of those at the audit were recorded in the accounts, and they appear to have played a role in editing and correcting content. Perhaps a biennial audit also occurred at St. Botolph Aldgate. Gibbs implies that there was a similar reckoning of accounts at Allhallows London Wall (36) and that the ordering of contributors was “part of the fundraising strategy and would have shamed those who had the means but lacked the largesse” (38). However, it is unclear what form this public shaming would have taken (and this perhaps points to further directions in research). How would the content of churchwardens’ accounts have been communicated to parishioners not present at the auditing of the accounts?

Another recurring theme is, of course, the impact of the Tudor Reformation. Several of the case studies chart considerable changes to the fabric of the parish and its administration. Historians of the parish cannot fail to be moved by the scale of the loss, and personal connections between these artefacts and parishioners are carefully drawn by Gibbs. In order to supplement the information derived from churchwardens’ accounts, historians have access to a wide range of parish records. Here, although Gibbs consulted a number of wills, other valuable records remain neglected. There is, for example, little evidence that property deeds have been consulted. Deeds offer the parish historian a wealth of information, especially given the number of London properties endowed to parishes to support chantry provisions. C. J. Kitching's London and Middlesex Chantry Certificate, 1548 (1980) provides details of hundreds of properties held by London parishes and managed by churchwardens. They represented a substantial portion of parish income and expenditure, and frequently appear in churchwardens’ accounts. The transfer of these properties to the crown between 1546 and 1548 forever altered the ways in which parishes were financed and managed. In his study of St. Stephen Coleman Street, Gibbs highlights this transformation, illustrated in two tables (105) juxtaposed to show the importance of endowed properties to the income of the pre-Reformation church and the challenges faced by the Elizabethan parish to obtain new sources of income. However, Gibbs's reliance on the churchwardens’ accounts (which in this instance survive only for 1486–1507 and 1586–1640) means that during the period of greatest transformation for parish income, the story is incomplete.

The text is supplemented by five maps, six illustrations, and ten tables. The maps, taken from the high-resolution full-color images of the Historic Towns Trust's Town & City Historical Maps series, are unfortunately reproduced in low-resolution black-and-white and may be difficult for some readers to decipher. Each chapter is accompanied by endnotes, and the lengthy and fairly complete bibliography is likely to be a helpful resource for students of the Reformation in London. This is an interesting and valuable book, especially for undergraduates and those who do not have access to the records.