This is the first, and long overdue, full-length study of the shift that took place in Reformation Germany from celibate priesthood to married clergy. It locates the issue of clerical marriage within the context of broader debates over doctrine and practice in the reformed Church, but also examines in detail the impact of these ideological shifts upon the conduct, status and lives of the first generations of married clergy in Lutheran Germany. Plummer promises, and delivers, a compelling representation of the ambivalence that many evangelical leaders felt towards the acceptance or promotion of clerical marriage, an ambivalence that reflected both the longstanding debates over celibacy and marriage in the western Church, and the more immediate challenges posed by changes in theology, in the relationship between clergy and community, and in attitudes to marriage and gender at a broader level. Reformed ideas impacted upon the personal lives of the clergy, and upon their standing in parish and community. But these individual and shared experiences also inspired a re-evaluation of the issue in print, and, Plummer argues, became determinative in the process of reform. The key strength of her work lies in this close connection that is made between the theological debates and their personal and pastoral outworking, and in the examination of the reception of a married priesthood, and new models of marriage and sexuality, as the Reformation progressed. The apparent dichotomy that exists in modern scholarship between discussions of debates over clerical marriage in print culture, and examinations of gender, family and discipline would not, Plummer suggests, make sense to those who lived through, and participated in, the religious changes of the sixteenth century. Pastors, people and magistrates did more to shape debates than has previously been recognised, and the outworking of the Reformation in southern Germany, where Plummer's research has been focused, suggests that the stance of clergy, and their flock, on marriage and other issues was rather more fluid than recent scholarship has implied. The scope of her analysis is impressive; the debates of the Reformation are set against the backdrop of earlier controversy and attempts at regulation, individual case studies are located within the experience of some 2,500 Lutheran pastors, attitudes to clerical marriage and clerical concubinage are explored side by side, and the experience of former monastic clergy receives thoughtful analysis. Clerical marriage, as Plummer contends, may provide a useful lens through which to view the process of reform in practice, but, as this volume shows, it is a subject that also warrants a thoughtful analysis in its own right.