This analysis of the secular impact of the Reformation examines the changes within English towns over the period c.1540-1640. All over England wholesale shifts of urban land and resources, coupled with increased statutory responsibilities, allowed a surprising number of towns to strengthen their financial and political positions. The Reformation had already begun to destroy much of the doctrine-based political culture which traditionally sustained provincial governments. As a result, the ruling elites in many towns not only extended their holdings and acquired greater autonomy; they also gained much greater institutional authority over their inhabitants - part of a growing movement away from communal values towards rule by oligarchy. These elites sought to legitimize their new authority by various means: civic portraiture and regalia, the building of town-halls, the writing of local histories, and the creation of new forms of worship. An altered civic ethos emerged, marking a significant new phase in urban history.

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Robert Tittler is a Professor of History at Concordia University, Montreal.

'This study keeps its sense of structure and direction with each section contributing a different approach to its central theme. The overarching thesis is that the Reformation was a crucial watershed, 'even a titular episode' in urban history. For this Tittular has provided a splendid, rich, and completely convincing argument.' Tom Webster, History Vol.85 No.277

'lucid and penetrating study ... Tittler presents a seminal and meaningful interpretation of the relationship between the English Reformation and the development of modern English urban life ... Highly recommended for readers at the upper division undergraduate level and above with a firm foundation in early modern English history' W. T. Walker, Chestnut Hill College, CHOICE Sept 99

'a welcome contribution ... The author has read widely in both the central and local primary and secondary sources to produce a stimulating synthesis.' Claire Cross, University of York, EHR Sept 1999

'This fine, painstaking and exhaustive study.' Andrew Pettegree, Urban History

'Historians of sixteenth-century England will welcome the publication of this volume by a historian whose work on the political and urban aspects of the Reformation is already well known.' W.J.Sheils, Northern History

'The result of the author's impressive labour is a book tightly packed with information, references and examples drawn from many towns ... the assiduous student is rewarded with a great deal of interesting and useful material ... Local historians will ... find much in this book which is thought provoking, and many will find the numerous references helpful. It is good to have the remarkable transformation of civic government during the period 1540-1640 described so authoritatively and the profound changes in urban land-owning, corporate finances, political power and civic consciousness explored so thoroughly and with such a wealth of well-documented examples.' J H Bettey, The Local Historian, November 1999

'This study sheds much new and valuable light on understanding English urban history. Writing on this subject will never be the same again.' Contemporary Review

'This book ... offers the most sustained defence for two decades of the notion of the growth of oligarchy in early modern towns. ... this book does provide the only up-to-date statement of urban politics and government in the early modern period. It is carefully, ... written, and argued with a clarity that makes it suitable to students as well as researchers, as does its admirable fairness to all, a quality not always associated with either of the fields, Reformation and urban historiography, to which it so notably contributes.' Jonathan Barry, Albion