PATRICK COLLINSON was one time Regius Chair of Modern History, Cambridge University, UK.JOHN CRAIG is Assistant Professor of History at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia.

'Was religious change forced on people from above or did it well up from changed attitudes and beliefs of ordinary people? Did the Reformation occur suddenly, as new statutes were passed and new Prayer Books printed, or did it take decades for reforms to be assimilated? Perhaps most important, what was the relationship between civic and religious leaders - mayors and aldermen, and rectors, vicars, or deans? These questions can only be answered by local studies such as those presented in this volume.' - Stanford Lehmberg, Church History '...a colourful map of 16th- and early 17th-century urban England.' - Jane Facey, Church Times

• Introduction; Patrick Collinson and John CraigPART ONE: REFORMATION CASE STUDIESThe Birth of a Protestant Town:The Process of Reformation in Tudor Colchester, 1530-1580; Mark ByfordReligion in Doncaster from the Reformation to the Civil War; Claire CrossPolitics and Religion in Early Modern Beverley; David LamburnThe Coming of Protestantism to Elizabethan Tewkesbury; Caroline LitzenbergerWorcester: A Cathedral City in the Reformation; Diarmaid MacCullochLeadership and Priorities in Reading During the Reformation; Jeanette MartinTextiles and Reform: Halifax and its Hinterland; William and Sarah SheilsPART TWO: THE RESOURCES OF URBAN REFORMATIONEconomic Problems of Provincial Urban Clergy During the Reformation; Patrick CarterThe Dissolution of the Chantries; Peter CunichVoluntary Religion and Reformation Change in Eight Urban Parishes; Beat KuminReformation, Resources and Authority in English Towns: An Overview; Robert TittlerPART THREE: THE CHANGING CULTURE OF URBAN REFORMATIONThe Shearmen's Tree and the Preacher: The Strange Death of Merry England in Shrewsbury and Beyond; Patrick CollinsonReligion Satire in English Towns, 1570-1640; Adam FoxBibliographyIndex.