ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book argues that most historians of the Reformation era regard radical Protestantism as an inconsequential sideshow to Lutheranism and Reformed Protestantism. It considers the applicability of the "confessionalization thesis", formulated by the German historians Heinz Schilling and Wolfgang Reinhard, to the circumstances of the Reformation in England. The book shows that contributions to the debates about the rise of secularization continue to identify fourteenth-sixteenth century movements of reform, including the Protestant reformations, as "engines of secularity." It presents the observation that historians have long identified the foundation of new religious orders or reform of already existing ones as hallmarks of the Catholic Reformation and lionized founders as the movement's "heroes" or "heroines." The book focuses on the significance of the Marian interlude in English history.
