ABSTRACT
Catholic ritual life in the post-Reformation period was thus shaped by a triangular matrix of forces: the priorities of Catholic renewal, the exigencies of Protestant oppression and the challenges of lay independence. This chapter examines subtle and creative transmutations in devotion and piety that took place against the backdrop of both Protestant repression and the programme for the reform and renewal of the Church of Rome encapsulated in the decrees of the Council of Trent. It explains the bare ruined choirs' immortalised in William Shakespeare's lyrical phrase remained the focus of much covert devotion. The chapter explains the Lower down the social scale pocket-sized manuals of prayers contributed to creating real and virtual textual communities. Time-serving Marian priests contrived to ensure that the parish communion resembled the mass, despite the revised wording and rubrics of Cranmer's liturgy. They also used it as a base for administering communion to laypeople beyond the royal household.
