Thomas Cranmer.

Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556) was plucked from the relative obscurity of his academic career at Cambridge in 1529 as part of a team who defended Henry VIII's right to set aside his wife in order to marry Anne Boleyn. His defense of the king led him, in time, to the See of Canterbury and, as a consequence, to center stage in the move of Canterbury away from Rome. His highly complex career involved, among other things, the production of The Book of Common Prayer as well as his role as the architect of religious change in England. He was further implicated in the continuing marital travails of Henry. Arrested as a traitor at the time of the Marian restoration (1553), Cranmer first recanted his "Protestant" theological positions, but when he went to the stake in 1556 (after the execution of the other two Oxford martyrs, Ridley and Latimer) he reaffirmed his faith and repudiated his earlier recantations.

Many critics have judged Cranmer harshly for his hypocrisy in persecuting married clergy when he had a "secret" wife himself, for his willingness to send to the stake persons who had views similar to his own, and for his almost pecksniffian subservience to Henry. Nonetheless, Cranmer is best remembered for the liturgical service he provided the Church of England, including the establishment of Morning Prayer and Evensong for clergy and laity; a revised marriage rite; and the majestic prose of The Book of Common Prayer which, more than anything else, gave a center of unity to the Anglican communion.

The bare-bones description of Cranmer's importance provided above does little to indicate the depth of MacCulloch's comprehensive but eminently readable (and prize-winning) biography. The author has obviously mastered both the primary sources and the secondary literature. He is quite good at linking his subject to the continental reformers (Cranmer got Bucer to England; he was married to the daughter of the Lutheran divine, Osiander; he never wavered in his desire for a general council to heal religious rifts), and particularly helpful in tracing the long intellectual evolution of Cranmer's thinking, especially on the Eucharist. At base, in MacCulloch's words, was Cranmer's desire to guide the Church of England "through the thickets of wicked deceit which must be avoided at all costs: on the one hand, papistry; and, on the other, Anabaptism."

Although this is a very long book which has its share of longueurs, it is gracefully written and has its flashes of wit. I also rather enjoyed going to my OED to look up such arcane words as chough, becket, feoffment, eftsoons, advowsons, and mumpsimus. Those interested in church history in general and the history of theology and liturgy in particular will learn a good deal from MacCulloch. This is the kind of book to keep at one's desk to read a chapter at a time. That is exactly what I did: awarding myself a "good read" after finishing more pedestrian chores.

Lawrence S. Cunningham teaches theology at the University of Notre Dame.