'One of the outstanding strengths of Thayer's work is the voluminous evidence she adduces from primary sources to substantiate these characterizations of late medieval preaching of penitence. She translates extensive portions of sermons so that her reader may become familiar with the sources at hand to the preacher at the beginning of the sixteenth century. And she usually makes the Latin original available to the reader in that fast-disappearing aid to scholarship, the footnote... Thayer has provided [...] the best resource yet available to examine what exactly was preached in churches in the years leading up to the Reformation.' Concordia Journal 'Thayer deserves praise for daring to think big and in so doing she has set the agenda for future research.' Ecclesiastical History '... this book is an important contribution on several counts.' The Catholic Historical Review '... a valuable and important book, for medievalists as well as early modernists. Its discussion of pre-Reformation penitential practices is the most significant since Tentler's of 1977.' Heythrop 'Anne Thayer's work is an excellent new study on the place of penitence in the period around the beginning of the Reformation itself and contributes significantly to the question of why the Reformation took root in some areas and not in others... This is a book that should be read by anyone interested in the late Medieval period and/or the early Reformation in Europe.' Colloquium
