The Reformation in Northern Europe, long recognized for its distinct characteristics, merits closer investigation than it has received. This edited volume does just that. Rather than focus on theological or institutional aspects of the Reformation, these authors explore religion as a dynamic process of continuities and disruptions—interaction between different elements of culture, spheres of experience, regions, and periods. The authors identify this perspective as the study of lived religion, and they aim to understand religion as it existed at the core of communal life where its performance in rituals, habits, and symbols shaped individual and communal identities from the late Middle Ages to the early modern period. The book’s scope is as broad geographically as it is chronologically. But for the authors, Northern Europe is limited primarily to Finland and the eastern shore of the Baltic, with case studies on Stockholm and Wurttemberg. This is a region that has not received the scholarly attention that it merits, and for this reason this contribution is particularly welcome.

The volume is divided into three parts. In part 1, “Lived Religion in Daily Life,” Katajala-Peltomaa writes on “Devotional Strategies in Everyday Life,” examining lay interaction with saints in the late Middle Ages. Kuulila’s focus is “Disability and Religious Practices in Late Medieval Prussia,” which discusses infirmity and the miraculous in the canonization process of Saint Dorothea of Montau. Raisanen-Shroder investigates religious deviance and diversity in a study of the “Appeal and Survival of Anabaptism in Northern Germany,” and argues that though laypersons were informed on questions of religious doctrine, confessional boundaries were blurred. Toivo examines saints’ day celebrations in Protestant Finland and argues that there was inherent tolerance and pluralism in the seventeenth-century church.

The second section of the book deals with “Religious Economics: Charity and Community.” It investigates how Protestantism brought changes to teachings on economy, work, and charity and how those teachings were reflected in average people’s lives. Hanska looks at the effects of these teachings on the poor and poor relief in his study of sermons on Lazarus and the rich man. Interestingly, he reveals that while preachers condemned Catholic teachings, their sermons frequently relied on Catholic topoi and that there was little change in attitudes toward the poor. Ojala examines “Urban Funeral Practices in the Baltic Sea Region” to explore continuity and change in Reformation funerary practice and the ways in which these practices contributed to the creation of collective community identity. Lamberg seeks the roots of Reformation changes to the concept and practice of charity by studying religious donations made by Stockholm’s burghers in the years leading to and following the Reformation. He demonstrates that there was some continuity in charitable practices all the way to the end of the sixteenth century.

Part 3 examines “Religion, Politics, and Contested Identities.” Here the authors investigate the relationship between religious change and ethnic or local community identity through an examination of political correspondence and government documentation. Lavery’s chapter, possibly the strongest in the book, focuses on state building and reform as an interactive process that is demonstrated by the relationship of Mikael Agricola and King Gustav Vasa. Agricola is perhaps best known as a church Reformer and father of the Finnish language. Lavery demonstrates the degree to which Agricola and Vasa were engaged in a mutually beneficial relationship whereby Vasa facilitated Agricola’s reform efforts while Agricola assisted in the transfer of church wealth to royal coffers and buttressed the realm’s eastern frontier with Russia through the establishment of Lutheran parishes. Ijas’s chapter, “Reformation at the Election Field: Religious Politics in the Polish Lithuanian Royal Elections, 1573–1576,” investigates noble identity and the ways in which religion and politics were intertwined in a religiously diverse realm. In the final chapter, “Resistance to the Reformation in Sixteeenth-Century Finland,” Arffman discovers unsuspected currents of resistance, disaffection, and opposition to the Reformation in Finland.

Taken as a whole, this volume makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the history of Northern Europe. It corrects or modifies traditional views, particularly concerning the speed and success of the Reformation and its reception in the north, and enhances our understanding of the deep interweaving of religion with everyday life in early modern Europe.