In Sermons at Paul's Cross, 1521–1642, a selection of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sermons has been published following the “Paul's Cross and the Culture of Persuasion” conference that was held at McGill University in 2012. Paul's Cross was the outdoor pulpit that stood in the cemetery next to St. Paul's Cathedral in London (the predecessor of Christopher Wren's masterpiece, which was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666). No pulpit in England was more influential during the Reformation, as each new reign imposed doctrinal changes that were subsequently reversed or transformed. From across the realm, people by the thousands flocked to hear what was said at Paul's Cross, and they bought sermons from the booksellers who lined the perimeter of the cathedral's vast churchyard. So important were sermons that “the formation of England's religious identities” depended “to a high degree on the words” uttered at Paul's Cross (xvii).

The eighteen sermons that appear here are a mixed bunch, chosen for reasons that have not been fully explained. Some are already famous, or were delivered by famous men. Mary Morrissey, the author of the impressive Politics and the Paul's Cross Sermons, 1558-1642 (2011) has edited here a sermon delivered by John Donne in 1622, in defense of King James I's decision to place restrictions on preachers. She has also edited Thomas Playfere's Hearts Delight sermon of 1593, on “the ravishing joys of the spirit” (421). Some sermons reproduced here have already appeared in more than one modern edition, like Bishop John Fisher's 1521 attack against Martin Luther, most recently edited by Cecilia Hatt in Fisher's English Works (2002). Now it is presented by Hatt again with further commentary. Another familiar offering is the only surviving sermon from a series of four “of the plough” that Hugh Latimer delivered in 1548, recorded for posterity perhaps because he preached it in the undercroft of the cathedral during a bout of especially rainy weather. It has been edited by John N. King.

Perhaps the most influential of all those included here is the “Challenge Sermon” (ed. Torrance Kirby) that John Jewel preached in 1560: a denunciation of the “great and evident abuses” that he said overshadowed in the medieval church the meaning of the death of Christ and “the holy mysteries of our salvation” (257). Jewel vowed to yield his opinions only if he could be shown examples in scripture or the primitive church that disproved him. His challenge unleashed a torrent of controversy that lasted for decades. As Morrissey noted in Politics and the Paul's Cross Sermons, by widening divisions in society, Jewel's “Challenge Sermon” absorbed theologians in debate at the same time that it won the laity for Elizabeth's church.

Other sermons in this volume are less well known and were preached by men who are now obscure. They include Richard Rex's edition of a Good Friday sermon by Simon Matthew (tentatively dated to 1537) from the only known copy in the State Papers collection of the National Archives in London, and John Copcot's 1584 sermon (ed. P. G. Stanwood) from a manuscript preserved at Lambeth Palace Library. Kirby studied for a second time a 1535 Lenten sermon by Robert Singleton, chaplain to Anne Boleyn, which survives in a unique printed copy in Lincoln Cathedral's Wren Library. It gives a rare glimpse of the evangelical message that the queen endorsed during her brief ascendency.

The editors provide each sermon in this volume with its own introduction, apparatus, and notes. Mark Rankin presents two sermons that were preached during the reign of Mary I, both of which deserve the meticulous attention he devotes to them. In one, James Brooks argued in 1553 that the church in England had died, but now, just as Christ raised the daughter of Jarius, so with God's help the church in Queen Mary's day “shal revive” (181). It is difficult to know if the handful of sermons presented here are representative of the many thousands that were delivered at Paul's Cross in the twelve decades that the volume covers. As a miscellany, the editors of the individual sermons have often followed their own conventions, particularly for the notes. The results can be uneven. Nevertheless, Sermons at Paul's Cross provides welcome attention to the political exercise of preaching in Reformation England.