From: The Christian Century | Date: December 11, 1996| Author: Sachs, William L. | COPYRIGHT 1996 The Christian Century Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

By Diarmaid MacCulloch. Yale University Press, 692 pp., $35.00

What purpose can a new, lengthy biography of Thomas Cranmer serve? The question is justifiable. The facts of Cranmer's career and the course of the English Reformation are well known. It is clear that Henry VIII's desire to divorce Catherine of Aragon galvanized gradually building reform sentiments. As archbishop of Canterbury, Cranmer eventually became the principal architect of religious reform, proceeding ...