摘要
The volume under review The Stripping of the Altars： Traditional Religion in English, 1400-1580, is among the remarkable contributions of Eamon Duffy, the devoted Cambridge historian whose active interest in Christianity, Catholic community, and England has led to significant discoveries and valuable insights. This book is a consolidation of decades of research in the field, offering a marvelous reinterpretation of the complex transformation of communities in England during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Despite the mainstream belief in the positive role of the English Reformation, the author attempts a diametrically different reading of the historical facts, i.e., rather than a national campaign unanimously endorsed by the public, the majority of English people may have actually remained less enthusiastic about, if not decidedly hostile to, the Reformation due to their abiding faith in Christianity （Roman Catholic）. There is little doubt that such an unorthodox view has whipped up a heated debate among contending historians, as Professor Patrick Collinson, one of his colleagues in Cambridge, that publication of this book ＂made the revisionists come to a peak, and set up a new orthodoxy, and replaced the most welcomed Dickens explanation＂ （Collinson 1997：347）. The ＂new orthodoxy,＂ which has daringly challenged the historically entrenched belief, is established via Duffy＇s successfully redressing the old historiographical imbalance. In seeking for a comprehensive description and a critical evaluation of this model, this review attempts to cover main propositions and to suggest possible approaches to unsolved conflicts in the book.
