Compiled during the early years of the Reformation, Institution of a Christian Man lays out the principles of the nascent Church of England. In his definitive new edition, Gerald Bray charts the development of this text from the first version introduced by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and his cohort of bishops, to the extensive edits made by Henry VIII himself, and finally to the version written by Bishop Edmund Bonner under the radically different circumstances of Mary I's reign. By combining the Bishops' Book and the King's Book into a single text - rather than in sequence - Bray shows which sections were added, deleted, and retained throughout the revisions. This process allows the Reader to reconstruct the texts and, at the same time, follow the process by which one was transformed into the other. Bishop Bonner's Book, which appears separately, illustrates additional changes and elaborations from the previous two books. Such a comparative study in a user-friendly and accessible style has never been published before. Although written nearly 500 years ago, much of what these books pronounce is still valid and can be addressed to contemporary use. A thorough analysis of content also sheds light on a neglected phase of the Reformation, and provides a unique insight into the theological development that characterised the earliest stages of the Church of England.

About the Author
Reverend Dr Gerald Bray has a PhD from Paris-Sorbonne. He worked as Professor of Anglican Studies at Beeson Divinity School, and is now a Research Professor for the same institution. He is also Director of Research at the Latimer Trust. He has published with James Clarke & Co. Documents of the English Reformation in 1994 (second edition 2004) and The Books of Homilies: A Critical Edition.

Reviews
"The three official statements of faith produced under Henry VIII and Mary Tudor are at last given the full scholarly treatment they have long cried out for. Bray's indispensable edition not only gives us the texts, but tracks the relationships between what are, in effect, three versions of a single book, as well as uncovering the hitherto inaccessible handwritten notes concerning the revisions made by Henry VIII and Archbishop Cranmer. Every historian of the English Reformation will want to keep this wonderfully easy-to-use edition within arm's reach." Alec Ryrie, Professor of the History of Christianity, Durham University "Gerald Bray has triumphed again! All students of the English Reformation will prize this critical edition of The Institution of a Christian Man and its later recensions, back in print for the first time since the 1930s. These important but neglected texts reveal the theological turmoil under Henry VIII and Mary Tudor, now in a user-friendly format that makes the complex doctrinal fluctuations easy to follow." Dr Andrew Atherstone, Latimer Research Fellow, Wycliffe Hall, Oxford in producing this edition Bray has made theese three key texts available to modern scholars. For this he deserves our thanks charlotte Meuthuen. Uni of Glasgow, Expository Times 131(2) november 2019 highly accessible. great value Harriet Lyon, utrecht university, journal of ecclesiastical history, pp629-30



Book Information
ISBN 9780227176702
Author Gerald Bray
Format Paperback
Page Count 498
Imprint James Clarke & Co Ltd
Publisher James Clarke & Co Ltd
Weight(grams) 753g