‘Why is it necessary to criticise women so much, seeing that no woman ever sold and betrayed Jesus, but a man named Judas?’ The question, posed in 1538 by Marie Dentière, a former nun and an ardent Huguenot convert, invites attention to a paradox attaching to Christian faith and practice, historical and current. Women are often the most loyal and enthusiastic members of congregations, but in many churches they are systematically excluded from positions of influence and leadership, and subjected to codes regulating deportment and demeanour.

The question of whether – and, if so, why – women are more religious than men is not explicitly addressed by Merry Wiesner-Hanks in this highly accessible, engaging, informative and judicious book. But anyone reading it will be left in little doubt that histories of religion with the women omitted are likely to prove seriously wonky.

Wiesner-Hanks’s canvas is the period of transformation represented by the Reformation – or rather, Reformations, for she aligns herself with a tendency in much (though not all) recent scholarship to regard the process of change in post-medieval Christianity as one involving various Protestant, Catholic and radical strands, as well as