A study not of the institution of the Church but of Christianity itself, this book explores the people, their beliefs, and their way of life, providing a new understanding of Western Christianity at the time of the Reformation. Bossy begins with a systematic exposition of traditional or pre-Reformation Christianity, and then explores the forces that tended to undermine it, the characteristics of the Protestant and Catholic regimes that superseded it, and the fallout that resulted from its disintegration.