IN 1571 THE THREE YORKSHIRE PARISHES of Masham, Sheffield, and St Martin's, Coney Street, York, dismantled their rood lofts in accordance with Elizabethan religious legislation. In Masham there were violent confrontations over the symbolic burning of the rood loft, in Sheffield the wood from the loft was sold in lots, while in York the rood was carefully dismantled and the space repaired. 1 These very different scenes reflected the experience of reform in each parish and the divergent religious directions that were beginning to take shape. Reform had been sudden in Masham and a recusant group was forming outside parochial control. Sheffield and York had experienced a more gradual reform, but were developing Puritan and ceremonial styles of Protestantism respectively. The factors which led to these different paths are the subject of this essay. Prior practices, the pace and sequence of events and how authority was realised locally, all impacted upon the way this stage of the Elizabethan Reformation was brought about.Although the title uses the term 'reception', this is not meant to imply that authority always moved down through a fixed hierarchy, hitting a floor at parish level, below which the people were recipients rather than shapers. A political historian, Michael Braddick, considers that power was contested, so that outcomes were more the result of negotiation and relationships than absolute, 'top-down' control. 2 The

This article examines how lay people brought preaching of the Word to their locality in early seventeenth-century Yorkshire and Lancashire by acting collectively to build chapels, raise funds for ministers' wages, and provide fees and hospitality. A wide cross-section of society was willingly involved in this support, suggesting that enthusiasm for sermon-centred worship was not just the preserve of a godly few. It is proposed that this collective behaviour and its rhetorical representation could foster an inclusive sense of local identity. The importance of the personal style and skills of individual preachers for engendering support is also considered. Abbreviations: BIA Borthwick Institute for Archives BL British Library CL Chetham's Library LCRO Lancashire County Records Office SCA Sheffield City Archives ULBLSC University of Leeds Brotherton Library Special Collections WYA West Yorkshire Archives

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