Using personal histories, the author explores how individuals and the institutions in which they lived and worked, such as families, universities, towns, guilds, and Inns of Court, refashioned themselves in the face of the rapid social, ideological, political and economic changes brought about by the Reformation. Tracing these responses across three generations, the author emphasizes the way generational interaction and self interest interrelated to adapt to new circumstances, creating, by the late sixteenth century, a multi-theological culture that exalted nationalism and valued the individual conscience.