The Protestant Clergy of Early Modern Europe provides a comprehensive survey of the Protestant clergy in Europe during the confessional age. Eight contributions, written by historians with specialist research knowledge in the field, offer the reader a wide-ranging synthesis of the main concerns of current historiography. Themes include the origins and the evolution of the Protestant clergy during the age of Reformation, the role and function of the clergy in the context of early modern history, and the contribution of the clergy to the developments of the age (the making of confessions, education, the reform of culture, social and political thought).
Traditionally anticlericalism has been regarded as a significant historical factor, by some historians even as the unifying focal point for the host of movements known as the Reformation of the sixteenth century. In forty-one essays eminent historians of culture, religion, and society redefine and redirect the debate regarding the scope and impact of European anticlericalism during the period 1300-1700. The meaning of reform and resentment is here clearly articulated and the sentiments are analyzed which were directed first against all levels of the Roman hierarchy and later as well against the evangelical pastor. Using sources drawn from a wide variety of city and village archives, of literary genres and theological tracts, the articles presented here uncover the clusters of reform hope and bitter resentment directed toward parish priest, monk, bishop and pope, in addition to the early Protestant clergy. The volume highlights the continuity and discontinuity of anticlerical passion, language, goals and actions between the late medieval and Reformation periods.
This fast-paced survey of Western civilization’s transition from the Middle Ages to modernity brings that tumultuous period vividly to life. Carlos Eire, popular professor and gifted writer, chronicles the two-hundred-year era of the Renaissance and Reformation with particular attention to issues that persist as concerns in the present day. Eire connects the Protestant and Catholic Reformations in new and profound ways, and he demonstrates convincingly that this crucial turning point in history not only affected people long gone, but continues to shape our world and define who we are today. The book focuses on the vast changes that took place in Western civilization between 1450 and 1650, from Gutenberg’s printing press and the subsequent revolution in the spread of ideas to the close of the Thirty Years’ War. Eire devotes equal attention to the various Protestant traditions and churches as well as to Catholicism, skepticism, and secularism, and he takes into account the expansion of European culture and religion into other lands, particularly the Americas and Asia. He also underscores how changes in religion transformed the Western secular world. A book created with students and nonspecialists in mind, Reformations is an inspiring, provocative volume for any reader who is curious about the role of ideas and beliefs in history.
Rich in detail and broad in scope, this majestic book is the first to reveal the interaction of politics and religion in France during the crucial years of the long seventeenth century. Joseph Bergin begins with the Wars of Religion, which proved to be longer and more violent in France than elsewhere in Europe and left a legacy of unresolved tensions between church and state with serious repercussions for each. He then draws together a series of unresolved problems—both practical and ideological—that challenged French leaders thereafter, arriving at an original and comprehensive view of the close interrelations between the political and spiritual spheres of the time. The author considers the powerful religious dimension of French royal power even in the seventeenth century, the shift from reluctant toleration of a Protestant minority to increasing aversion, conflicts over the independence of the Catholic church and the power of the pope over secular rulers, and a wealth of other interconnected topics.
Imbued with character and independence, strength and articulateness, humor and conviction, abundant biblical knowledge and intense compassion, Katharina Schütz Zell (1498–1562) was an outspoken religious reformer in sixteenth-century Germany who campaigned for the right of clergy to marry and the responsibility of lay people—women as well as men—to proclaim the Gospel. As one of the first and most daring models of the pastor’s wife in the Protestant Reformation, Schütz Zell demonstrated that she could be an equal partner in marriage; she was for many years a respected, if unofficial, mother of the established church of Strasbourg in an age when ecclesiastical leadership was dominated by men. Though a commoner, Schütz Zell participated actively in public life and wrote prolifically, including letters of consolation, devotional writings, biblical meditations, catechetical instructions, a sermon, and lengthy polemical exchanges with male theologians. The complete translations of her extant publications, except for her longest, are collected here in Church Mother, offering modern readers a rare opportunity to understand the important work of women in the formation of the early Protestant church.
The Social Life of the Early Modern Protestant Clergy provides unexpected new insights on the lives of the early modern English and Swedish clergy through case studies and broader surveys. Rosamund Oates demonstrates how the first generations of clergy wives in England used hospitality to support their husbands in the process of reform. Jacqueline Eales examines the shift from the sixteenth-century debate about the legality of clerical marriage to a positive portrayal of women from English clerical families in the years 1620–1720. William Gibson challenges the view that the eighteenth-century English episcopate were rapacious, arguing that they were often careful custodians of episcopal estates. Jonas Lindström analyses the account books of late eighteenth-century pastor Gustaf Berg to illustrate his economic ties with his parishioners, which ran alongside their religious and social relationships. Drawing on Swedish evidence, Beverly Tjerngren charts the decline of hospitality evident in the home of widowed pastor Adolph Adde in the late eighteenth century. Finally, Jon Stobart examines the aspirations to gentility of the late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Northamptonshire clergy through their domestic material culture.
In forty-one essays eminent historians of culture, religion, and social history redefine and redirect the debate regarding the scope and impact of European anticlericalism during the period 1300-1700. The meaning of reform and resentment is here clearly articulated.
Numerous historical studies use the term "community'" to express or comment on social relationships within geographic, religious, political, social, or literary settings, yet this volume is the first systematic attempt to collect together important examples of this varied work in order to draw comparisons and conclusions about the definition of community across early modern Europe. Offering a variety of historical and theoretical approaches, the sixteen original essays in this collection survey major regions of Western Europe, including France, Geneva, the German Lands, Italy and the Spanish Empire, the Netherlands, England, and Scotland. Complementing the regional diversity is a broad spectrum of religious confessions: Roman Catholic communities in France, Italy, and Germany; Reformed churches in France, Geneva, and Scotland; Lutheran communities in Germany; Mennonites in Germany and the Netherlands; English Anglicans; Jews in Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands; and Muslim converts returning to Christian England. This volume illuminates the variety of ways in which communities were defined and operated across early modern Europe: as imposed by community leaders or negotiated across society; as defined by belief, behavior, and memory; as marked by rigid boundaries and conflict or by flexibility and change; as shaped by art, ritual, charity, or devotional practices; and as characterized by the contending or overlapping boundaries of family, religion, and politics. Taken together, these chapters demonstrate the complex and changeable nature of community in an era more often characterized as a time of stark certainties and inflexibility. As a result, the volume contributes a vital resource to the ongoing efforts of scholars to understand the creation and perpetuation of communities and the significance of community definition for early modern Europeans.
Protestant reformers sought to effect a radical change in the way their contemporaries understood and coped with the suffering of body and soul that were so prominent in the early modern period. This book examines the genesis of Protestant doctrines of suffering among the leading reformers and then traces the transmission of these doctrines from the reformers to the common clergy. It also examines the reception of these ideas by lay people.
