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Course Outline
Week One
1. Introductory Meeting: Religious Life in Early Modern Europe
2. Popular Piety?: Religious Life on the Eve of the Reformation
Week Two
1. Unpopular Piety?: Critics of the Church on the Eve of the Reformation
2. Martin Luther
Week Three
1. Ulrich Zwingli and the Swiss Reformation
2. Peasants, Cities, and Princes
Week Four
1. The Radical Reformation
2. Calvin and the Reformation in Geneva
Week Five
1. The Reformation in France and the Netherlands
2. The Early Reformation in England
Week Six
1. Seminar Preparation Session
2. Group Seminar - The Reformation and Popular Culture
Week Seven
1. Group Seminar - Print and Propaganda: Reformation Word and Image
2. Catholic Reform in the Sixteenth Century
Week Eight
1. Christians and Jews in Reformation Europe
2. Sources and Historiography
Week Nine
1. Seminar Preparation
2. Group Seminar - Prophecy and Prophets in Reformation Europe
Week Ten
1. Group Seminar - The Reformation, Magic, and the Supernatural
2. Conclusions
Essay questions
· Is it accurate to view the reformation as a response to the spiritual anxiety of the late medieval laity?
· Were there substantial differences between ‘official’ and ‘popular’ religion on the eve of the Reformation?
· What does Erasmus’ changing attitude to Luther tell us about the relationship between humanism and the Reformation?
· Why did Luther’s protest result in the division of western Christendom?
· Why did Luther’s message prove so attractive?
· ‘God hath opened the press to preach’. How important was printing to the spread of the Reformation?
· Why was the evangelical movement of the 1520s and 1530s so popular in the German cities?
· Should we view the events of 1525 as the ‘reformation of the common man’?
· What impact did Ulrich Zwingli have upon the spread of the Reformation in Switzerland?
· Why were the Anabaptists feared and hated by Catholic and Protestant churches?
· What was more important to the radical reformation: social revolution or doctrinal reform?
· Was Calvin’s reformation in Geneva a ‘revolution’?
· How central was predestination to Calvin’s theology?
· To what extent should the Affair of the Placards (1534) be seen as a turning point in the history of the French Reformation?
· How can we explain the initial failure of the Lutheran Reformation in the Netherlands?
· How much influence did the Continental Reformation have upon religious change in England in the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI?
· What impact did the Reformation in England have upon the beliefs and practices of the people by 1553?
· To what extent was Catholic reform in the sixteenth century simply an effort to counter the Protestant Reformation?
· Do the Jesuits deserve to be seen as the ‘shock-troops’ of the Catholic reformation?
· Why did the Reformation succeed in Germany but not across the rest of Europe?
· On what grounds is it accurate to claim that the Reformation had failed?
General Books and Reference Works (useful for several of the seminars).
Bietenholz, P.G., & Deutscher, T.B., eds., Contemporaries of Erasmus:Biographical
Register of the Renaissance and Reformation (1985-7).
Cameron, E., The European Reformation (1991).
Du Boulay, F.R.H., Germany in the Later Middle Ages (1983).
Dixon, C.S., ed., The German Reformation: Essential Readings (1999).
Greengrass, M., The Longman Companion to the European Reformation (1998).
Hillerbrand, H.J., ed., The Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Reformation, 4 vols. (1996).
The World of the Reformation (1975).
The Protestant Reformation (1968) document collection
Johnson, P., Scribner, R., The Reformation in Germany and Switzerland (1993)
Johnston, A., The Reformation in Europe (1996).
Lindberg, C., The European Reformations (1994).
The European Reformations Sourcebook (2000).
Oberman, H., Masters of the Reformation. The Emergence of a New Intellectual
Climate in Europe (1981).
Ozment, S., Protestants. Birth of a Revolution (1993).
The Age of Reform 1250-1550 (1980).
Pettegree, A.D.M., ed. The Early Reformation in Europe (1992).
The Reformation World (2000).
Po-Chia Hsia, R., ed., The German People and the Reformation (1988).
Raitt, J., ed. Shapers of Religious Traditions in Germany, Switzerland and Poland (1981).
Scribner, R & Johnson, T., Popular Religion in Germany and Central Europe
1400-1800 (1996).
A TLTP tutorial “The Protestant Reformation” is accessible via the History Department web site, and contains useful primary sources and analysis of events
(1.i) Popular Religion on the Eve of the Reformation
Blickle, P., 'Peasant revolts in the German empire in the lateMiddle Ages', Social
History, 4 (1979).
Revolution of 1525. The German Peasants War from a New Perspective (Baltimore, 1981).
‘The Reformation and its late medieval origins,' Central European
History, 20 (1987).
Bossy, J., Christianity in the West, 1400-1700 (Oxford, 1985).
Cameron, E., The European Reformation (Oxford, 1991).
Dickens, A.G., The German Nation and Martin Luther (London, 1974).
Duggan, L.C., 'Fear and confession on the eve of the Reformation,'Archiv für
Reformationsgeschichte, 75 (1984).
Eltis, D.A., 'Tensions between clergy and laity in some western Germancities in
the later Middle Ages.' JEH 43 (1992).
Holborn, H., History of Modern Germany, vol. I, The Reformation (London, 1969).
Hughes, M., Early Modern Germany, 1477-1806 (Basingstoke, 1992).
Kiermayr, R., ‘On the education of the pre-Reformation clergy’, Church History 53
(1984).
Lerner, R.E., ‘Medieval Prophecy and Religious Dissent’, P+P 72 (1976).
Ozment, S., The Reformation in the Cities (New Haven,1975).
The Age of Reform 1250-1550 (New Haven and London, 1980).
Scribner, R.W., 'Cosmic order and daily life: sacred and secular in pre-industrial
German society,' in K. von Greyerz, ed.,Religion and Society in Early Modern Europe (London, 1984).
'Ritual and popular religion in Catholic Germany at the time of the
Reformation,' JEH, 35 (1984).
Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (London, 1987), caps. 1-2, 11
'Elements of popular belief,' in Handbook of European history, 1400-
1600 : late Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation ed.T.A. Brady,
Jr., H.A. Oberman, J.D. Tracy (Leiden / New York, 1994).
Swanson, R.N., Religion and Devotion in Europe, 1215-1515 (Cambridge, 1995).
Swanson, R.N., Catholic England: Faith, Religion and Observance Before the Reformation [available online from campus machines at : www.medievalsources.co.uk/catholic.htm]
Zika, P., 'Hosts, processions and pilgrimages in fifteenth-century Germany’, Past and Present, 118 (1988).
(1.ii) Humanism
Bradshaw, B., ‘Interpreting Erasmus’, JEH 33 (1982).
Brann, N.L., 'Pre-Reformation humanism in Germany and the papal monarchy:a
study in ambivalence', J. Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 14 (1984).
Dickens, A.G., The German Nation and Martin Luther (London, 1974).
'Luther and the humanists,' in P. Mack, ed., Politics andCulture in
Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1987).
Grossmann, M., Humanism in Wittenberg 1485-1517 (Nieuwkoop, 1975).
Kirk, J., ed. Humanism and Reform (Oxford, 1991).
Kittelson, H., ‘Humanism and the Reformation in Germany’, Central European History 9 (1976).
McGrath, A., The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation (Oxford, 1987).
Moeller, B., 'The German humanists and the beginning of the Reformation', in his
Imperial Cities and the Reformation (Durham, 1972).
Nauert, C.G., Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe (Cambridge, 1995).
Scribner, R.W., Porter, R., Teich, M., The Reformation in national context
Cambridge,1994).
Spitz, L.W., Religious Renaissance of the German Humanists (London, 1963).
(2 Martin Luther
Bainton, R.H., Here I Stand (London, 1950).
Brooks, P.N., Seven-headed Luther : essays in commemoration of a quincentenary,
1483-1983 (Oxford, 1983).
Cameron, E., The European Reformation (Oxford, 1991).
Cargill Thompson, W., 'Luther's "tower-experience"', Studies in ChurchHistory, 15
(1978).
Dickens, A.G., 'Luther and the humanists,' in P. Mack, ed., Politics andCulture in
Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1987).
The German Nation and Martin Luther (London, 1974).
Contemporary Historians of the German Reformation (London, 1978).
Dixon, C.S., The German Reformation : Essential Readings (Oxford, 1999).
Lortz,J., The Reformation in Germany (London, 1968).
McGrath, A.E., Reformation Thought (Oxford,1993).
Oberman, H., Luther.Man between God and the Devil (New Haven, London, 1989). Reardon, B., Religious Thought in the Reformation (London, 1981).
Russell, R.W., 'Martin Luther's understanding of the Pope as Antichrist,'Archiv für
Reformationsgeschichte, 85 (1994).
Scribner, R.W., 'The Reformation movements in Germany,' inNew Cambridge
Modern History, vol. 2 (1990 edn).
Steinmetz, D.D., Luther and Staupitz, An essay in the intellectual origins of the
Protestant Reformation (Durham, N.C., 1980).
Strauss, G., Enacting the Reformation in Germany : essays on institution and
reception (Aldershot, 1993)
Todd, J.M., Luther. A Life (London, 1982).
The Treatises of 1520-1 may be found in RUL in various editions. Look for Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation The Babylonish Captivity of the Church On the Freedom of a Christian
You can also access these online via the course website.
(3) Zwingli and the early Swiss Reformation
Gordon, B., ‘Switzerland’, in A.Pettegree ed., The Early Reformation in Europe
(Cambridge, 1992).
The Swiss Reformation (Manchester 2002)
Guggisberg, H., ‘The problem of failure in the Swiss reformation’, in E.Kouri, T.Scott
eds., Politics and Society in Reformation Europe (Basingstoke, 1987).
Johnson, P., Scribner, R., The Reformation in Germany and Switzerland (Cambridge,
1993). (documents)
Ozment, S.E., The Reformation in the Cities: the Appeal of Protestantism to sixteenth-century Germany and Switzerland (New Haven, London 1975)
Potter, G.R., Huldrych Zwingli (London, 1977).
Zwingli (London, 1978).
Huldrych Zwingli (London, 1978). documents
Rupp, E.G., Patterns of Reformation (1969). Especially article on Oecolampadius
Snyder, A., ‘Word and power in Reformation Zurich’, Archiv fur
Reformationsgeschichte 81 (1990).
Walton, R.C., ‘Zwingli’, in de Molen ed., Leaders of the Reformation (Selingrove,
1984).
Wayne, J.W., ‘Church, State and Dissent. The crisis of the Swiss Reformation 1531-
1536’, Church History 57 (1988).
(4.i) The Peasants' War
Blickle, P., The Revolution of 1525 (Baltimore, London, 1982).
Cohn, H.J., 'Anticlericalism in the German Peasants' War', P. & P. 83 (1979).
Hillerbrand, H.J., 'The German Reformation and the Peasants' War', in The Social
History of the Reformation, ed. L. Buck & J. Zophy (London, 1972).
Karant-Nunn, S., 'Silver miners of the Erzgebirge,' Social History, 14 (1989)
Laube, S., 'Social arguments in early Reformation pamphlets and theirsignificance
for the German Peasants' War', Social History, 12 (1987).
Oberman, H., ‘The Gospel of Social Unrest. 450 years after the so-called Peasants
War of 1525’, Harvard Theological Review 69 (1976).
Ozment, S., The Reformation in the Cities (New Haven, 1975), pp. 97-108
Robisheaux, T., Rural Society and the Search for Order in Early ModernGermany
(Cambridge, 1989), cap. 2
Scott, T., 'The Peasants' War', HJ, 22 (1979)
'The Volksreformation of Thomas Müntzer', JEH, 34 (1983)
'Reformation and Peasants' War in Waldshut and Environs',Archiv für
Reformationsgeschichte, 69-70 (1979-80).
‘The Common People in the German Reformation’, HJ 1990
Freiburg and the Breisgau : town-country relations in the age of
Reformation and Peasants' War (Oxford,1986).
Scribner, R.W., & Benecke, G., The German Peasant War 1525:New Viewpoints
(1979).
‘Images of the Peasant, 1514-1525’, Journal of Peasant Studies vol.3
(1975).
TLTP tutorial : The Peasant Reformation and linked case study 'The peasants are becoming aware'
(4.ii) Cities and Princes
Abray, L.J., The peoples Reformation. Magistrates, Clergy and Commons in
Strasbourg 1500-1598 (Oxford, 1985).
Brady, T., ‘Phases and Strategies of the Schmalkaldic League’, Archiv fur
Reformationsgeschichte 74 (1983).
Ruling Class, Regime and reform in Strasbourg (Leiden, 1978).
‘In search of the godly city’, in R. Po Chia Hsia ed The German People
and the Reformation (Ithaca, 1986).
Turning Swiss : cities and empire, 1450-1550 (Cambridge, 1985).
Broadhead, P., ‘Politics and Expediency in Reformation Augsburg’, in P.N.Brookes,
ed., Reformation Principle and Practice (London, 1980).
Cohn, H., ‘Church property in the German Protestant Principalities’, in E.Kouri,
T. Scott eds., Politics and Society in Reformation Europe (London, 1987).
Hendrix, S., ‘Loyalty, Piety, or Opportunism. German Princes in the Reformation’,
Journal of Interdisciplinary History 25 (1994).
Hoss, I., ‘The Lutheran Church of the Reformation. Problems of Organisation
and Formation’, in L.Buck ed The Social History of the Reformation (1972).
Moeller, B., Imperial Cities and the Reformation (Durham, 1972).
Oberman, H., Masters of the reformation (Cambridge, 1986).
Ozment, S., The Reformation in the Cities (New Haven and London, 1975).
Po Chia Hsia, R., Social Discipline in the Reformation (London, 1989).
The German people and the Reformation (Ithaca, 1988).
‘The Myth of the Commune. Recent Historiography on City
and Reformation in Germany’, Central European History 20 (1987).
Rublack, H-C., ‘Is there a new history of the urban Reformation’, in E.Kouri,
T.Scott eds., Politics and Society in Reformation Europe (London, 1987).
Scribner, R., ‘Civic Unity and the Reformation in Erfurt’, in Popular Culture and
Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (London, 1987).
‘Why was there no Reformation in Cologne?’, BIHR 49 (1976).
Stalnaker, J.C., ‘Residenzstadt und Reformation. Religion, Politics and Social
Policy in Hesse 1509-1546’, Archiv fur Reformationsgeschichte 64 (1973).
Strauss, G., Luther’s House of Learning (Baltimore and London, 1978).
‘Success and Failure in the German Reformation’ P+P 67 (1975).
TLTP Tutorial : Nuremberg case study
(5) The Radical Reformation
Bainton, R.H., 'The Left Wing of the Reformation,' in his Studies on the Reformation
(London, 1964).
Baylor, M., Revelation and Revolution. Basic Writings of Thomas Muntzer
(London, 1993).
Clasen, C.P., Anabaptism, A Social History (London, 1972).
'The sociology of Swabian Anabaptism,' Church History, 32 (1963).
Cohn, N., The Pursuit of the Millennium (London, 1993).
Deppermann, K., 'The Anabaptists and the state churches,' in K. von Greyerz, ed.,
Religion and Society in Early Modern Europe (London, 1984).
Dickens, A.G., ‘The radical Reformation’, P+P 27 (1964).
Hillerbrand, H., ‘The origins of 16th century Anabaptism. Another look’, Archiv fur
Reformationsgeschichte 53 (1962).
Klaassen, W., 'The Anabaptist understanding of the separation of the church,'Church
History, 46 (1977).
‘Anabaptism – neither Catholic nor Protestant’, Church History vol. 4 (1981).
Mullett, M., Radical Religious Movements in Early Modern Europe (1980).
Oyer, J., ‘Sticks and Stones did Break their Bones and Names Did Hurt them.
16th Century Responses to the Anabaptists’, Church History 4 (1985).