Sunday, September 16, 2012

The Long Reformation, redux

This might be an interesting new release: The Long European Reformation, second edition, by Peter G. Wallace, from Palgrave Macmillan:

Peter G. Wallace adeptly interweaves the influential events of the early modern religious reformation with the transformations of political institutions, socio-economic structures, gender relations, and cultural values throughout Europe. In this established study, Wallace:
* examines the European Reformation as a long-term process
* reconnects the classic sixteenth-century religious struggles with the political and religious pressures confronting late medieval Christianity
* argues that the resolutions proposed by reformers, such as Luther, were not fully realised for most Christians until the early eighteenth century.

Incorporating the latest research, the second edition of this essential text now features a new chapter on the Reformation and Islam, expanded discussion of gender issues, and a helpful glossary.

Table of Contents:

List of Maps
Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
Preface to the Second Edition
Introduction
PART I: THE WARP: THREADS OF REFORMATION HISTORIES, 1350-1650
The Late Medieval Crisis, 1347-1517
Resistance, Renewal, and Reform, 1414-1521
Evangelical Movements and Confessions, 1521-59
Reformation and Religious War, 1550-1650
PART II: THE WEFT: MAKING SENSE OF THE LONG EUROPEAN REFORMATION
Settlements, 1600-1750: Church Building, State Building, and Social Discipline
Rereading the Reformation through Gender Analysis
The Reformation and Islam: From Menace to Coexistence
Conclusions
Notes
Glossary
Select Bibliography
Index

I don't know if I'm that excited about "Gender Analysis" but much of the other content looks fascinating. I must admit that when I wrote Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation, I did not know about this academic theory of the "Long Reformation". As I studied the English Reformation, however, it was clear to me that England endured religious change/reformation for hundreds of years, primarily because of the monarchy's authority over the church in England--whenever there was a change in monarchy, there was some change in religion. This pattern endures through the Tudor dynasty with Henry VIII's heirs, and manifests itself in the longer Stuart dynasty: James I to Charles I, Cromwell to Charles II; James II to William and Mary; Anne to George I: every change in the authority of the monarch or protector meant a change in religious settlement. Turns out that this is an ongoing theme of research, even in the English Reformation. See this course description from Sewanee, for example:

This course examines the role of ritual and worship in the religious history of England, ca. 1530 to ca. 1700. It studies the transformation of a traditional religion based on rituals into a religious system based as much on word as on rite. The course draws connections between these religious changes and the larger political, social, and cultural contexts in which they occurred.

Palgrave Macmillan provides a sample on their website (55 pages of material!) and some other interesting resources for this volume in their European History in Perspective series.

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