Catholic Revival in the Age of the Baroque
Religious Identity in Southwest Germany, 1550–1750

A study of 'Catholic identity' in southwest Germany in the two centuries after the Reformation.

Marc R. Forster (Author)

9780521036924, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 May 2007

284 pages, 8 maps
22.9 x 15.4 x 1.7 cm, 0.437 kg

'… a significant contribution to the specialist literatures on German and religious history.' Religious Studies Review

This book is a study of Catholic reform, popular Catholicism and the development of confessional identity in southwest Germany. Based on extensive archival study, it argues that Catholic confessional identity developed primarily from the identification of villagers and townspeople with the practices of Baroque Catholicism - particularly pilgrimages, processions, confraternities and the Mass. Thus the book is in part a critique of the confessionalization thesis which dominates scholarship in this field. The book is not however focused narrowly on the concerns of German historians. An analysis of popular religious practice and of the relationship between parishioners and the clergy in villages and small towns allows for a broader understanding of popular Catholicism, especially in the period after 1650. Local Baroque Catholicism was ultimately a successful convergence of popular and elite, lay and clerical elements, which led to an increasingly elaborate religious style.

List of maps
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Introduction
1. The Counter-Reformation offensive, 1550–1650
2. The sacral landscape and pilgrimage piety
3. Religious practice
4. Clericalism in the villages
5. The communal church in German Catholicism
6. Reformers and intermediaries, 1650–1750
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], History of religion [HRAX], Social & cultural history [HBTB], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], European history [HBJD]