German Histories in the Age of Reformations, 1400–1650

This book studies the connections between the political reform of the Holy Roman Empire and the German lands around 1500 and the sixteenth-century religious reformations.

Thomas A. Brady Jr. (Author)

9780521889094, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 July 2009

496 pages, 17 b/w illus. 5 maps
24 x 16.2 x 3 cm, 0.83 kg

'… like no other history of the Holy Roman Empire … this book is interdisciplinary in the most judicious and fruitful ways. It is filled with riveting stories. Brady's analyses are often profound, yet his text includes basic information for the nonspecialist.' Susan C. Karant-Nunn, American Historical Review

This book studies the connections between the political reform of the Holy Roman Empire and the German lands around 1500 and the sixteenth-century religious reformations, both Protestant and Catholic. It argues that the character of the political changes (dispersed sovereignty, local autonomy) prevented both a general reformation of the Church before 1520 and a national reformation thereafter. The resulting settlement maintained the public peace through politically structured religious communities (confessions), thereby avoiding further religious strife and fixing the confessions into the Empire's constitution. The Germans' emergence into the modern era as a people having two national religions was the reformation's principal legacy to modern Germany.

Part I. The Empire and the German Lands: 1. Reformations in German histories
2. Shapes of the German lands
3. Temporal estates - farmers, traders, fighters
4. The church and the faith
Part II. Reform of Empire and Church, 1400–1520: 5. Reform of empire and church
6. The empire and the territorial states
7. The reform of the empire in the age of Maximilian
8. Ideals and illusions of reforming the church
Part III. Church, Reformations, and Empire, 1520–76: 9. Urban reformations
10. Revolution of the common man
11. Imperial reformations in the age of Charles V
12. Imperial peace, 1555–80
Part IV. Confessions, Empire, and War, 1576–1650: 13. Forming the Protestant confessions
14. Reforming the Catholic church
15. Limits of public life - Jews, heretics, witches
16. Roads to war
17. The Thirty Years War
18. German reformations, German futures.

Subject Areas: Church history [HRCC2], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], European history [HBJD]