In this widely praised history, noted scholar James D. Tracy offers a comprehensive, lucid, and masterful exploration of early modern Europe's key turning point. Establishing a new standard for histories of the Reformation, Tracy explores the complex religious, political, and social processes that made change possible, even as he synthesizes new understandings of the profound continuities between medieval Catholic Europe and the multi-confessional sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This revised edition includes new material on Eastern Europe, on how ordinary people experienced religious change, and on the pluralistic societies that began to emerge. Reformation scholars have in recent decades dismantled brick by brick the idea that the Middle Ages came to an abrupt end in 1517. Martin Luther's Ninety-five Theses fitted into an ongoing debate about how Christians might better understand the Gospel and live its teachings more faithfully. Tracy shows how Reformation-era religious conflicts tilted the balance in church-state relations in favor of the latter, so that the secular power was able to dictate the doctrinal loyalty of its subjects. Religious reform, Catholic as well as Protestant, reinforced the bonds of community, while creating new divisions within towns, villages, neighborhoods, and families. In some areas these tensions were resolved by allowing citizens to profess loyalty both to their separate religious communities and to an overarching body-politic. This compromise, a product of the Reformations, though not willed by the reformers, was the historical foundation of modern, pluralistic society. Richly illustrated and elegantly written, this book belongs in the library of all scholars, students, and general readers interested in the origins, events, and legacy of Europe's Reformation.
James D. Tracy is professor of history at the University of Minnesota. A leading scholar of early modern Europe, he is the author of Erasmus of the Low Countries (1996), Emperor Charles V, Impresario of War (2002), The Low Countries in the 16th Century (2005), and The Founding of the Dutch Republic (forthcoming). He is also a founding editor and current editor of the Journal for Early Modern History.
Table of Contents
Part 1 Part One: Introduction Chapter 2 Premises Chapter 3 The Reformation in European Perspective Part 4 Part Two: Doctrine to Live By Chapter 5 Late Medieval Background Chapter 6 Martin Luther, to 1521 Chapter 7 The German and Swiss Reformation, 1521-1526 Chapter 8 The German and Swiss Reformation, 1526-1555 Chapter 9 The European Reformations Part 10 Part Three: Politics Chapter 11 The Wars of Italy, 1494-1559 Chapter 12 Wars of Religion, 1562-1648 Chapter 13 The European Reformations Chapter 14 England's Reformations, 1527-1660 Part 15 Part Four: Society and Community Chapter 16 Late Medieval Background Chapter 17 The German and Swiss Reformation Chapter 18 Reformations Across Europe Chapter 19 Europe's Reformations in Global Perspective
