Religious Enlightenment in the eighteenth-century Nordic countries: Reason and orthodoxy

by Johannes Ljungberg (Editor), Erik Sidenvall (Editor)

Overview

This book explores the concept of religious Enlightenment in the Nordic countries during the long eighteenth century. It argues that Lutheran confessional culture became intertwined with Enlightenment ideas and practices in this European region. In the book’s three parts, specialist historians explore themes central to students of the early modern era – historical writing, material culture, ecclesiastical and legal reform, censorship, cameralism and innovative medical practices. It offers a timely reconsideration of a complex period in European history from a northern perspective.

An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789198740400
Publisher:	Lund University Press
Publication date:	10/17/2023
Series:	Lund University Press
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	5.43(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Johannes Ljungberg is a Post-doctoral Researcher at the University of Copenhagen

Erik Sidenvall is an Adjunct Professor of Church History at Lund University

Table of Contents

Reason and orthodoxy in the Nordic countries: an introduction – Johannes Ljungberg and Erik Sidenvall
Part I: Enlightenment in rural societies
1 The rural spectator: clergy as agents of Enlightenment in eighteenth-century Norway – Arne Bugge Amundsen
2 Promoting individualism under the guise of uniformity: a bishop’s instructions in late eighteenth-century Sweden – Erik Sidenvall
3 Tuomas Ragvaldinpoika: the Finnish self-taught and disabled man as a writer of ephemeral literature – Tuija Laine
4 Applications of the three-estate doctrine: Swedish local sermons and the social order, 1790–1820 – Joonas Tammela
Part II: Dealing with the Catholic past (and present)
5 In the midst of thick and wretched darkness: enlightened orthodoxy and the heritage of the medieval Church – Terese Zachrisson
6 A problematic legacy: negotiating the medieval past in Danish eighteenth-century church interiors – Martin Wangsgaard Jürgensen
7 Saints and Enlightenment: St Erik of Sweden in eighteenth-century Swedish history-writing – Henrik Ågren
8 A history of its own? The Catholic era as presented in Norwegian history-writing during the eighteenth century – Rolv Nøtvik Jacobsen
9 Gustav III, Enlightenment and religion: ecumenical visions and Catholicizing strategies – Yvonne Maria Werner
Part III: Milestones of Enlightenment challenged
10 Melancholy diagnostics: on pietist introspection and forensic psychiatry in statu nascendi – Tine Reeh and Ralf Hemmingsen
11 Changing practices of censorship: the Faculty of Theology at the University of Copenhagen, 1738–70 – Jesper Jakobsen and Lars Cyril Nørgaard
12 Sabbath crimes in a city of Enlightenment: religious and commercial (dis)order in eighteenth-century Altona – Johannes Ljungberg
13 A commercial alliance between agents of Enlightenment: Struensee’s statecraft and the Moravian Brethren – Christina Petterson
14 New medical knowledge in the parish: mass vaccinations in rural Finland, 1802–18 – Esko M. Laine
Epilogue: the piety of Enlightenment – much more than rationalism – Anders Jarlert
Index

Editorial Reviews

the present collection is an exceptionally rich contribution to the ongoing debates on the role of the religious in the long eighteenth century. The individual essays offer original scholarship into previously unexplored historical documents while presenting compelling arguments on practices of the religious Enlightenment in Northern European countries."
Sarah Fengler, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies

From the Publisher