HIS 221: The Reformation: Reference Collection

"The Verge tells the story of a period that marked a decisive turning point for both European and world history. Here, author Patrick Wyman examines two complementary and contradictory sides of the same historical coin: the world-altering implications of the developments of printed mass media, extreme taxation, exploitative globalization, humanistic learning, gunpowder warfare, and mass religious conflict in the long term, and their intensely disruptive consequences in the short-term. As told through the lives of ten real people -- from famous figures like Christopher Columbus and wealthy banker Jakob Fugger to a ruthless small-time merchant and a one-armed mercenary captain -- The Verge illustrates how their lives, and the times in which they lived, set the stage for an unprecedented globalized future. Over an intense forty-year period, the seeds for the so-called "Great Divergence" between Western Europe and the rest of the globe would be planted. From Columbus's voyage across the Atlantic to Martin Luther's sparking the Protestant Reformation, the foundations of our own, recognizably modern world came into being. For the past 500 years, historians, economists, and the policy-oriented have argued which of these individual developments best explains the West's rise from backwater periphery to global dominance. As The Verge presents it, however, the answer is far more nuanced"-- Provided by publisher.

"This is the first Handbook of the Reformations to include global Protestantism, and the most comprehensive Handbook on the development of Protestant practices which has been published so far. The volume brings together international scholars in the fields of theology, intellectual thought, and social and cultural history. Contributions focus on key themes, such as Martin Luther or the Swiss reformations, offering an up-to-date perspective on current scholarly debates, but they also address many new themes at the cutting edge of scholarship, with particularly emphasis on the history of emotions, the history of knowledge, and global history. This new approach opens up fresh perspectives onto important questions: how did Protestant ways of conceiving the divine shape everyday life, ideas of the feminine or masculine, commercial practices, politics, notions of temporality, or violence? The aim of this Handbook is to bring to life the vitality of Reformation ideas. In these ways, the Handbook stresses that the Protestant Reformations in all their variety, and with their important "radical " wings, must be understood as one of the lasting long-term historical transformations which changed Europe and, subsequently, significant parts of the world"-- Provided by publisher

"The present book argues that Martin Luther and his first allies and intra-Reformation critics (Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt and Thomas Müntzer) appealed to suffering to teach Christians to distinguish between true and false doctrine, teachers, and experiences. In so doing, they developed and deployed categories of false suffering, in which suffering was received or simply feigned in ways that hardened rather than demolished self-assertion. These ideas were nourished by the reception of teachings about annihilation of the self and union with God received from post-Eckhartian mysticism. Luther, Karlstadt, and Müntzer developed this mystical inheritance in different directions, each of which intended to shape Christians for differing forms of ecclesial-political dissent: Luther redefined union with God as a union through faith and the Word, and he counseled Christians to endure persecution as divine work under contraries; Karlstadt described union with God as "sinking into the divine will," and he upheld this union as a post-mortem goal that required, here and now, constant self-accusation and improvement on the part of the individual and the community; Müntzer looked for God to possess souls according to the created order, making Christians into actors for the execution of God's will on the earthly plane. The democratization of mysticism that so many scholars have attributed to these reformers' teachings involved a delimitation: mysticism joined to Reformation teaching was used to identify false experiences, false teachers, and ultimately false Christianity"-- Provided by publisher.

"Judaism has always been of great significance to Christianity but this relationship has also been marked by complexity and ambivalence. The emergence of new Protestant confessions in the Reformation had significant consequences for how Jews were viewed and treated. In this wide-ranging account, Kenneth Austin examines Christian attitudes toward Jews, the Hebrew language, and Jewish learning, arguing that they have much to tell us about the Reformation and its priorities-and have important implications for how we think about religious pluralism today." - Publisher description

"This pioneering study focuses on the decisive contributions by Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach the Elder, and Hans Holbein the Younger to the popular promotion of the printed Bible and, beyond that, to the evangelical impulses that transformed ecclesiastical art. The Renaissance, always recognized as a time of artistic and theological foment for Christianity, also witnessed a visual re-formation of the Bible. Material culture played its part since the printing press allowed proliferation of biblical images and texts on a previously unimaginable scale. Contrary to commonly accepted claims that the Reformation resulted in the atrophy of art, artists offered richly visual experiences for the biblical culture of the new Protestant churches. This book further explicitly explores the paradox of the Bible's cultural status. The Bible, authority for Christian culture, shattered the unity of Christianity with its divergent editions and translations. Reformation art required new approaches to accommodate confessional and textual diversity. Rulers, theologians, and artists created new Bibles as foundations for transformative socio-political movements. In Price's richly nuanced study, a new understanding emerges of how Dürer, Cranach, and Holbein invented biblical iconographies as they promoted the relationship of biblicism to faith and political authority"-- Provided by publisher.

"Jan Hus was a late medieval Czech university master and popular preacher who was condemned at the Council of Constance and burned at the stake as a heretic in 1415. Thanks to his contemporary influence and his posthumous fame in the Hussite movement and beyond, Hus has become one of the best known figures of the Czech past and one of the most prominent reformers of medieval Europe as a whole. This definitive biography now available in English opposes the view of Hus that saw his importance primarily as a martyr, subsequently invoked by a variety of religious, national, and political groups eager to appropriate his legacy. Looking for Hus's significance in his own time, this treatment tells a story of a late medieval intellectual who-through his dedicated pursuit of what he understood as his mission-generated conflict and eventually brought execution upon himself. By investigating the life and death of Jan Hus, one learns not only about the man, but about the church, state, and society in late medieval Europe." - Publisher description

"Renaissance Mass Murder' explores the devastating impact of war on the men and women of the Renaissance. In contrast to the picture of balance and harmony usually associated with the Renaissance, it uncovers in forensic detail a world in which sacks of Italian cities and massacres of civilians at the hands of French, German, Spanish, Swiss, and Italian troops were regular occurrences. The arguments presented are based on a wealth of evidence - histories and chronicles, poetry and paintings, sculpture and other objects - which together provide a new and startling history of sixteenth-century Italy and a social history of the Italian Wars. It outlines how massacres happened, how princes, soldiers, lawyers, and writers justified and explained such events, and how they were represented in contemporary culture. On this basis, Renaissance Mass Murder reconstructs the terrifying individual experiences of civilians in the face of war and in doing so offers a story of human tragedy which redresses the balance of the history of the Italian Wars, and of Renaissance warfare, in favour of the civilian and away from the din of battle. This volume also places mass murder in a broader historical context and challenges claims that such violence was unusual or in decline in early modern Europe. Finally, it shows that women often suffered disproportionately from this violence and that immunity for them, as for their children, was often partially developed or poorly respected." -- Publisher's website.

"The cities of Renaissance Italy comprised a network of forces shaping both the urban landscape and those who inhabited it. In this illuminating study, those complex relations are laid bare and explored through the lens of contemporary urban theory, providing new insights into the various urban centers of Italy's transition toward modernity. The book underscores how the design and structure of public space during this transformative period were intended to exercise a certain measure of authority over its citizens, citing the impact of architecture and street layout on everyday social practices. The ensuing chapters demonstrate how the character of public space became increasingly determined by the habits of its residents, for whom the streets served as the backdrop of their daily activities. Highlighting major hubs such as Rome, Florence, and Bologna, as well as other lesser-known settings, 'Street Life in Renaissance Italy' offers a new look at this remarkable era." - Publisher description

""Habsburgs ruled much of Europe for centuries. From modest origins as minor German nobles, the family used fabricated documents, invented genealogies, savvy marriages, and military conquest on their improbable ascent, becoming the continent's most powerful dynasty. By the mid-fifteenth century, the Habsburgs gained controlled of the Holy Roman Empire, and by the early sixteenth century, their lands stretched across the continent and far beyond it. But in 1918, at the end of the Great War, the final remnant of their empire was gone. In The Habsburgs, historian Martyn Rady tells the epic story of the Habsburg dynasty and the world it built -- and then lost -- over nearly a millennium, placing it in its European and global contexts. Beginning in the Middle Ages, the Habsburgs expanded from Swabia across southern Germany to Austria through forgery and good fortune. By the time a Habsburg duke was crowned as Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III in 1452, he and his clan already held fast to the imperial vision distilled in its AEIOU motto: Austriae est imperare orbi universe, "Austria is destined to rule the world." Maintaining their grip on the imperial succession of the Holy Roman Empire for centuries, the Habsburgs extended their power into Italy, Spain, the New World, and the Pacific, a dominion that Charles V called 'the empire on which the sun never sets.'" - Publisher description

"The life of Emperor Charles V (1500-1558), ruler of Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, and much of Italy and Central and South America, has long intrigued biographers. But the elusive nature of the man (despite an abundance of documentation), his relentless travel and the control of his own image, together with the complexity of governing the world's first transatlantic empire, complicate the task. Geoffrey Parker, one of the world's leading historians of early modern Europe, has examined the surviving written sources in Dutch, French, German, Italian, Latin, and Spanish, as well as visual and material evidence. He explores the crucial decisions that created and preserved this vast empire, analyzes Charles's achievements within the context of both personal and structural factors, and scrutinizes the intimate details of the ruler's life for clues to his character and inclinations. The result is a unique biography that interrogates every dimension of Charles's reign and views the world through the emperor's own eyes"--Publisher's website.

"In this absorbing and comprehensive history, Paul Lendvai tells the fascinating story of how the Hungarians, despite a string of catastrophes and their linguistic and cultural isolation, have survived as a nation for more than one thousand years. Now with a new preface and a new chapter that brings the narrative up to the present, the book describes the evolution of Hungarian politics, culture, economics, and identity since the Magyars first arrived in the Carpathian Basin in 896. Through colorful anecdotes of heroes and traitors, victors and victims, revolutionaries and tyrants, Lendvai chronicles the way progressivism and economic modernization have competed with intolerance and narrow-minded nationalism. An unforgettable blend of skilled storytelling and scholarship, The Hungarians is an authoritative account of this enigmatic and important nation"-- Provided by publisher.

"Approaching the Stuart courts through the lens of the queen consort, Anna of Denmark, this study is underpinned by three key themes: translating cultures, female agency and the role of kinship networks and genealogical identity for early modern royal women. Illustrated with a fascinating array of objects and artworks, the book follows a trajectory that begins with Anna's exterior spaces before moving to the interior furnishings of her palaces, the material adornment of the royal body, an examination of Anna's visual persona and a discussion of Anna's performance of extraordinary rituals that follow her life cycle. Underpinned by a wealth of new archival research, the book provides a richer understanding of the breadth of Anna's interests and the meanings generated by her actions, associations and possessions." - Publisher description

"Explores the sociogenesis and development of the French royal mistress, examining the careers of nine of the most significant holders of that title between 1444 and the final years of the ancien régime"-- Provided by publisher.

"A dazzling history of Africans in Europe, revealing their unacknowledged role in shaping the continent. Conventional wisdom holds that Africans are only a recent presence in Europe. But in African Europeans, renowned historian Olivette Otele debunks this and uncovers a long history of Europeans of African descent. From the third century, when the Egyptian Saint Maurice became the leader of a Roman legion, all the way up to the present, Otele explores encounters between those defined as "Africans" and those called "Europeans." She gives equal attention to the most prominent figures--like Alessandro de Medici, the first duke of Florence thought to have been born to a free African woman in a Roman village--and the untold stories--like the lives of dual-heritage families in Europe's coastal trading towns. African Europeans is a landmark celebration of this integral, vibrantly complex slice of European history, and will redefine the field for years to come." - Publisher description

"Containing an urgently needed archival database of historical evidence, this volume includes both a consolidated presentation of the documentary records of black people in Tudor and Stuart England, and an interpretive narrative that confirms and significantly extends the insights of current theoretical excursus on race in early modern England. Here for the first time Imtiaz Habib collects the scattered references to black people - whether from Africa, India or America - in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, and arranges them into a systematic, chronological descriptive index. He offers an extended historical and theoretical interpretation of the records in six chapters, which serve as an introductory guide to the index even as they articulate a specific argument about the meaning of the records. Both the archival information and interpretive scholarship provide a strong framework from which future historical debates on race in early modern England can proceed."--Back cover

"In Death and Disorder, award-winning teacher Ken MacMillan introduces readers to the tumultuous world of England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. During this period, numerous kings and queens were killed, their advisors assassinated, treasonous nobles beheaded, religious heretics burned at the stake, and common criminals--among them murderers, thieves, and witches--executed by hanging. Combined with devastating plagues, a high rate of infant mortality, violence on the battlefield, and attempts to conquer New World Indigenous peoples, these events caused a "crisis of mortality" that became an overarching theme of the period. Early modern England was a society obsessed with order, and it was often through death and disorder that order was restored and change occurred. In three distinct sections of the book--"The Tudors," "The Stuarts," and "Empire and Society"--MacMillan argues that both despite and because of the prevalence of death and disorder in early modern England, these two centuries saw critical historical developments. Each chapter opens and closes with vignettes that highlight important themes, and the book also includes a timeline, two dozen images, engaging discussion questions for each chapter, and a list of further resources."-- Provided by publisher.