1st Edition

Enacting the Reformation in Germany Essays on Institution and Reception

By Gerald Strauss Copyright 1993
    314 Pages
    by Routledge

    Enacting the Reformation in Germany brings together sixteen essays and articles written over a thirty-year period by a historian who has made it his special scholarly concern to trace and analyze the social consequences of the German Reformation's salient ideas and positions. The picture Strauss draws of a country and a society struggling to understand and incorporate the deep structural and mental changes brought on by Martin Luther's revolt against Rome has the sharpness and contrast of a visual image.

    Contents: Provisional Contents: Preface; The course of German history: the Lutheran interpretation; The image of Germany in the 16th century; The production of Johann Stumpf’s description of the Swiss Confederation; Protestant dogma and city government: the case of Nuremberg; The religious policies of Dukes Wilhelm IV and Ludwig X of Bavaria in the first decade of the Protestant era; Luther as Barabbas; The state of pedagogical theory c. 1530: what Protestant reformers knew about education; The social function of schools in the Lutheran Reformation in Germany; Liberal or illiberal arts?; Lutheranism and literacy: a reassessment; Success and failure in the German Reformation; The Reformation and its public in an age of orthodoxy; How to read a Volksbuch: the Faust book of 1587; Three kinds of Christian freedom: law, liberty, and license in the German Reformation; The dilemma of popular history; The idea of order in the German Reformation; Index.