The emergence of religious toleration was one of the main features of the development of Western society after the Reformation. While previous research has concentrated largely on ideas of toleration, this study of the Lutheran Imperial City of Hamburg analyses the way in which those ideas were received and gradually implemented. Hamburg was one of the most dynamic mercantile centres of early modern Europe. It attracted substantial numbers of Catholics, Calvinists and Jews. Dr Whaley examines the factors, which influenced the often uneasy relationship with the Lutheran majority. He...

This book reveals the workings of a culture that cherished death, and invested its resources in the pursuit of heaven. This is the first full-length study of Spanish attitudes toward death and the afterlife in the peak years of the Counter-Reformation. It contains an analysis of the death rituals requested in hundreds of sixteenth-century Madrid testaments, as well as a detailed account of the ways in which the "good" deaths of King Philip II and Saint Teresa of Avila were interpreted by contemporaries.

This stylish and highly entertaining account of the origins of the Franco-Dutch War of 1672 is based on massive archival researches covering twelve countries. Contrary to the accepted historical opinion that there was a meeting of minds within Louis XIV??'s conseil d???en haut over the desirability of the war, Professor Sonnino chronicles a story of bitter division, in the course of which the contrasting personalities of the king and of his most intimate advisors emerge in vivid detail. Racine once eulogized the war as a brilliantly executed venture which put the insolent Dutch in their...

This book uses the Breton experience to address two fundamental historiographical issues: the meaning of absolutism and the nature of early-modern French society. It abandons the old framework that opposed orders to classes, and instead seeks to find the central meaning of the evolution of the French state in the maintenance of order (especially the preservation of property). Professor Collins's main purpose, illustrated by his fusion of economic, social and institutional approaches, is to combine social and political/institutional history, so long separated in works on this field. Contrary...

The publication of The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road in 1972 marked the birth of the "new military history," which emphasized military organization--mobilization, pay, supply, morale and, above all, logistics--rather than military "events" such as sieges and battles. Constantly cited since its first publication in English (with translations into Spanish and Dutch), this revised updated second edition includes new sources and references but otherwise remains faithful to the original edition. First Edition Hb (1972): 0-521-08462-8 First Edition Pb (1975): 0-521-09907-2

The Swedish invasion of 1655, known to Poles ever since as the ???Swedish deluge???, provoked the political and military collapse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the second-largest state in Europe. Robert Frost examines the reasons for Poland??'s fall and the conduct of the war by the Polish government, and addresses the crucial question of why, despite widespread recognition of the shortcomings of the political system, subsequent attempts at reform failed. War has long been seen as crucial to the development of more effective systems of government in Europe during the seventeenth...

This book is the first modern study to examine the history of a single French community over the full course of the civil wars (1560 1600), and its account of local developments is enriched by frequent comparisons with events and conditions elsewhere in the country. An introductory chapter describes Rouen's economy, social structure and political institutions on the eve of the Wars of Religion. Successive chapters explore the rise and decline of Protestantism; the sociology of the faith; the causes and chronology of the popular violence which began to disturb the city after 1560; the roots of...

This book offers a new paradigm of the history of the German nobility in the early modern period. It shows that, contrary to the prevailing view, the nobility was not in a period of crisis that facilitated the rise of the state. Rather, the nobility underwent a process of social stratification in the wake of the growth of the state. This process led to the formation of an elite of wealthy noble families on whose cooperation the state depended. This alliance, and not a presumed partnership between rulers and bourgeoisie, was the driving force in early modern Germany.

The Continuity of Feudal Power is an analytic study of a family of the Neapolitan aristocracy during the early modern period, with particular focus on the time of Spanish rule (1503 1707). The Caracciolo marquis of Brienza were a branch of one of the oldest and most powerful clans in the kingdom of Naples, and they numbered among the hundred wealthiest feudal families throughout the early modern period. Professor Astarita reconstructs the family's patrimony, administration and revenues, the family's relationship with the rural communities over which it had jurisdiction, its marriage and...

This book examines the relationship between the Reformation movement of the sixteenth century and the rural population of Germany. Over ninety percent of the population lived in the countryside, and yet to date they have received scant attention. The experience of the Reformation by the average villager is described, and an attempt is made to understand the villagers on their own terms: their beliefs, their customs, and their forms of rule. The result is an original work that both examines an important event such as the Reformation and judges it by the standards (and often the words) of the...