This extensively illustrated book offers a new kind of introduction to Europe between 1500 and 1800. It considers the evolving economy and society - the basic facts of life for the majority of Europe's people. It shows how the religious and intellectual unity of western culture fragmented and dissolved under the impact of new ideas. It also examines politics to consider the emergence of modern attitudes and techniques in governing.

This extensively illustrated book offers a new kind of introduction to Europe between 1500 and 1800. It considers the evolving economy and society - the basic facts of life for the majority of Europe's people. It shows how the religious and intellectual unity of western culture fragmented and dissolved under the impact of new ideas. It also examines politics to consider the emergence of modern attitudes and techniques in governing.

This volume in the Short Oxford History of Europe series examines the sixteenth century--one of the most tumultuous and dramatic periods of social and cultural transformation in European history. Six leading experts consider this period from political, social, economic, religious, and intellectual perspectives. The book includes material on regions of Europe often ignored in other general histories of the period, such as the East and the Mediterranean world. This unique text challenges, tests, and revises the received wisdom of past accounts in light of the most modern historical...

Since the dawn of history people have used charms and spells to try to control their environment, and forms of divination to try to foresee the otherwise unpredictable chances of life. Many of these techniques were called "superstitious" by educated elites.

For centuries religious believers used "superstition" as a term of abuse to denounce another religion that they thought inferior, or to criticize their fellow-believers for practising their faith "wrongly." From the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, scholars argued over what 'superstition' was, how to identify it, and how to persuade...

Since its first appearance in 1991, The European Reformation has offered a clear, integrated, and coherent analysis and explanation of how Christianity in Western and Central Europe from Iceland to Hungary, from the Baltic to the Pyrenees splintered into separate Protestant and Catholic identities and movements.
Catholic Christianity at the end of the Middle Ages was not at all a uniformly 'decadent' or corrupt institution: it showed clear signs of cultural vigour and inventiveness. However, it was vulnerable to a particular kind of criticism, if ever its claims to mediate the grace of...

Since the dawn of history people have used charms and spells to try to control their environment, and forms of divination to try to foresee the otherwise unpredictable chances of life. Many of these techniques were called "superstitious" by educated elites.

For centuries religious believers used "superstition" as a term of abuse to denounce another religion that they thought inferior, or to criticize their fellow-believers for practising their faith "wrongly." From the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, scholars argued over what 'superstition' was, how to identify it, and how to persuade...

Music was, in some form or another, a pastime enjoyed by all in sixteenth-century society, and a fundamental part of their lives. It was both through the use of music and partly as a result of its existence that many religious changes occurred during the Reformation. This book explores the part played by music, especially group singing, in the unfolding of the Protestant reforms in Strasbourg. It considers both ecclesiastical and popular songs in the city, examining how both genres fitted into people s lives during this time of strife, and how the provision and dissemination of music as a...

In the Early Modern period - as both reformed and Catholic churches strove to articulate orthodox belief and conduct through texts, sermons, rituals, and images - communities grappled frequently with the connection between sacred space and behavior. The Sacralization of Space and Behavior in the Early Modern World explores individual and community involvement in the approbation, reconfiguration and regulation of sacred spaces and the behavior (both animal and human) within them. The individual s understanding of sacred space, and consequently the behavior appropriate within it, depended on...

In recent years, the rituals and beliefs associated with the end of life and the commemoration of the dead have increasingly been identified as of critical importance in understanding the social and cultural impact of the Reformation. The associated processes of dying, death and burial inevitably generated heightened emotion and a strong concern for religious propriety: the ways in which funerary customs were accepted, rejected, modified and contested can therefore grant us a powerful insight into the religious and social mindset of individuals, communities, Churches and even nation states in...