The Communal Reformation presents a new argument about the origins of the Protestant Reformation and their relationship to the social and political experience, institutions, and goals of the common people, both townsfolk and peasants, in Central Europe. It reveals the common quest of ordinary people in the towns and on the land for religious reform through communal action. The book focuses on southern Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, though it has important implications the social and religious history of Europe as a whole.