ABSTRACT
To place the terms ‘religious belief’ and ‘popular culture’ together in the early modern period is to court controversy. Few other areas of study have been so consistently marked by sharply ideological agendas, from the sixteenth century itself to the twentieth and beyond. This chapter will trace the historiography of religious belief from its earliest incarnations through the controversies and perspectives that developed over the course of the later twentieth century, and finally offer some observations and suggestions for current and future research in the area. 1
