ABSTRACT
The emergence of rivalling confessions in the sixteenth century has long been recognized as a key process in European history – for many scholars in fact it marks the dawn of a new era (‘Introduction’ above). In a remarkably short period of time, theological arguments spilled over into the socio-political sphere and gripped large parts of the population, first within the Holy Roman Empire, but soon much further afield. The Eastern Orthodox Church had split from Rome in the High Middle Ages, but for Central and Western Europe the Reformation brought the first experience of formal religious division, leading to centuries of acrimonious conflict, sometimes with repercussions to the present day. There had been reform initiatives and unorthodox movements before (‘Church and People’ in Part III), but they lacked the political backing, dissemination technology and mass appeal which gave the evangelical message such enormous power. What resulted from its stress on individual faith and the authority of Scripture was not a ‘purified’ universal Church (as Martin Luther had originally hoped), but two main branches of Protestantism – Lutheran and Reformed – and a host of dissenting groups, while Catholicism survived and in turn embarked on a major regeneration programme. All across the confessional spectrum, furthermore, clergymen came to realize that it was relatively easy to alter ecclesiastical structures, but much more difficult to implant new beliefs in people’s souls. More and more Reformation historians thus adopt a long-term perspective, with some detecting real grass-roots change only from the late seventeenth century. The following three chapters examine developments within the major confessional contexts in turn. Their emphasis lies on Reformation change in a narrower sense, with the impact on gender relations, unorthodox practices and international politics addressed elsewhere in this volume (‘Gender and Family’ in Part II; ‘Witchcraft and Magic’ in Part IV; ‘Dynastic Politics c. 1500-1650’ in Part V).
