Reformation and Counter-Reformation in Europe

Abstract

Abstract This chapter provides an overview of the Protestant and Catholic Reformations in Europe. It begins by establishing the significance of the Reformation and commenting on recent trends in historical scholarship. An outline of theological change during the period follows, before consideration of the political dimension of religious reform across Europe, including the position of religious ‘radicals’, and the development of theories of resistance against persecuting secular rulers. The chapter moves on to consider the impact of the Reformations on religious belief, practice, and identity, looking at the spread of reform through visual and musical means, as well as topics such as education and disenchantment. It ends with the social impacts of Reformation on religious violence, toleration, and gender, and concludes by suggesting that the transformations instigated by the Catholic and Protestant Reformations wrought changes of great magnitude and complexity upon the Churches, nations, and peoples of early modern Europe.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 27 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.