Conceived as another chapter in the European history of religions (Europäische Religionsgeschichte), this book deals with the intense dynamics of the overlapping political, ethnic, and denominational constellations in Reformation and post-Reformation Transylvania. Navigating along multiple narrative tracks, and attempting to treat the religious history of an entire region over a limited time period in a differentiated, polyfocal way, the book represents a departure from the master narratives of any singularly oriented religious history. At the same time, the present work seeks to contribute to laying the groundwork at the micro- and meso-contextual level of East-Central European confessionalization processes, and to developing interpretive models for these processes in the region.

Between the later middle ages and the eighteenth century, religious orders were in the vanguard of reform movements within the Christian church. Recent scholarship on medieval Europe has emphasised how mendicants exercised a significant influence on the religiosity of the laity by actually shaping their spirituality and piety. In a similar way for the early modern period, religious orders have been credited with disseminating Tridentine reform, training new clergy, gaining new converts and bringing those who had strayed back into the fold. Much about this process, however, still remains unknown, particularly with regards to east central Europe. Exploring the complex relationship between western monasticism and lay society in east central Europe across a broad chronological timeframe, this collection provides a re-examination of the level and nature of interaction between members of religious orders and the communities around them. That the studies in this collection are all located in east central Europe - Transylvania, Hungary, Austria, and Bohemia- fulfils a second key aim of the volume: the examination of clerical and lay piety in a region of Europe almost entirely ignored by western scholarship. As such the volume provides an important addition to current scholarship, showcasing fresh research on a subject and region on which little has been published in English. The volume further contributes to the reintegration of eastern and western European history, expanding the existing parameters of scholarly discourse into late medieval and early modern religious practice and piety.

This work provides a comprehensive and multi-facetted account of the Reformation in eastern and central Europe, drawing on extensive archival research carried out by Continental and British scholars. Across a broad thematic, temporal and geographical range, the contributors examine the cultural impact of the Reformation in Eastern Europe, the encounters between different confessions, and the blend of religious and political pressures which shaped the path of Reformation in these lands. By making the fruits of their research accessible to a wider audience, the contributors hope to emphasise the important role of eastern and central Europe on the early modern European scene.

Whilst much has been written about early modern urban history, the majority of this work has focussed on Western Europe with relatively little available in English on towns and cities in the former communist East. However, in recent years urban scholars have increasingly looked to a much more inclusive picture of Europe that compares and contrasts development across the whole continent. Dealing primarily with Bohemia, Hungary and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, this book provides an insight into a number of key issues concerning the economic, social and demographic trends in early modern East-Central European urban history. Taking a supra-national perspective, across a long time span, it examines the effects of migration, Reformation, state building and economic change on the transformation of medieval urban communities into early modern societies. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, particularly the registers of new citizens kept by many towns and cities, a fascinating picture of urban development and social structure is reconstructed that not only tells us much about East-Central Europe, but adds to our knowledge of the whole continent.

The Price of Freedom surveys and explains the fascinating and intricate history of East Central Europe - the present day countries of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Taking a thematic approach, the author explores such issues and controversies as the tension between the industrial developed West and the agrarian East Central Europe, the rise of modern nationalism, democracy and authoritarianism and Communism. While the countries of East Central Europe have differed dramatically from one another, the author asserts that they have been bound by a certain community of fate. These comparisons are traced through the Middle Ages and the Early Modern era to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This exploration reveals that it is no accident that the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland were the first among the former Soviet bloc nations to be admitted to NATO, and are likely to become the first members of the expanded European Union. Thus an understanding of their experiences, contributions and their place within the European community of nations vastly enriches our knowledge of Europe's past and present.The second edition of this distinguished book brings the history of the region up to date. It discusses the events of the post-communist decade of the 1990s and the problems resulting from the transition to democracy and market economy.

This book considers the emergence of a remarkable diversity of churches in east-central Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries, which included Catholic, Orthodox, Hussite, Lutheran, Bohemian Brethren, Calvinist, anti-Trinitarian and Greek Catholic communities. Contributors assess the extraordinary multiplicity of confessions in the Transylvanian principality, as well as the range of churches in Poland, Bohemia, Moravia and Hungary. Essays focus on how each church sought to establish its own identity in a crowded market-place of religious ideas, and on the extent to which printed literature brokered the popular reception of religious doctrine. The volume addresses how ideas about religion spread within the largely illiterate societies of east-central Europe, especially through catechisms, and how printed literature was used to instruct congregations about doctrinal truth, to encourage the faithful to pious devotions, and to shape the religious life and identity of local communities.

Early modern Central Europe was the continent’s most decentralized region politically and its most diverse ethnically and culturally. With the onset of the Reformation, it also became Europe’s most religiously divided territory and potentially its most explosive in terms of confessional conflict and war. Focusing on the Holy Roman Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, this volume examines the tremendous challenge of managing confessional diversity in Central Europe between 1500 and 1800. Addressing issues of tolerance, intolerance, and ecumenism, each chapter explores a facet of the complex dynamic between the state and the region’s Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Utraquist, and Jewish communities. The development of religious toleration—one of the most debated questions of the early modern period—is examined here afresh, with careful consideration of the factors and conditions that led to both confessional concord and religious violence.