One of the important trends in more recent Reformation scholarship has been the extensive attention given the major "secondary" Reformers who aided and abetted, and sometimes challenged and infuriated, Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin. This book, which began as a doctoral dissertation at Yale University, is an attempt to elucidate the thought of one of the most important of these "Reformers in the wings." - Preface.

The aim of this English-language series on medieval studies is to establish a methodical, discerning connection between text analysis and cultural history. The series addresses the fundamental cultural themes of the medieval world from the perspective of literarystudies and the humanities. These fundamental themes are the culture-formative conceptualizations, world views, social structures and everyday conditions of medieval life, namely, childhood and old age, sexuality, religion, medicine, rituals, work, poverty and wealth, superstition, earth and cosmos, city and country, war, emotions, communication, travel etc.Fundamentals of Medieval Culture pursues important current discussions in the field and provides a forum for interdisciplinary medieval research. The series is open to anthologies as well as monographs. The aim of the series is to present compendium-like works on the central topics of medieval cultural history that provide a sound overview of a limited subject area from the perspective of various disciplines. On the whole, the series thus presents an encyclopedia of medieval literary and cultural history and its main topics.

This title was first published in 2003. The secular song of the 17th century represents a relatively neglected area of German culture. In this book, Anthony J. Harper first studies the songs of the two great models of the time, Martin Opitz and Paul Fleming, following this with an analysis of the song-books and collections from three regions: the North-East, Central Germany, and the North. The procedure is thus both historical and geographical. The texts of these songs are examined in relation to structural principles, thematic range and stylistic treatment. Harper establishes common features and regional variations of this genre, which involves love-poetry, songs of manners with colourful portrayals of everyday life, and comic songs in a lower stylistic register. Particular attention is paid to the work of Albert and Dach in Konigsberg, Finckelthaus, Schirmer, Krieger and Schoch in Leipzig and Dresden, and Rist, Voigtlander, Zesen, Greflinger and Stieler in the Hamburg region. Where appropriate, the book assesses the role of musical settings, while not seeking to offer technical insights into musical matters. Of value to scholars of German literature, this study should also be of interest to musicologists working on the Renaissance and Baroque periods.

This 1991 collection of writings by early Reformation radicals illustrates both the diversity and the areas of agreement in their political thinking.