The Protestant and Catholic Reformations thrust the nature of conversion into the center of debate and politicking over religion as authorities and subjects imbued religious confession with novel meanings during the early modern era. The volume offers insights into the historicity of the very concept of “conversion.” One widely accepted modern notion of the phenomenon simply expresses denominational change. Yet this concept had no bearing at the outset of the Reformation. Instead, a variety of processes, such as the consolidation of territories along confessional lines, attempts to ensure civic concord, and diplomatic quarrels helped to usher in new ideas about the nature of religious boundaries and, therefore, conversion. However conceptualized, religious change— conversion—had deep social and political implications for early modern German states and societies.

The Reformation Movement in Germany provides readers with a strong narrative overview of the most recent work on the Reformation in the German lands.

During the late Middle Ages, a considerable number of men in Germany and Switzerland were executed for committing sodomy. Even in the seventeenth century, simply speaking of the act was cause for censorship. Here, in the first history of sodomy in these countries, Helmut Puff argues that accusations of sodomy during this era were actually crucial to the success of the Protestant Reformation. Drawing on both literary and historical evidence, Puff shows that speakers of German associated sodomy with Italy and, increasingly, Catholicism. As the Reformation gained momentum, the formerly unspeakable crime of sodomy gained a voice, as Martin Luther and others deployed accusations of sodomy to discredit the upper ranks of the Church and to create a sense of community among Protestant believers. During the sixteenth century, reactions against this defamatory rhetoric, and fear that mere mention of sodomy would incite sinful acts, combined to repress even court cases of sodomy. Written with precision and meticulously researched, this revealing study will interest historians of gender, sexuality, and religion, as well as scholars of medieval and early modern history and culture.

A concise, critical study of Martin Luther and his impact on the modern world. The book covers Luther’s life, work as a reformer, theological development, and long-term influence. The book is extensively based on the writings of Martin Luther and draws connections between his life and teachings and the modern day world. Intended for use by students, the book assumes no initial familiarity with Luther and would be ideal for any interested person who wants to get to know Martin Luther; one of the key figures in European history.

In The Politics of the Reformation in Germany, Thomas A. Brady, Jr. constructs a new understanding of the Protestant Reformation through the biography of a little-known figure, the urban politician Jacob Sturm (1489-1553) of Strasbourg. At once a man of the late Middle Ages, the Reformation and the Renaissance, Sturm's political career cut through every one of the levels of the complex political life of Germany in this era - the city, the province, the region, the Protestant movement, and the Holy Roman Empire - and examination of it reveals why Protestantism, which began as a radical movement, quickly allied with local and regional government to become a conservative force. Professor Brady places the Reformation in the context of the political pluralism of the late Middle Ages and in so doing provides an interpretation that does not see it as the beginning of Germany's movement towards national statehood. Rather it gives full play to the popular movements, the largest and richest in Europe before the French Revolution, and to local interests and traditions. This perspective also allows for a reassessment of the impact of the Reformation on the political culture and government of the Holy Roman Empire and its potential for altering the future course of German history.

Book Review

This book studies the connections between the political reform of the Holy Roman Empire and the German lands around 1500 and the sixteenth-century religious reformations, both Protestant and Catholic. It argues that the character of the political changes (dispersed sovereignty, local autonomy) prevented both a general reformation of the Church before 1520 and a national reformation thereafter. The resulting settlement maintained the public peace through politically structured religious communities (confessions), thereby avoiding further religious strife and fixing the confessions into the Empire's constitution. The Germans' emergence into the modern era as a people having two national religions was the reformation's principal legacy to modern Germany.