German Histories in the Age of Reformations, 1400-1650

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.

Author: Thomas A. Brady Jr.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 09/24/2009
Pages: 496
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.60lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 1.20d
ISBN: 9780521717786

About the Author
Brady Jr, Thomas A.: - Thomas A. Brady, Jr studied at the universities of Notre Dame, Columbia, and Chicago. He taught for 23 years at the University of Oregon and 18 years at the University of California, Berkeley, where he held the Peder Sather Chair of History, and as a guest at the University of Arizona and the National University of Ireland at Galway. A specialist in central European history from 1400 to 1800, his principal writings include Ruling Class, Regime, and Reformation at Strasbourg 1520-1555; Turning Swiss: Cities and Empire 1450-1550; Protestant Politics: Jacob Sturm (1489-1555) and The German Reformation; The Politics of the German Reformation; and Communities, Politics, and Reformations in Early Modern Europe. In addition to his PhD from the University of Chicago, Professor Brady holds the PhD honoris causa from the University of Bern, Switzerland. He has held Guggenheim, Fulbright, and Humboldt fellowships and appointments in the Historisches Kolleg at Munich and in the National Humanities Center.