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Berghahn Books Diversity and Dissent Negotiating Religious Difference in Central Europe 1500-1800 2011 Edition by Howard Louthan, Gary B. Cohen, Franz A. J. Szabo
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. Table of contents :- List of FiguresPrefaceIntroduction:Between Conflict and Concord: The Challenge of Religious Diversity in Central EuropeHoward Louthan Chapter 1. Constructing and Crossing Confessional Boundaries: The High Nobility and the Reformation of BohemiaPetr MataChapter 2. Religious Toleration in Sixteenth Century Poland: Political Realities and Social ConstraintsPaul W. KnollChapter 3. Customs of Confession: Managing Religious Diversity in Late Sixteenth- and Early Seventeenth-Century WestphaliaDavid M. LuebkeChapter 4. Cuius region, eius religio: The ambivalent meanings of state building in Protestant Germany, 1555-1655Robert von FriedeburgChapter 5. The Entropy of Coercion in the Holy Roman Empire: Jews, Heretics, WitchesThomas A. Brady, Jr.Chapter 6. Conflict and Concord in Early Modern Poland: Catholics and Orthodox at the Union of BrestMikhail V. DmitrievChapter 7. Confessionalization and the Jews: Impacts and Parallels in the City of StrasbourgDebra KaplanChapter 8. Mary "triumphant over demons and also heretics": Religious symbols and confessional uniformity in Catholic GermamyBridget HealChapter 9. Heresy and Literacy in the Eighteenth-century Habsburg MonarchyRegina PoertnerChapter 10. Union, Reunion, or Toleration? Reconciliatory Attempts among Eighteenth-century ProtestantsAlexander SchunkaChapter 11. Confessional Uniformity, Toleration, Freedom of Religion: An Issue for Enlightened Absolutism in the Eighteenth CenturyErnst WangermannNotes on ContributorsSelect BibliographyFiguresFigure 1. Master of St. Severin rosary altarFigure 2. Rosary image, CologneFigure 3. Bartolomaus Bruyn the Elder, TryptichFigure 4. Sixteenth-century panels, Virign and ChildFigure 5. Arrival of Gustav Adolph, Augsbury 1632Figure 6. Altarpiece, Parish Church, Sebes, c. 1524-6