The book offers a concise introduction to the history of art, culture and everyday life of cities in the German cultural area between renaissance and revolution. References from sources and illustrations define the text; they are together useful resources for classes at schools and universities.

This book charts the lives of (suspected) thieves, illegitimate mothers and vagrants in early modern Frankfurt. The book highlights the gender differences in recorded criminality and the way that they were shaped by the local context. Women played a prominent role in recorded crime in this period, and could even make up half of all defendants in specific European cities. At the same time, there were also large regional differences. Women’s crime patterns in Frankfurt were both similar and different to those of other cities. Informal control within the household played a significant role and influenced the prosecution patterns of authorities. This impacted men and women differently, and created clear distinctions within the system between settled locals and unsettled migrants.

This collection of essays explores the role of women and gender in a broad range of 'radical' religious movements of the post-Reformation.

Modern Germany explores life, society, and history in this comprehensive thematic encyclopedia, spanning such topics as geography, pop culture, the media, and gender. Germany and its capital, Berlin, were the fulcrum of geopolitics in the twentieth century. After the Second World War, Germany was a divided nation. Many German citizens were born and educated and continued to work in eastern Germany (the former German Democratic Republic). This title in the Understanding Modern Nations series seeks to explain contemporary life and traditional culture through thematic encyclopedic entries. Themes in the book cover geography; history; politics and government; economy; religion and thought; social classes and ethnicity; gender, marriage, and sexuality; education; language; etiquette; literature and drama; art and architecture; music and dance; food; leisure and sports; and media and pop culture. Within each theme, short topical entries cover a wide array of key concepts and ideas, from LGBTQ issues in Germany to linguistic dialects to the ever-famous Oktoberfest. Geared specifically toward high school and undergraduate German students, readers interested in history and travel will find this book accessible and engaging.

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.

Animals were everywhere in the early modern period and they impacted, at least in some way, the lives of every kind of early modern person, from the humblest peasant to the greatest prince. Artists made careers based on depicting them. English gentry impoverished themselves spending money on them. Humanists exercised their scholarship writing about them. Pastors saved souls delivering sermons on them. Nobles forged alliances competing with them. Foreigners and indigenes negotiated with one another through trading them. The nexus between animal-human relationships and early modern identity is illuminated in this volume by the latest research of international scholars working on the history of art, literature, and of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Germany, France, England, Spain, and South Africa. Collectively, these essays investigate how animals - horses, dogs, pigs, hogs, fish, cattle, sheep, birds, rhinoceroses, even sea-monsters and other creatures - served people in Europe, England, the Americas, and Africa to defend, contest or transcend the boundaries of early modern identities. Developments in the methodologies employed by scholars to interrogate the past have opened up an intellectual and discursive space for - and a concomitant recognition of - the study of animals as a topic that significantly elucidates past and present histories. Relevant to a considerable array of disciplines, the study of animals also provides a means to surmount traditional disciplinary boundaries through processes of dynamic interchange and cross-fertilization.

Was there such a thing as 'public opinion' before the age of newspapers and party politics? The essays in this collection show that in the Low Countries, at least, there certainly was. In this highly urbanised society, with high literacy rates and good connections, news and public debate could spread fast in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, enabling the growth of powerful opposition movements against the Crown, the creation of the Dutch Republic, and of the distinctive Netherlandish culture of the Golden Age. Contributors include: Hugh Dunthorne, Raingard Esser, Jonathan Israel, Gustaaf Janssens, Henk van Nierop, Guido Marnef, M.E.H. Nicolette Mout, Andrew Pettegree, Judith Pollmann, Paul Regan*, Andrew Sawyer*, Jo Spaans, Andrew Spicer*, and Juliaan Woltjer. (* Supervised by Alastair Duke)

This study examines the life and world of Conrad Bröske (1660-1713), Court Preacher in Offenbach/Mayn. His claim to fame lies in a ten year period between 1694 and 1704 in which this Marburg-trained pastor became a prolific author, polemicist and promoter of chiliastic writings, thanks to a meeting with Thomas Beverley in 1693 and the baptism of a Muslim convert in 1694. Bröske lived a complex existence “between Sardis and Philadelphia,” as a Reformed court preacher and Philadelphian chiliast. His two-sided experience was actually the norm among the Pietists, including so-called radicals. Life between paradigms was the German way of being radical in early modern times due to a lack of religious toleration compared to England and the Netherlands. Bröske’s story belongs to the rise of “Early Evangelicalism” that W.R. Ward has recently discussed.

Their revolutionary marriage was arguably one of the most scandalous and intriguing in history. Yet five centuries later, we still know little about Martin and Katharina Luther's life as husband and wife. Until now. Against all odds, the unlikely union worked, over time blossoming into the most tender of love stories. This unique biography tells the riveting story of two extraordinary people and their extraordinary relationship, offering refreshing insights into Christian history and illuminating the Luthers' profound impact on the institution of marriage, the effects of which still reverberate today. By the time they turn the last page, readers will have a deeper understanding of Luther as a husband and father and will come to love and admire Katharina, a woman who, in spite of her pivotal role, has been largely forgotten by history. Together, this legendary couple experienced joy and grief, triumph and travail. This book brings their private lives and their love story into the spotlight and offers powerful insights into our own twenty-first-century understanding of marriage.

This study seeks to examine a number of themes relating to the roles of the women's court of the central European Habsburgs. These include its role in helping consolidate their holdings in central Europe and the Holy Roman Empire and structure their relations with the rest of Europe.