Germany and the Holy Roman Empire offers a striking new interpretation of a crucial era in German and European history, from the great reforms of 1495-1500 to the dissolution of the Reich in 1806. Over two volumes, Joachim Whaley rejects the notion that this was a long period of decline, and shows instead how imperial institutions developed in response to the crises of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, notably the Reformation and Thirty Years War. The impact of international developments on the Reich is also examined. The first volume begins with an account of the reforms of the reign of Maximilian I and concludes with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. It offers a new interpretation of the Reformation, the Peasants' War, the Schmalkaldic War and the Peace of Augsburg, and of the post-Reformation development of Protestantism and Catholicism. The German policy successfully resisted the ambitions of Charles V and the repeated onslaughtsof both the Ottomans and the French, and it remained stable in the face of the French religious wars and the Dutch Revolt. The volume concludes with an analysis of the Thirty Years War as an essentially German constitutional conflict, triggered by the problems of the Habsburg dynasty and prolonged by the interventions of foreign powers. The Peace of Westphalia, which ended the conflict, both reflected the development of the German polity since the late fifteenth century and created teh framework for its development over the next hundred and fifty years.

This book combines philosophical, intellectual-historical and political-theoretical methodologies to provide a new synoptic reading of the history of German political philosophy. Incorporating chapters on the political ideas of Luther and Zwingli, on the politics of the early Enlightenment, on Idealism, on Historicism and Lukács, on early Twentieth-Century political theology, on the Frankfurt School, and on Habermas and Luhmann, the book sets out both a broad and a detailed discussion of German political reflection from the Reformation to the present. In doing so, it explains how the development of German political philosophy is marked by a continual concern with certain unresolved and recurrent problems. It claims that all the major positions address questions relating to the origin of law, that all seek to account for the relation between legal validity and metaphysical and theological superstructures, and that all are centred on the attempt to conceptualise and reconstruct the character of the legal subject.

One Lord, One Faith is a plea and plan to re-envision the Church as a broad, cross-denominational community with a shared faith in the Christ of the Gospel. It both affirms the place and inevitability of individual denominational traditions, and also provides a grid from which to distinguish those denominational traditions from the core of historical orthodoxy shared by the entire Christian community. The book seeks to distinguish denominationalism from sectarianism, and identifies sectarianism as the true enemy of historic catholicity.

Humanists and Reformers portrays in a single, expansive volume two great traditions in human history: the Italian Renaissance and the age of the Reformation. / Bard Thompson provides a fascinating survey of these important historical periods under pressure of their own cultural, social, and spiritual experiences, exploring the bonds that held Humanists and Reformers together and the estrangements that drove them apart. / Writing for students and general readers, Thompson offers a comprehensive account of all the major figures of the Renaissance and the Reformation, probing their thoughts, aspirations, and differences. / Accentuating the text are illustrations that provide a stunning panorama of the personalities, art, and architecture of these key historical periods.

First Published in 1986. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Over the last twenty years, historians have become increasingly interested in the role of non-state organizations in the development of welfare services. This study is particularly focused on the role of friendly societies and other insurance bodies in the provision of aid for the elderly and the sick.

A new account of the intellectual debates that created the German notion of the 'modern state' under the Thirty Years War.

This book examines the impact of the Reformation on the ideal and practice of marriage in sixteenth-century Germany.

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.