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1. Concept and state of research 1.1. Basics, epistemological interests, and boundariesThe term  confessionalization denotes a concept used for interpreting the history of the state, politics, and society (Society [community]) at the beginning of the early modern period. Building on the works of the historians Wolfgang Reinhard [30]; [31] and especially Heinz Schilling [36]; [37], since the 1980s it has been developed into a leading interpretive model for the investigation of European history. The traditional  epochal structure (Epoch) of an e…

1. Definition and historyThe term  confessionalism is commonly treated as roughly synonymous with confessionalization (“Age of Confessionalism” for the Confessional Age or the Era of Confessionalization), usually with negative connotations; it serves to denote modes of behavior and attitudes that champion confessional positions, claiming their contemporary validity to a degree felt to be improper, anachronistic, or ecumenically unacceptable. The German term  Konfessionalismus was first used around 1830 as a pejorative battle cry of liberal theologians …

Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560) was the most significant German reformer after Martin Luther. Melanchthon was born in Bretten, Palatinate, as the son of the armorer George Schwarzerdt. After attending the distinguished Pforzheim Latin School, he matriculated in Heidelberg in 1509 at the early age of 12. (That year also his surname was changed from Schwarzerdt to the Greek equivalent, Melanchthon [black earth].) He received his bachelor of arts in 1511 and from 1512 studied in Tübingen, where he …

Born July 10, 1509, at Noyon in northern France, John Calvin became one of the most influential of the second generation of Reformers. His work was of significance throughout Europe and beyond. His theological development, confessional importance, ecclesiastical consolidation, and international training of reformers were lasting impulses throughout his life and for ages to come. The son of a notary in the bishop’s secretarial service who was excommunicated for financial conflicts with the church in 1528, Calvin was at first destined for a career in …

Modern research has rightly come to see in Martin Bucer (1491–1551) one of the main leaders of the Reformation. Educated at the famous Schlettstadt grammar school, he became the reformer of the imperial city of Strasbourg. Having first made an intensive, Thomistically oriented study of Scholastic theology, he then came under the lasting influence of the humanism of D. Erasmus (1469?-1536). His crucial experience, however, was his encounter with M. Luther (1483–1546) at the Heidelberg Disputation…

Ulrich (Huldrych, Huldreich) Zwingli (1484–1531), a Zurich reformer, was perhaps the most important figure in German Switzerland and southwest Germany for the initial phase of the early Reformation. His theology, distinctively formed above all in the theological argument with Martin Luther and related particularly to the urban experience, represents a specific interpretation of the Reformation message and forms an essential theological-historical element of the development of the Reformed confession, which had been evolving since the late 1520s. Zwingli was born on Janua…

Little is known about the early life of the radical reformer and theologian Thomas Müntzer (ca. 1489–1525), who was born in Stolberg, Thuringia. The first reliable witness to his life is his 1506 matriculation entry at the University of Leipzig. He was definitely enrolled in the University of Frankfurt an der Oder in 1512, from which he probably graduated. After ordination in the Halberstadt Diocese, he was active as a minister in Brunswick, though he also had a sinecure in Aschersleben. He apparently studied…

1. Begriff und BegriffsgeschichteIn seiner umgangssprachlichen Verwendung – auch im angloamerikan. Sprachraum ( confessionalism) – häufig etwa gleichbedeutend mit Konfessionalisierung verwendet (»Zeitalter des K.« für Konfessionelles Zeitalter oder Epoche der Konfessionalisierung), ist der Begriff K. zumeist negativ konnotiert; er dient der Bezeichnung von Verhaltensweisen und Haltungen, die in einem als ungebührlich, unzeitgemäß oder ökumenisch inakzeptabel empfundenen Maße konfessionelle Standpunkte mit dem Ansp…

1. Konzept und Forschungsstand 1.1. Grundlagen, Erkenntnisinteressen und AbgrenzungenDer Begriff der K. bezeichnet ein Interpretationskonzept der frühnzl. Staats-, Politik- und Gesellschafts-Geschichte, das, ausgehend von den Arbeiten der Historiker Wolfgang Reinhard [30]; [31] und v. a. Heinz Schilling [36]; [37], seit den 1980er Jahren zu einem maßgeblichen Deutungsmodell für die Erforschung der europ. Geschichte weiterentwickelt worden ist. Das traditionelle Epochen-Gefüge einer an die vornehmlich modernisierungstheoretisch gedeutete Reformation anschließ…

[German Version] 1. Johann, the Elder (Aug 18, 1587, Rostock – May 2, 1648, Doberan), son of a Rostock tawer and founder of a Mecklenburg scholarly dynasty whose influence lasted into the second half of the 18th century. After schooling in Rostock (Nathan Chytraeus; P. Tarnow) and Berlin, he began his studies in 1603 in Frankfurt an der Oder but returned to Rostock in 1604 (M.A. 1613). In 1615 he took over one of the municipal chairs of theology at the University of Rostock; in 1616 he was also app…

[German Version] (Guy de Brès/de Bray; 1522, Bergen/Mons – May 31, 1567, Valenciennes) was the definitive reformer of the southern Low Countries. Under unknown circumstances, the learned glass painter was won to the Reformation cause in the 1540s. In 1548 he fled into exile in London for religious reasons; he returned in 1552 to preach in Rijssel/Lille. He use…

[German Version] (1531/1532, Cassel near Hazebrouck, Flanders (now France) – Mar 17, 1588, Elbląg [Elbing], Poland) joined the Reformation as a young Carmelite monk (Ypres) and fled to England in 1550. In 1555, he became the leader of the Dutch exile community in Frankfurt am Main. After the eucharistic controversy between Calvin and J. Westphal, Dathenus and some 60 families took refuge in the monastery of ¶ Frankenthal. He moved to the Netherlands in 1566, but fled once again to the Electoral Palatinate (Kurpfalz) in 1567 …

[German Version] is the name that was once given to those persons who originated from or were active in the areas dominated by the Lutheran confession and who, according to the judgment of confessionally Lutheran theologians of the late 16th century, advocated doctrinal views or practical approaches that were intented to undermine the status of the Lutheran denomination by secretly bringing it closer to Reformed or Calvinist positions. In scholarly publications, …

[German Version] (Amesius, Guilelmus; 1576, Ipswich, Suffolk – 1633, Rotterdam), the most important single theological figure for the early connection of English Puritanism and the Dutch “Nadere Reformatie”. In Cambridge Ames became familiar, through W. Perkins, with deeply puritanical appropriation of the theology of Calvin. After a …

[German Version] Founded by Duke Albert of Prussia (the elder) on Oct 24, 1541 and opened on Aug 17, 1544, with four faculties and eleven chairs, the University of Königsberg followed Marburg (1527) as the second newly founded university in the century of the Reformation. As the most easterly German Protestant university before the founding of Dorpat (1632; Tartu), Königsberg fulfilled a central cultural mediating function for Poland and the Baltics. Experts from the University of Königsberg were …

[German Version] (Dec 9, 1845, Wassertrüdingen, – Apr 7, 1918, Leipzig), the most important Protestant church historian of Wilhelmine Germany besides A. v. Harnack, studied Protestant theology in Erlangen and Berlin. He experienced formative impulses of Erlangen Lutheranism from J.C. von Hofmann and Gustav Leopold Plitt, and, in the spirit of historicism, from L. v. Ranke. Having passed the qualifying exam for theology in Bavaria (1868), Hauck entered into church service. On the basis of a monogra…

[German Version] (Mar 3, 1589, Heusden, Holland –Nov 1, 1676, Utrecht). Born to a noble family impoverished by war, Voetius began to study theology at Leiden in 1604; as a student of F. Gomarus, he was deeply involved in the debates between the Remonstrants (Arminians) and Contraremonstrants. In 1611 he was appointed pastor in Vlijmen, in 1617 in Heusden, his home town, and in 1629 in ’s-Hertogenbosch. In 1618/1619 he took part in the Synod of Dort, agreeing with the Contraremonstrants’ doctrine o…

[German Version] (May 28, 1674, Gevezin near New Brandenburg – May 2, 1732, Greifswald). After studying in Rostock, Copenhagen, and Leipzig, Krakevitz was appointed professor of Near Eastern languages and professor of catechetics in Rostock in 1699. From 1713 onward, as professor of theology, councilor of the consistory, and superintendent of ¶ the Mecklenburg district, Krakevitz became one of the most important representatives of late Rostock orthodoxy (II, 2) together with J. Fecht, J. Quistorp, and Zacharias Grapius (1671–1713). Appointed gene…

[German Version] The so-called Colloquium Charitativum, which convened at the invitation of the Polish king Wladyslav IV (1632–1648) and was opened on Aug 28, 1645 by the Polish chancellor Georg of Teschen in the town hall of the Royal Prussian city of Thorn, was officially meant to promote the interconfessional dialogue between the (also) politically opposed confessional parties in the Kingdom of Poland; in actual fact, however, the conference was part of a Counter-Reformation policy of recatholi…

[German Version] I. Introduction Already referred to as the “Thirty Years War” by contemporary witnesses, the military conflicts subsumed under this name were waged between 1618 and 1648 in Central Europe and especially on the territory of the Holy Roman Empire. They represent a historically new phenomenon on the threshold to European modern times, notably in terms of the length and geographical scope of the military engagements, of the magnitude of material expenditures, of technological and strate…