This anthology provides a broad overview of the social history of preaching throughout Western and Central Europe, with sections devoted to genre, specific countries, and commentary on the appeal of the Reformation messages.

Celebrating the fortieth anniversary of this seminal book, this new edition includes an illuminating foreword by Carlos Eire and Ronald K. Rittges The seeds of the swift and sweeping religious movement that reshaped European thought in the 1500s were sown in the late Middle Ages. In this book, Steven Ozment traces the growth and dissemination of dissenting intellectual trends through three centuries to their explosive burgeoning in the Reformations—both Protestant and Catholic—of the sixteenth century. He elucidates with great clarity the complex philosophical and theological issues that inspired antagonistic schools, traditions, and movements from Aquinas to Calvin. This masterly synthesis of the intellectual and religious history of the period illuminates the impact of late medieval ideas on early modern society. With a new foreword by Carlos Eire and Ronald K. Rittgers, this modern classic is ripe for rediscovery by a new generation of students and scholars.

Preliminary Material /Thomas A. Brady , Heiko A. Oberman and James D. Tracy -- Ideas of Reformatio and Renovatio from the Middle Ages to the Reformation /Gerald Strauss -- Visions of Order in the Canonists and Civilians /Constantin Fasolt -- Voices of Reform from Hus to Erasmus /Erika Rummel -- The Humanist Movement /Ronald G. Witt -- Luther's Reformation /Martin Brecht -- The Popular Reformation /Peter Blickle -- The Urban Reformation in the Holy Roman Empire /Berndt Hamm -- International Calvinism /Robert M. Kingdon -- The Radical Reformation /James M. Stayer -- The New Religious Orders, 1517-1648 /S.J. John Patrick Donnelly -- Catholic Reformation, Counterreformation and Papal Reform in the Sixteenth Century /Elisabeth G. Gleason -- Settlements: The Holy Roman Empire /Thomas A. Brady -- Settlements: The Netherlands /J.J. Woltjer and M.E.H.N. Mout -- Settlements: France /Philip Benedict -- Settlements: The British Isles /W. Ian P. Hazlett -- Settlements: Spain's National Catholicism /Christian Hermann -- Scandinavia, 1397-1560 /Michael F. Metcalf -- Reformation and Counterreformation in East Central Europe /Winfried Eberhard -- New Patterns of Christian Life /Hans-Christoph Rublack -- The Great Witch-Hunt /Brian P. Levack -- Confessional Europe /Heinz Schilling -- The Coinages of Renaissance Europe, circa 1500 /Thomas A. Brady , Heiko A. Oberman and James D. Tracy -- European Rulers, 1400-1650 /Thomas A. Brady , Heiko A. Oberman and James D. Tracy -- Index of Persons /Thomas A. Brady , Heiko A. Oberman and James D. Tracy -- Index of Places /Thomas A. Brady , Heiko A. Oberman and James D. Tracy -- Religions of Europe circa 1580 /Thomas A. Brady , Heiko A. Oberman and James D. Tracy.

A much-needed addition to the emerging literature on the formative power of religious practices, Educating People of Faith creates a vivid portrait of the lived practices that shaped the faith of Jews and Christians in synagogues and churches from antiquity up to the seventeenth century. This significant book is the work of Jewish, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant scholars who wished to discover and describe how Jews and Christians through history have been formed in religious ways of thinking and acting. Rather than focusing solely on either intellectual or social life, the authors all use the concept of "practices" as they attend to the embodied, contextual character of religious formation. Their studies of religious figures, community life, and traditional practices such as preaching, sacraments, and catechesis are colorful, detailed, and revealing. The authors are also careful to cover the nature of religious education across all social levels, from the textual formation of highly literate rabbis and monks engaged in Scripture study to the local formation of illiterate medieval Christians for whom the veneration of saints' shrines, street performances of religious dramas, and public preaching by wandering preachers were profoundly formative. Educating People of Faith will benefit scholars and teachers desiring a fuller perspective on how lived practices have historically formed people in religious faith. It will also be useful to practical theologians and pastors who wish to make the resources of the past available to practitioners in the present.

This anthology of largely unknown medieval and early modern Jewish sermons provides an introduction to a neglected area of Jewish creativity, one that gives insights into the central intellectual issues, spiritual movements, and communal centers during six critical centuries of Jewish experience. The sermons, presented here in their entirety, have been translated, annotated, and introduced by Marc Saperstein, who also provides a discussion of the historical background of the sermons, their context, and their relationship to Hebrew literature. "A scholarly masterpiece and an intellectual tour de force that must be read by anybody with a serious interest in Jewish studies or the art of preaching."--Howard Adelman, Shofar "This splendid and interesting collection, a description true of all the Yale Judaica, is richly documented."--Thomas L. Shaffer, Christian Legal Society Quarterly "A work of profound scholarship, it is also a pleasure to read."--Choice "Jewish Preaching offers the reader an exceptional overview of many different and fascinating aspects of Jewish history, culture and theology."--Yaakov Ort, Wellsprings "Marc Saperstein's careful and detailed translations and annotations, and his cogent introductory essay, are examples of scholarship at its highest level, and should serve to secure the place of this body of literature in the field of Jewish studies."--Present Tense/Joel H. Caviour Literary Award, 1990 "A goundbreaking work of exquisite scholarship that truly points the way for others to follow."--David E. Fass, American Rabbi Winner of the 1990 National Jewish Book Award in the cateogry of Jewish Thought given by the Jewish Book Council

Weathering the Reformation explores the role of the Little Ice Age in early modern Christian culture and considers climate as a contributing factor in the Protestant Reform. The book focuses on religious narratives from Strasbourg between 1509 and 1541, pivotal years during which the European cultural concept of nature splintered along confessional differences. Together with case studies from antagonistic religious communities, Linnéa Rowlatt draws on annual weather reports for a period during which the climate became less hospitable to human endeavours. Social uunrest and the cultural upheaval of Reform are examined in relation to deteriorating climactic conditions characteristic of the Spörer Minimum. This book will be of particular interest to scholars of religious history and climate history.

The topic of certitude is much debated today. On one side, commentators such as Charles Krauthammer urge us to achieve "moral clarity." On the other, those like George Will contend that the greatest present threat to civilization is an excess of certitude. To address this uncomfortable debate, Susan Schreiner turns to the intellectuals of early modern Europe, a period when thought was still fluid and had not yet been reified into the form of rationality demanded by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.Schreiner argues that Europe in the sixteenth century was preoccupied with concerns similar to ours; both the desire for certainty -- especially religious certainty -- and warnings against certainty permeated the earlier era. Digging beneath overt theological and philosophical problems, she tackles the underlying fears of the period as she addresses questions of salvation, authority, the rise of skepticism, the outbreak of religious violence, the discernment of spirits, and the ambiguous relationship between appearance and reality.In her examination of the history of theological polemics and debates (as well as other genres), Schreiner sheds light on the repeated evaluation of certainty and the recurring fear of deception. Among the texts she draws on are Montaigne's Essays, the mystical writings of Teresa of Avila, the works of Reformation fathers William of Occam, Luther, Thomas Muntzer, and Thomas More; and the dramas of Shakespeare. The result is not a book about theology, but rather about the way in which the concern with certitude determined the theology, polemics and literature of an age.

Why did the Reformation take root in some places and not others? Although many factors were involved, the varying character of penitential preaching across Europe in the decades prior to the Reformation was an especially important contributor to the subsequent receptivity of evangelical ideas. In this book, several collections of model sermons are studied to provide an overview of late medieval teaching on penitence. What emerges is a pattern of differing emphases in different geographical locations, with the characteristic emphases of the penitential message in each region suggesting how such teaching prepared the ground for both the appeal and the reputation of Luther's message. People heard and interpreted the new theology using the late medieval penitential understandings and expectations they had been taught. The variety of teaching found in the Church left different regions vulnerable or resistant to evangelical critiques and alternatives. Despite current academic claims that the establishment of the Reformation cannot have resulted from lay religious understanding, this study offers evidence that theological ideas did reach beyond religious elites to promote a degree of popular support for the Reformation.