Episode 11: The Great Disruption – Part II

In episode 11 we continue to survey the wreckage after hurricane Luther was unleashed on Europe with the Reformation. When the Reformation mutated and spread across the continent a burning question arose: Can people of different faiths live together in the same state? Should social peace be based on tolerance or intolerance? We look into questions such as

  • How did other Protestant reformers like Calvin and Zwingli react to religious dissent?
  • In what manner did English and continental censorship laws differ?
  • How did the Catholic Church react to the Reformation?
  • Which states were the first state to formalize religious tolerance?
  • How did the scientific and philosophical ideas of Galileo and Giordano Bruno conflict with the religious monopoly on truth and what where the repercussions?

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Literature: Episode 11

  • Balázs, M., Gellérd, J. & Cooper, T. (2013): “Tolerant Country – Misunderstood Laws. Interpreting Sixteenth-Century Transylvanian Legislation Concerning Religion”. The Hungarian Historical Review 2(1), pp. 85-108.
  • Bejan, T. (2009). Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration. Harvard University Press. Kindle Edition.
  • Benedict, P. (1997): “Un roi, une loi, deux fois: parameters for the history of Catholic-Reformed co-existence in France, 1555-1685” in: Grell, O.P. and Scribner, B. (eds.): Tolerance and intolerance in the European Reformation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
  • Caravale, G. (2017): ”Jacobus Acontius: From Trent to Satan’s Stratagems (1565)” in: Censorship and Heresy in Revolutionary England and Counter-Reformation Rome.
  • Castellio, S. (1553): Concerning Heretics : Whether they are to be persecuted and how they are to be treated : A collection of opinions of learned men both ancient and modern. Accessible at https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=acls;cc=acls;view=toc;idno=heb05981.0001.001.
  • Castellione, S. (1960): Fede, dubbio e· tolleranza, pagine scelte e tradotte. Radetti, G. (ed.), Florence 1960, 61; Prosperi, ‘Il grano e la zizzania’, 74.
  • Clegg, C.S. (2005): “Censorship and the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission in England to 1640” in: Journal of Modern European 3(1), Censorship in Early Modern Europe, pp. 50-80. Verlag C.H.Beck Stable.
  • Clodfelter, M. (2017). Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures. McFarland.
  • Collinson, P. (2003): The Reformation. London, UK: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
  • Davies, N. (1997): Europe : A History. London, UK: Pimlico.
  • Grell, O.P. and Scribner, B. (eds.) (1996): Tolerance and intolerance in the European Reformation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
  • Grendler, P.F. (1988): “Printing and censorship” in Schmitt, C.B. (ed.): The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
  • Hahn, S.W. & Wiker, B. (2013): Politicizing the Bible : The Roots of Historical Criticism and the Secularization of Scripture 1300-1700. Herder & Herder Books.
  • Helm, J. (2015): Poetry and Censorship in the Counter-Reformation. Leiden & Boston: Brill.
  • Ingegno, A. (1988): “The New Philosophy of Nature” in: Schmitt, C.B. (ed.): The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
  • Koch, C.H. (2007): Den Europæiske Filosofis Historie (Danish). Viborg, DK: Nyt Nordisk Forlag Arnold Busck.
  • Levy, L. (1993): Blasphemy : Verbal Offense Against the Sacred, From Moses to Salman Rushdie. The University of North Carolina Press.
  • Loades, D.M. (1964): “The Press under the Early Tudors: A Study in Censorship and Sedition” in: Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 4(1) pp. 29-50.
  • Loades, D.M. (1974): “The Theory and Practice of Censorship in Sixteenth-Century England” in: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 24. pp. 141–157.
  • MacCulloch, D. (2004): Reformation : Europe’s House Divided 1490-1700. New York, NY: Viking Penguin Penguin.
  • MacCulloch, D. (2010): Christianity : The First Three Thousand Years. New York, NY: Viking Penguin.
  • Martinez, A. (2016): “Giordano Bruno and heresy of many worlds” in: Annals of Science 73(4), pp. 345-374.
  • Martinez, A. (2018): Burned Alive : Bruno, Galileo and the Inquisition. Reaktion Books.
  • Marshal, P. (2009): The Reformation : A Very Short Introduction. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
  • Murphy, C. (2012): God’s Jury : The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
  • Müller, M.G. (1997) “Protestant confessionalisation in the towns of Royal Prussia and the practice of religious toleration in Poland-Lithuania” in Grell, O.P. and Scribner, B. (eds.): Tolerance and intolerance in the European Reformation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
  • Parker, G. (1977) The Dutch Revolt. Cornell University Press.
  • Pettegree, A. (1997): “The politics of toleration in the Free Netherlands, 1572–1620” in Grell, O.P. and Scribner, B. (eds.): Tolerance and intolerance in the European Reformation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
  • Schmitt, C.B. (ed.) (1988): The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
  • Shuger, D. (2006): Censorship and Cultural Sensibility: The Regulation of Language in Tudor-Stuart England. University of Pennsylvania Press.
  • Skinner, Q. (1978): The Foundation of Modern Political Thought. Cambridge University Press.
  • Steiman, L. (1997): Paths to Genocide: Antisemitism in Western History. Palgrave Schol, Print UK.
  • Stone, D.Z. (2014): The Polish-Lithuanian State, 1386-1795. University of Washington Press.
  • Woltjer, J. (2007): “Public Opinion and the Persecution of Heretics in the Netherlands, 1550-59” in Pollman et al. (eds.): Public Opinion and Changing Identities in the Early Modern Netherlands.
  • Zweig, S. (1979): Erasmus : The Right to Heresy (transl. by Eden and Cedar Paul). London, UK: Souvenir Press.

Online literature and articles