Theater, Culture, and Community in Reformation Bern

Theater, Culture, and Community in Reformation Bern
Author: Glenn Ehrstine
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2002
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9789004123533

This study examines the sociocultural context of Bern's ten Reformation plays, authored by Niklaus Manuel and Hans von Rute, and argues that Protestant theater was instrumental in creating cultural community among an urban populace estranged from Catholic tradition.

The Empire of the Cities

The Empire of the Cities
Author: Aurelio Espinosa
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2009
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004171363

This study of the Spanish monarchy, bureaucracy and representative government under Charles V before and after the "comunero" revolt (1520-1521) demonstrates how the emperor and Castilian republics institutionalized management procedures that promoted accountability, advanced a meritocracy, and facilitated expansionism and domestic stability.

Politics and Reformations

Politics and Reformations
Author: Christopher Ocker
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 501
Release: 2007
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004161724

These twenty-three essays explore the historiographies of the Reformation from the fifteenth century to the present and study the history of religion from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, especially in Germany but also in Switzerland, the Netherlands, and colonial Mexico.

Wandering Women and Holy Matrons

Wandering Women and Holy Matrons
Author: Leigh Ann Craig
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2009
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004174265

This book explores womena (TM)s experiences of pilgrimage in Latin Christendom between 1300 and 1500 C.E. Later medieval authors harbored grave doubts about womena (TM)s mobility; literary images of mobile women commonly accused them of lust, pride, greed, and deceit. Yet real women commonly engaged in pilgrimage in a variety of forms, both physical and spiritual, voluntary and compulsory, and to locations nearby and distant. Acting within both practical and social constraints, such women helped to construct more positive interpretations of their desire to travel and of their experiences as pilgrims. Regardless of how their travel was interpreted, those women who succeeded in becoming pilgrims offer us a rare glimpse of ordinary women taking on extraordinary religious and social authority.

Between Sardis and Philadelphia: The Life and World of Pietist Court Preacher Conrad Bröske

Between Sardis and Philadelphia: The Life and World of Pietist Court Preacher Conrad Bröske
Author: Douglas Shantz
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2008-09-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 9047441907

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.

Textual Healing

Textual Healing
Author: Elizabeth Lane Furdell
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2005
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004146636

This collection of twelve essays explores various aspects in the development of medicine from the Middle Ages to 1700 with a particular emphasis on revisiting original texts for new insights in the culture of healing.

Christian Humanism

Christian Humanism
Author: A. Alasdair A. MacDonald
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 534
Release: 2009
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004176314

It is a misconception that Christianity and Humanism are in any way in conflict with each other. The present book shows that through many centuries, and especially in the Renaissance, the two stood in a relation that was mutually complementary. The contributions in this volume treat aspects and manifestations of this cultural symbiosis, and they throw new light on authors and texts both more and less familiar. The subject-areas discussed include: religion, history, philosophy, literature and education. The age of Renaissance and Reformation is the central focus, but earlier and later periods are also featured. The contributions comprise a Festschrift for Professor Arjo Vanderjagt, whose work deals centrally with both Christianity and Humanism. Contributors are Fokke Akkerman, Istv n P. Bejczy, Alexander Broadie, Chris-toph Burger, Marcia L. Colish, Albrecht Diem, Stephen Gersh, Berndt Hamm, Volker Honemann, Adrie van der Laan, Alasdair A. MacDonald, Peter Mack, Zweder von Martels, Matthieu van der Meer, Hans Mooij, Simone Mooij-Valk, Just Niemeijer, John North, Willemien Otten, Jan Papy, Detlev P tzold, Rob Pauls, Marc van der Poel, Burcht Pranger, Peter Raedts, Han van Ruler, Rudolf Suntrup, Jan R. Veenstra, and Ronald Witt.

Preachers by Night: The Waldensian Barbes (15th-16th Centuries)

Preachers by Night: The Waldensian Barbes (15th-16th Centuries)
Author: Gabriel Audisio
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 283
Release: 2007
Genre: History
ISBN: 900415454X

This work traces the history of the “barbes”, the Waldensian preachers whose itinerant mision maintained the fervent but clandestine faith of a dissent which from Lyons extended across much of Europe, enduring despite the Inquisition, from the 12th-16th century.

The Serpent and the Rose: The Immaculate Conception and Hispanic Poetry in the Late Medieval Period

The Serpent and the Rose: The Immaculate Conception and Hispanic Poetry in the Late Medieval Period
Author: Lesley K. Twomey
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2008-06-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 9047433203

The Serpent and the Rose examines the theological and liturgical context for the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in the Middle Ages, from primary sources in Iberian archives. Its main focus is a study of Marian poetry from Alfonso the Wise and Gonzalo de Berceo through to the poetry collections of the late fifteenth century, showing how poets took themes from the Bible and apocryphal literature, combining them to defend and praise Mary’s conception without sin. Individual chapters assess how they depicted Mary’s prefiguration in the Old Testament by the Woman who defeated the serpent, the young bride of the Song of Songs, or the semi-deity, Wisdom, how they portray her as the mystic rose and as the new Eve.