K. Luria examines the Sacred Boundaries (xxvii–xxxxi) of early modern France, in an effort to correct extremes of historiography. Some have argued that sacred boundaries between religious groups led to violence; other historians have pointed to continuous interaction between Catholics and Protestants. Both are right. Symbolic boundaries separated Catholic and Protestant, but boundaries were also sites for interaction. Good fences separate neighbors, but also provide a place for neighbors to have conversations. Luria writes examines three forms of boundary arrangement.... Read more

A 1989 article by Wolfgang Reinhard on the relationships among the Reformation, Counter-Reformation, and early modern state-building is an excellent brief summary of the relationship between Reformation and post-Reformation “confessionalization” and the formation of modern states and national identities. The Reformers’ turn to the state was in the first instance a matter of necessity. They needed to educate and discipline people in newly formed churches and they didn’t have the resources for it: “The new churches . . . had... Read more

Scott Hendrix argues that the Reformation was united by an agenda of Christianization. By “Christianization,” he means, first, the effort “to reform the rituals of late-medieval piety in conformity with sound doctrine” and, second, the goal “to create more sincere and intentional believers by transforming people’s minds and hearts” (Recultivating the Vineyard, 148). All branches of the Reformation, including the Catholic, aimed at this same twin goal, though the means and the definitions of “sound doctrine” and sincere belief differed.... Read more