HST213: The European Reformation
20 credits (semester 2)
Module Leader:
| Pre-requisites |
Pass in at least two of the Level One modules offered by the Department of History.
| Module Summary |
This module aims to provide a good understanding of the first major and permanent movement of religious dissent in Christian Europe. It concentrates on the protestant reformation of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth-centuries. Students are encouraged to use primary printed materials, with particular stress being laid upon encouraging a responsiveness to visual materials (engravings and wood-cuts from the reformation). The module bibliography is fully computerized. A comprehensive introduction to the techniques of searching it by key words is provided with the aim of stimulating data-handling awareness.
| Teaching |
The module proceeds by an interlocking and complementary programme of lecture presentations and seminars. The lectures aim to provide students with a good grasp of the complex background to the Reformation. They then aim to give a historical background to the issues raised by the protestant reformers. At the same time, the programme of seminars aims to encourage students to work in small-groups around a series of subjects dealing with the processes of Reformation. During the semester, students are required to take part in a group-based class presentation.
| Lectures | Seminars | |
| 1 | The Reformation and the late medieval Christian Church | The Lutheran Reformation in Germany |
| 2 | Reformation and Rejection | The 'Luther Affair' |
| 3 | The Religions of the People | Press and Pulpit during the 'Lutheran Explosion' |
| 4 | The Church and its Responsibilities | The Civic Reformation |
| 5 | The Economy of Salvation | The 'Fellow-Travellers' of Reformation |
| 6 | The Reformation Message | Reformation Issues |
| 7 | Protesters for Paradise | Image and Sound |
| 8 | A New Economy of Salvation | The Saints and Martyrs of the New Faith |
| 9 | Scripture and Church: validating change | Religion and Regime |
| 10 | Taking Things Literally: The Sectarian Reformation | What happened at Münster? |
| 11 | Confessionalisation of the Reformation: Success and Failure | Godly Rebellion: resisting the older order |
| 12 | The Reformation and Social Discipline | The Genevan Experiment: refashioning the church |
| 13 | Enforcing the Moral Reformation | Success and Failure in the German Reformation |
| 14 | Topic Revision | Failure and Endurance in the French Reformation |
| Assessment |
The word limit for essays includes footnotes, but excludes the bibliography.
| Selected Reading |
- D. MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe's House Divided, 1490-1700 (London, 2004)
- E. Cameron, The European Reformation, (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991) (required)
- M. Greengrass, The Longman Companion to the European Reformation, c. 1500-1618, (London: Longman, 1998)
- R. W. Scribner and C. Scott Dixon, German Reformation, 2nd ed. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003)
- M. Mullett, John Calvin, (Hutchinson, 1990)
- M. Mullett, Martin Luther, (Hutchinson, 1990)
- A. Pettegree (ed.) The Early Reformation in National Context, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994)
- R. W. Scribner et al.(ed.) The Reformation in National Context, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994)
| Intended Learning Outcomes |
Students completing this module will have developed:
- A broad understanding of significant issues in a substantial period of European history, enabling the identification of major historical debates.
- Their ability to present material in seminars, exchanging views with both the tutor and other students.
- Their ability to research particular historical issues and debates in a more detailed form for essay writing, coming to independent conclusions of the basis of the literature.
- Their ability to synthesise different interpretations and argue effectively from the evidence, drawing on the methodology of both history and political theory.
- Their ability to analyse and contextualise translated primary source material, including visual (woodcut and engravings) evidence, and interpret it to the group.
- Their ability to navigate, identify, absorb and react to a substantial amount of material related to the subject in on-line formats.