Archeologies of Confession: Writing the German Reformation, 1517-2017(16 Spektrum: Publications of the German Studies Association)

Modern religious identities are rooted in collective memories that are constantly made and remade across generations. How do these mutations of memory distort our picture of historical change and the ways that historical actors perceive it? Can one give voice to those whom history has forgotten? The essays collected here examine the formation of religious identities during the Reformation in Germany through case studies of remembering and forgetting—instances in which patterns and practices of religious plurality were excised from historical memory. By tracing their ramifications through the centuries, Archeologies of Confession carefully reconstructs the often surprising histories of plurality that have otherwise been lost or obscured.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations Introduction: Reformations Lost and Found Carina L. Johnson PART I: SILENCING PLURALITY Chapter 1. Misremembering Hybridity: The Myth of Goldenstedt David M. Luebke Chapter 2. A Luther for Everyone: Irenicism and Orthodoxy at the German Reformation Anniversaries of 1817 Stan Landry Chapter 3. Challenging Plurality: Wilhelm Horning and the Histories of Alsatian Lutheranism Anthony J. Steinhoff Chapter 4. Confessional Histories of Women and the Reformation from the Eightteenth to the Twenty-First Century Merry Wiesner-Hanks Chapter 5. Catholics as Foreign Bodies: The County of Mark as a Protestant Territory in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Prussian Historiography Ralf-Peter Fuchs PART II: RECOVERING PLURALITY Chapter 6. A Catholic Genealogy of Protestant Reason Richard Schaefer Chapter 7. Fighting or Fostering Plurality? Ernst Salomon Cyprian as a Historian of Lutheranism in the Early Eighteenth Century Alexander Schunka Chapter 8. Heresy and the Protestant Enlightenment: Johann Lorenz von Mosheim’s History of Michael Servetus Michael Printy Chapter 9. The Great Fire of 1711: Reconceptualizing the Jewish Ghetto and Jewish-Christian Relations in Early Modern Frankfurt am Main Dean Phillip Bell PART III: EXCAVATING HISTORIES OF RELIGION Chapter 10. The Early Roots of Confessional Memory. Martin Luther Burns the Papal Bull on 10 December 1520 Natalie Krentz Chapter 11. Early Modern German Historians Confront the Reformation’s First Executions Robert Christman Chapter 12. Prison Tales: The Miraculous Escape of Stephen Agricola and the Creation of Lutheran Heroes during the Sixteenth Century Marjorie E. Plummer Chapter 13. Invented Memories: The ‘Convent of Wesel’ and the Origins of German and Dutch Calvinism Jesse Spohnholz PART IV: REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING Chapter 14. ‘Our Misfortune’: National Unity versus Religious Plurality in the Making of Modern Germany Thomas A. Brady, Jr. Index

About the Author :
Carina L. Johnson is Professor of History at Pitzer College and serves as extended faculty at Claremont Graduate University. She specializes in the cultural history of the sixteenth-century Habsburg Empire, particularly in relation to the extra-European world. Her publications include Cultural Hierarchy in Sixteenth-Century Europe: The Ottomans and Mexicans (2011).

Review :
“Among the many edited volumes that were published 2017 on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of the Reformation this volume stands out because of the variety of its source materials on the one hand and its clear thematic structure on the other. Accordingly, this volume makes an important contribution to the historical reappraisal of the Reformation and maps out paths of future research.” • Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung “…a valuable collection through and through.” • Historische Zeitschrift “As a group, the essays take up a variety of our predecessors and are carefully researched and argued.  There is not a weak link among them.” • German History “This is a wide-ranging collection which raises some challenging questions for historians about the reliability of earlier scholarship. Two key issues emerge: the danger of assuming a confessional clarity and separation in the early years of the Reformation (or even later) which did not actually come into being until later, and the need to check even accepted narratives of identity formation against archival material. The points are well made and the examples adduced are convincing evidence for this double need.” • The English Historical Review “This impressive collection of essays deals effectively with the question of confessional histories, offering a convincing evaluation of how the events of the Reformation were regarded and interpreted by contemporaries as well as later generations.” • Andrew Spicer, Oxford Brookes University “Archeologies of Confession comprises a fascinating series of original and stimulating essays. It will be invaluable for scholars of the Reformation and of German religious history more broadly.” • Joachim Whaley, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge