Course aims:

Interdisciplinary study of religious phenomenon in Early Modern and Modern era (in the light of ecclesiastical history, sociology and cultural sociology).
The course proposes the deepening of the phenomena specific to the beginning of the early modernity in Europe (XVI-XVIII centuries), with reference to the ecclesiastical, spiritual and ideological issue, and to the relationship between identity and diversity in a specific multicultural context.
From a methodological point of view, they will be approached aspects related to the process of confession formation and confessionalization, the role of the state and its modernizing impact on society.

Course Entry Requirements:

N/A

Course contents:

1. Methodology. Debates about concepts of confession, confessionalism, confessionalisation, confessional propaganda, acculturation, social and confessional discipline. 2. Reformation and Confessionalism in Europe. The propagation of Protestant Reformation, the dogma, the shaping of the clergy and the Church. 3. Reformation and Confessionalism in Europe. The propagation of Catholic Reformation, the dogma, the shaping of the clergy and the Church. 4. Confessionalization and modern state formation process. Prusia, Habsburg lands and Bavaria. The small principalities. 5. Confessionalization and modern state formation process. The Archbishopric of Salzburg and the cities. 6. The Confessional Propaganda and the Acculturation. Means of propagation: universities, monasteries, the Bishopric and the clergy. The Counterreformation’s saints. Victories and withstandings. 7. The Confessional Propaganda and the Acculturation in the Protestant Reformation. Means of propagation. Victories and withstandings. 8. Social and confessional discipline. The Protestant and the Roman Catholic churches. Popular resistance. 9. The new idea about state during the enlightened absolutism. Sources of ideas, models and debates. 10. The Enlightened Absolutism’s Reformation Programme. The areas and reasons of reforms. Ruling practices. The impact and posterity of reformism. 11. The Toleration Policy. The genesis of the concept. The ordinances of toleration. The different significations of toleration. 12. Theological and political meanings of doctrinal controversies in the early modern era. Theology and politics. The main doctrinal controversies. Church and state. 13. Church and state in Eastern Europe, between traditionalism and modernization challenges. Tradition / traditions in Eastern Orthodox churches. Attempts to reform. Consequences of secularization process. 14. Conclusions.

Teaching methods:

Lecture, conversation, exemplification.

Learning outcomes:

The study of the process of modernization in Central-Eastern Europe, in the light of the main concepts “confession” and “diversity”; Identifying and making use of sources, published and unpublished, which can provide new insights for research on these lines; Concrete production of new historical knowledge on the basis of deeper insights within the study of above referred historical subject.

Learning outcomes verification and assessment criteria:

Oral exam – 50%; Frequency and oral presentation of a research paper – 50%.

Recommended reading:

Beales, Derek, Enlightenment and Reform in Eighteenth-Century Europe, I. B. Tauris, 2005,
Bushkovitch, Paul, Religion and Society in Russia. The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Oxford University Press, 1992,
Forster, Marc, Catholic Revival in the Age of the Baroque. Religious Identity in Southwest Germany, 1550-1750, Cambridge University Press, 2004,
Scribner, Bob, Roy Porter, Mikulás Teich (Eds.), The Reformation in National Context, Cambridge University Press, 1994,
Schilling, Heinz, Religion, Political Culture and the Emergence of Early Modern Society. Essays in German and Dutch History, Brill, 1992,