Sacred History

Uses of the Christian Past in the Renaissance World

Edited by Katherine Van Liere, Simon Ditchfield, and Howard Louthan

368 pages | 2 maps, 8 black and white images | 234x156mm

978-0-19-959479-5 | Hardback | June 2012 (estimated)

Price: £65.00

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Written by leading scholars in Renaissance and Reformation history, combining the latest expertise on Sacred History in one accessible volume
Provides cultural and geographical breadth (treats both Catholic and Protestant sources and writings from western and central Europe and Asia)
Accessibly written for non-specialists, providing clear cross references and chronologies in the text
Includes a synthetic bibliography to assist researchers and students

This volume provides the first geographically broad, comparative survey of early modern 'sacred history', or writing on the history of the Christian Church, its leaders and saints, and its institutional and doctrinal developments, in the two centuries from c. 1450-1650. With deep medieval roots, ecclesiastical history was generally a conservative enterprise, often serving to reinforce confessional, national, regional, dynastic, or local identities. But writers of sacred history innovated in research methods and in techniques of scholarly production, especially after the advent of print. The demand for sacred history was particularly acute in the various movements for religious reform, in both Catholic and Protestant traditions. After the Renaissance, many writers sought to apply humanist critical principles to writing about the church, but the sceptical thrust of humanist historiography threatened to undermine many ecclesiastical traditions, and religious historians often had to wrestle with tensions between criticism and piety.

Thirteen thematic chapters examine the influence of Renaissance humanism, religious reform, and other political, intellectual, and social developments of these two centuries on the writing of ecclesiastical history in its various forms. These diverse genres, inherited from medieval culture, included saints' lives, diocesan histories, national chronicles, and travel accounts. Early chapters examine Catholic and Protestant traditions of sacred historiography in western Europe, especially Italy and Switzerland. Subsequent chapters examine particular instances of sacred historiography in Germany, central Europe, Spain, England, Ireland, France, and Portuguese India; and developments in Christian art historiography and Holy Land antiquarianism.

Readership: Students and scholars of early modern church history; of early modern European literatures

Edited by Katherine Van Liere, Professor, Department of History, Calvin College, Simon Ditchfield, Reader in History, University of York, and Howard Louthan, Professor, Department of History, University of Florida

Katherine Van Liere is professor of history at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She specializes in the intellectual and cultural history of early modern Spain, and has published numerous articles on Renaissance humanism, education, and historiography. Her current research focuses on the historical writings of Ambrosio de Morales and Antonio Agustín.

Simon Ditchfield is reader in history at the University of York, England. He specialises in Roman Catholic history writing and uses of the past in early modern society (especially Italy). He is currently completing a history about the making of Roman Catholicism as a world religion for the Oxford History of the Christian Church series to be published by OUP. His next project will be a study of the world history of the Society of Jesus by Daniello Bartoli (1608-85).

Howard Louthan is professor of history at the University of Florida. He specializes in the cultural and intellectual history of early modern central Europe. His most recent book examines the Catholic Reformation in seventeenth and eighteenth-century Bohemia. His current research focuses on the Reformation in Poland.

Contributors:
Adam Beaver, Princeton University.
Liam Brockey, Michigan State University.
Euan Cameron, Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York.
David Collins, S.J., Georgetown University.
Simon Ditchfield, University of York, UK.
Anthony Grafton, Princeton University.
Giuseppe Guazzelli, Sapienza University, Rome.
Jean-Marie Le Gall, University of Rennes II.
Howard Louthan, University of Florida.
Rosamund Oates, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.
Irina Oryshkevich, Princeton University.
Salvador Ryan, St Patrick's College, the Pontifical University, Maynooth.
Katherine Van Liere, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Sacred History

Uses of the Christian Past in the Renaissance World

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