King S Sister Queen Of Dissent

This study reconstructs for the first time Marguerite of Navarre s leadership of a broad circle of nobles, prelates, humanist authors, and commoners, who sought to advance the reform of the French church along evangelical (Protestant) lines. Hitherto misunderstood in scholarship, they are revealed to have pursued, despite persecution, a consistent reform program from the Meaux experiment to the end of Francis I s reign through a variety of means: fostering local church reform, publishing a large corpus of religious literature, high-profile public preaching, and attempting to shape the direction of royal policy. Their distinctive doctrines, relations with major reformers including their erstwhile colleague Calvin involvement in major Reformation events, and the impact of their unsuccessful attempt are all explored.

The first major study of the early Reformation and the Polish monarchy for over a century, this volume asks why Crown and church in the reign of King Sigismund I (1506-1548) did not persecute Lutherans. It offers a new narrative of Luther's dramatic impact on this monarchy - which saw violent urban Reformations and the creation of Christendom's first Lutheran principality by 1525 - placing these events in their comparative European context. King Sigismund's realm appears to offer a major example of sixteenth-century religious toleration: the king tacitly allowed his Hanseatic ports to enact local Reformations, enjoyed excellent relations with his Lutheran vassal duke in Prussia, allied with pro-Luther princes across Europe, and declined to enforce his own heresy edicts. Polish church courts allowed dozens of suspected Lutherans to walk free. Examining these episodes in turn, this study does not treat toleration purely as the product of political calculation or pragmatism. Instead, through close analysis of language, it reconstructs the underlying cultural beliefs about religion and church (ecclesiology) held by the king, bishops, courtiers, literati, and clergy - asking what, at heart, did these elites understood 'Lutheranism' and 'catholicism' to be? It argues that the ruling elites of the Polish monarchy did not persecute Lutheranism because they did not perceive it as a dangerous Other - but as a variant form of catholic Christianity within an already variegated late medieval church, where social unity was much more important than doctrinal differences between Christians. Building on John Bossy and borrowing from J.G.A. Pocock, it proposes a broader hypothesis on the Reformation as a shift in the languages and concept of orthodoxy.

Since David Hume, the interpretation of miracle stories has been dominated in the West by the binary distinction of fact vs. fiction. The form-critical method added another restriction to the interpretation of miracles by neglecting the context of its macrotexts. Last but not least the hermeneutics of demythologizing was interested in the self-understanding of individuals and not in political perspectives. The book revisits miracle stories with regard to these dimensions: 1. It demands to connect the interpretation of Miracle Stories to concepts of reality. 2. It criticizes the restrictions of the form critical method. 3. It emphasizes the political implications of Miracle Stories and their interpretations. Even the latest research accepts this modern opposition of fact and fiction as self-evident. This book will examine critically these concepts of reality with interpretations of miracles. The book will address how concepts of reality, always complex, came to expression in stories of miraculous healings and their reception in medicine, art, literature, theology and philosophy, from classic antiquity to the Middle Ages. Only through such bygone concepts, contemporary interpretations of ancient healings can gain plausibility.

Death is not only the final moment of life, it also casts a huge shadow on human society at large. People throughout time have had to cope with death as an existential experience, and this also, of course, in the premodern world. The contributors to the present volume examine the material and spiritual conditions of the culture of death, studying specific buildings and spaces, literary works and art objects, theatrical performances, and medical tracts from the early Middle Ages to the late eighteenth century. Death has always evoked fear, terror, and awe, it has puzzled and troubled people, forcing theologians and philosophers to respond and provide answers for questions that seem to evade real explanations. The more we learn about the culture of death, the more we can comprehend the culture of life. As this volume demonstrates, the approaches to death varied widely, also in the Middle Ages and the early modern age. This volume hence adds a significant number of new facets to the critical examination of this ever-present phenomenon of death, exploring poetic responses to the Black Death, types of execution of a female murderess, death as the springboard for major political changes, and death reflected in morality plays and art.

During a pivotal point in Spanish history, aristocrat María de Guevara (?–1683) produced two extraordinary essays that appealed for strong leadership, protested political corruption, and demanded the inclusion of women in the court’s decision making. “Treaty” gave Philip IV practical suggestions for fighting the war against Portugal and “Disenchantments” counseled the king-to-be, Charles II, on strategies to raise the country’s status in Europe. This annotated bilingual edition, featuring Nieves Romero-Díaz’s adroit translation, reproduces Guevara’s polemics for the first time. Guevara’s provocative writings call on Spanish women to bear the responsibility equally with men for restoring Spain’s power in Europe and elsewhere. The collection also includes examples of Guevara’s shorter writings that exemplify her ability to speak on matters of state, network with dignitaries, and govern family affairs. Witty, ironic, and rhetorically sophisticated, Guevara’s essays provide a fresh perspective on the possibilities for women in the public sphere in seventeenth-century Spain.

During the glory days of the French Renaissance, young John Calvin (1509-1564) experienced a profound conversion to the faith of the Reformation. For the rest of his days he lived out the implications of that transformation—as exile, inspired reformer, and ultimately the dominant figure of the Protestant Reformation. Calvin's vision of the Christian religion has inspired many volumes of analysis, but this engaging biography examines a remarkable life. Bruce Gordon presents Calvin as a human being, a man at once brilliant, arrogant, charismatic, unforgiving, generous, and shrewd. The book explores with particular insight Calvin's self-conscious view of himself as prophet and apostle for his age and his struggle to tame a sense of his own superiority, perceived by others as arrogance. Gordon looks at Calvin's character, his maturing vision of God and humanity, his personal tragedies and failures, his extensive relationships with others, and the context within which he wrote and taught. What emerges is a man who devoted himself to the Church, inspiring and transforming the lives of others, especially those who suffered persecution for their religious beliefs.

The letters in this volume cover Erasmus' correspondence from March to December 1527. These 129 letters centre primarily on Erasmus' continuing struggle with his Catholic critics, especially those in Spain and France, and on Erasmus' growing criticism of the Protestant reform movement. The letters show Erasmus' attempts to justify his position and to win favour with rulers, other prestigious men, and powerful institutions, all influential in both secular and religious spheres. Although the Inquisition in Spain investigated his orthodoxy and did not bring charges against him, the Paris Faculty of Theology formally condemned 112 propositions drawn from Erasmus' works in December 1527. The letters in this volume, written by and to Erasmus in this critical time, represent a unique view of a Europe torn by war and breaking apart into religious confessionalism and regionally organized churches. Throughout all this controversy, Erasmus repeatedly protested that the sole aim of his life's work was to promote the study of humanities for the profit of both knowledge and religion. Volume 13 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.