HIST 311 | Age of Reformation

The Reformation touched off a series of revolutions whose repercussions still echo through our society 500 years on. Using the new medium of print, reformers and their opponents appealed to public opinion, spurring a communications revolution with far-reaching implications for literacy and the democratization of knowledge. Out of these debates emerged new models of citizenship and popular resistance, as well as new understandings of marriage and family life. Over a century of religious war in Europe divided states, rulers, and neighbors against one another, altering the balance of power across Europe and encouraging new discourses of religious freedom and individual autonomy. This course explores this tumultuous time through the experiences of individual men and women from different walks of life, building a comparative understanding of Reformation in the German states, Swiss cantons, France, and England in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.