Living with Religious Diversity in Early-Modern Europe

Current scholarship continues to emphasise the both the importance, and the sheer diversity, of religious beliefs within early modern societies. Furthermore, it continues to show that, despite the wishes of secular and religious leaders, confessional uniformity was in very many cases impossible to enforce. As the essays in this collection make clear, many people in Reformation Europe were forced to confront the unfamiliar reality of divided religious loyalties, of accommodating a stubborn religious minority who refused to conform with the majority, or with living in communion with those of different faiths. Drawing together a number of case studies from diverse parts of Europe, Living with Faiths explores the processes involved with groups of differing confessions living together - sometimes grudgingly, but often with a benign pragmatism that stood in opposition to the will of their rulers. By focussing on these themes it bridges the gap between our understanding of the confessional developments as they were conceived, and of religious culture at the level of implementation. In other words, measuring the religious policies articulated by secular and ecclesiastical elites against the 'lived experience' of people going about their daily business. In so doing, the collection shows how people perceived and experienced the religious upheavals of the confessional age and how they were able to assimilate these changes within the framework of their lives.