Converting Bohemia: Force and Persuasion in the Catholic Reformation

by Howard Louthan

Overview

Prior to the Thirty Years War, almost all of Bohemia's population lay outside the Catholic fold, yet by the beginning of the eighteenth century the kingdom was clearly under Rome's influence. Few regions in Europe's history have ever experienced such a complete religious transformation; because of this, Bohemia offers a unique window for examining the Counter-Reformation and the nature of early modern Catholicism. Converting Bohemia presents a full assessment of the Catholic Church's re-establishment in the Czech lands, arguing that this complex phenomenon was less a product of violence and force than of negotiation and persuasion. Ranging from art, architecture and literature to music, philosophy and hagiography, Howard Louthan's study reintegrates the region into the broader European world where it played such a prominent role in the early modern period. It will be of particular interest to scholars of early modern European history, religion, and Reformation studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521889292
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	02/12/2009
Series:	New Studies in European History
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Howard Louthan is Associate Professor in the History Department, University of Florida. He is the author of The Quest for Compromise: Peacemakers in Counter-Reformation Vienna (1997).

Table of Contents

Introduction: a tale of two windows: framing the history of early modern Bohemia; 1. Severed heads and holy bones: authority and culture in post-White Mountain Bohemia; 2. Reshaping identity and reforming the kingdom: confessional change and the nobility; 3. 'Monarchs of Knowledge': mastering dissent in post-White Mountain Bohemia; 4. Finding a holy past: antiquarianism and Catholic revival; 5. Reshaping the landscape: art and confessional identity; 6. Formation of the faithful: Catholicism in the countryside; 7. Sermons, songs and scripture: reforming believers by the word; 8. Pilgrimage and popular piety; 9. Making Bohemia holy: Christian saints and Jewish martyrs; Conclusion: between force and persuasion.

Editorial Reviews

"This well-researched, beautifully written, and flawlessly argued book greatly enhances understanding of 17th-century Bohemia's conversion from a hotbed of religious unrest to a bastion of Catholicism. Essential." -Choice

"...this volume makes an impressive and powerful contribution to both confessional history in Reformation and post-Reformation Europe and to Czech history. Both fields will not be studied and written about in the same way as a result of this book." -Renaissance Quarterly, Paul W. Knoll

From the Publisher