Rural Society and the Search for Order in Early Modern Germany

by Thomas Robisheaux

Overview

Sixteenth-century Europeans launched a struggle for order with an intensity and urgency that finds no parallels in modern European history. For the rural societies of Germany, the early sixteenth century brought massive upheavals that eroded the basis of social, political, economic, and religious life. In this probing study of village life, based on rich manuscript sources from the Old County of Hohenlohe, the author seeks to understand how petty German princes, Lutheran pastors, and villagers struggled to create order out of their confusing world. He shows that the foundations for social stability so evident in Germany after 1648 were laid in the forgotten era of German history, in the years after the early Reformation and before the Thirty Years' War.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521356268
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	04/28/1989
Pages:	316
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.33(h) x 1.06(d)

About the Author

Thomas Robisheaux, a professor of history at Duke University, is the author of Rural Society and the Search for Order in Early Modern Germany. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations and tables; Acknowledgements; A note on usages; Glossary; List of abbreviations; introduction; Part I. Agrarian Expansion, Revolt and the Decay of Community: 1. Anatomy of a rural society; 2. Peasants' war and reformation; 3. Rich and poor; Part II. Search for Order: 4. Reformation, patriarchy and marital discipline; 5. Defending the patrimony; 6. The unchristian economy; 7. Threat of revolt; Part III. Crisis and Recovery: 8. Crisis; 9. Agrarian order restored; 10. Village society and the practice of state power; Appendices; Manuscript sources; Bibliographical essay; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"Thomas Robisheaux provides a welcome addition to the growing body of literature on what has until very recently been a rather neglected period of German history—that between the the Peace of Augsburg and the Thirty Years' War. His meticulously researched and gracefully written book examines rural life in the small patrimonial estate of Hohenlohe in southwest Germany from roughly 1500 to 1680, with special emphasis on the period 1550 to 1620. Using an enviable variety of sources, Robisheaux both tests the theories of other historians regarding peasants and other rural groups and develops his own. The author uses a good blend of statistics, narrative, and analysis, and includes a chapter-by-chapter bibliographic essay rather than a standard bibliography." Merry E. Wiesner, The Sixteenth Century Journal

From the Publisher