The Peace of Augsburg and the Meckhart Confession: Moderate Religion in an Age of Militancy (Routledge Research in Early Modern History)

"Taking the religiously diverse city of Augsburg as its focus, this book explores the underappreciated role of local clergy in mediating and interpreting the Peace of Augsburg in the decades following its 1555 enactment, focusing on the efforts of the preacher Johann Meckhart and his heirs in blunting the cultural impact of confessional religion. It argues that the real drama of confessionalization was not simply that which played out between princes and theologians, or even, for that matter, between religions; rather, it lay in the daily struggle of clerics in the proverbial trenches of their ministry, who were increasingly pressured to choose for themselves and for their congregations between doctrinal purity and civil peace"-- Provided by publisher Cover 1 Half Title 2 Series 3 Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 List of Figures 7 List of Abbreviations 8 Acknowledgments 9 1 Introduction 12 2 That Forgotten Place Between Heaven and Hell: Resistance and Compromise During the Augsburg Interim 44 3 The Sin Unconfessed: Meckhart and the Act of Confession 82 4 Dance of the Augsburg Preachers: The Melhorn Controversy and the Culture of Confessionalization 102 5 The Meckhart Confession: Negotiating Moderation 137 6 A Rudderless Ship in Stormy Seas: Conflict, Crisis, and Concord at the Dawn of the Confessional Age 156 7 Hellhounds in the House of Fugger 182 8 The Path of Resistance: Augsburg’s Divergent Evangelical Responses to the Counter Reformation 221 9 The Calendar Riot: Conceptually Expanded, Contextually Explored 260 10 Caught in No-Man’s-Land: The Vocation Controversy 310 11 Conclusion 339 Index 347