The Reformation: Tolerance and Intolerance in Early Modern Society

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This module focuses on the political and socio-cultural impact of the Reformation. It will trace its beginnings in 1517, when the scholarly monk Martin Luther defied pope and emperor by refusing to retract his criticisms of catholic doctrines and devotions, such as indulgences. It will examine the origins of the protest, asking what longer term political, cultural and social trends contributed to its outbreak, and transformed an isolated intellectual debate into a revolution. It will also trace the rapid growth of support for dissent and reform, followed by the radicalisation and fragmentation of the new movement as it spread across the German lands, and into Switzerland, France, and the Low Countries.