JWST2225 - Religious Conflict and Coexistence in Early Modern Europe

Europe’s early modern period (roughly 1450-1750) has been described an “age of religious wars,” with the Reformation and contact with the New World prompting the formation of new fault lines, new collectives, and the reshaping of old animosities in new expressions. It was a period of bloody riots between Catholics and Protestants, expulsions of Jews and Muslims, prosecution of heretics, martyrdoms of saints, and inquisitions of witches. But it was also an age of living together, of pragmatism, and of coexistence. This seminar explores the complexities and curiosities of religious intellectual, political, social, and daily life as people across religious lines clashed, cooperated, communicated, and carried-on. We will explore the experiences both of influential thinkers but also ordinary people, and ask how and why people were willing, in the name of religion, to persecute, prosecute, fight, kill, and die, and how others traded and traveled together, defended each other, and even married across religious lines.