Catholic Revival in the Age of the Baroque

Description

This book is a study of Catholic reform, popular Catholicism, and the development of confessional identity in southwest Germany. Based on extensive archival study, it argues that Catholic confessional identity developed primarily from the identification of villagers and townspeople with the practices of Baroque Catholicism - particularly pilgrimages, processions, confraternities, and the Mass. Thus the book is in part a critique of the confessionalisation thesis which currently dominates scholarship in this field. The book is not however focused narrowly on the concerns of German historians. An analysis of popular religious practice and of the relationship between parishioners and the clergy in villages and small towns allows for a broader understanding of popular Catholicism, especially in the period after 1650. Local Baroque Catholicism was ultimately a successful convergence of popular and elite, lay and clerical elements, which led to an increasingly elaborate religious style.

First Sentence

Southwest Germany, like the rest of Catholic Europe, experienced the Counter-Reformation in the form of measures taken by both the Church and Catholic states to combat the spread of Protestantism.

Subjects

Other Editions

• Catholic Revival in the Age of the Baroque: Religious Identity in Southwest Germany, 15501750 (New Studies in European History)HardcoverCambridge University Press2001-02-05
• Catholic Revival in the Age of the BaroqueE-bookCambridge University Press2001-01-01
• Catholic Revival in the Age of the BaroquePaperbackCambridge University Press2007-05-21
• Catholic Revival in the Age of the BaroqueCambridge University Press2009-01-01