The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation: 4 volumes: print and e-reference editions available Book

Comprising four volumes, 1,200 articles, and more than 1.3 million words, the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation is a unique compendium of contemporary scholarship focusing on the entire range of religious and social changes wrought by the Reformation, including not only issues of church polity and theology but also related developments in politics, economics, demographics, art, and literature. This broadly cast, interdisciplinary definition allows for a picture of the Reformation that escapes the narrow confines of theology and ecclesiology in favor of a comprehensive social and intellectual history of not only Western Europe and the British Isles but also southern Europe, Scandinavia, and east-central Europe in the early modern period. The unique breadth of coverage makes it an unparalleled source of information on the personalities and events of the era. Topical categories of coverage include sites, regions, and polities; historical events; religious groups and movements; ecclesiastical institutions; creeds, confessions, and texts; theology; social history; and popular religion, as well as biographies and Reformation studies. The alphabetically arranged articles range from brief 300-word biographies of minor figures to major interpretive and synthetic treatments of topics such as the Eucharist, Lutheranism, the Catholic Reformation, cities, Calvinism, women, the Radical Reformation, law, education, Jews, humanism, the Bible, social welfare, justification, and art. Related entries cover such subjects as saints and sainthood, literacy, the French Wars of Religion, the Augsburg Confession, the Council of Trent, music, the Holy Roman Empire, persecution, apocalypticism, peasants, and magistracy. Setting the issues of theology and ecclesiology within the broader context of the social and intellectual history of the era, the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation transcends the bounds of denominational encyclopedias and dictionaries of Reformation history currently available, with contributors representing a variety of national and academic perspectives. An index and an extensive system of cross-references give the reader easy access to the network of interrelated articles throughout the encyclopedia. Offering exhaustive interdisciplinary and international coverage of all aspects of the Reformation, this work has no peer in either scope or depth.Read More