Religion, Historical Method, and Historical Forces: A Rejoinder

Abstract

Although Henry Heller has largely misunderstood the principal points I was trying to make in my review essay, Putting Religion Back into the Wars of he has raised some very important issues concerning historical method which are worth discussing. To someone who was given the task by the editors to survey the field of recent work on the Wars of Religion, however, the comments of Heller seem a bit like shooting the messenger who brings bad news. Nowhere does he suggest I misrepresented the direction of current work in the field, nor does he deny that his own book runs counter to this direction; therefore, I can only assume that he disagrees with the other authors whose work I reviewed as much as he disagrees with me. Nevertheless, I think the readers of this journal, most of whom are not specialists of the sixteenth century, might gain much more from a general discussion of these larger historical issues than from a systematic, point by point rebuttal of Heller's criticisms against me. (Should any reader prefer the latter, I would be happy to respond.) There are three areas upon which I wish to focus: the definition of religion and its role or function in society, on which I think Heller and I largely agree; historical method and approaches to the past; and historical forces. On these latter two topics we clearly do not agree. Despite Heller's concentration on religion in his reply and his insistence that this is where our disagreements lie, it is not the issue of religion but of historical method and historical forces where we part company. Heller has misunderstood my main argument. I clearly did not write, nor did I intend or imply, as he contends, that religion in the