Abstract A recent wave of research across several fields has emphasized the seriality of print media like journals and periodicals, especially for the late 19th and 20th centuries, when such formats were essentially the New Media of their day. Previous studies, like Benedict Anderson’s now classical thesis on post-colonial nationalism in Imagined Communities (1983) have born out the powers of novel forms and circuits of communication to create and promote association, companionship, and social cohesion, especially for the larger constellation of national boundaries, cultural identities, and confessional divisions that still determine today’s world. This special issue investigates the same formative potential, but concerning the periphery of the Islamicate Middle East, as it were, namely in relation to either diaspora networks and minority communities or to other seemingly marginal cases far away from the symbolic centers of the Muslim World. Viewed before the background of the regional and confessional patterns of book culture, early print history, and mediated community formation prior to the large-scale adoption of printing since the second half of the 19th century, the contexts and dynamics under study here reveal developments with a pronounced translocal and entangled character. Drawing on the methodological approach of Periodical Studies, the role and effect of print periodicals for communities on the Islamicate periphery are conceptualized along the lines of Birgit Meyer’s Aesthetic Formations (2009).

This study explores the evolution of academic peregrination in Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with a particular focus on students from the Kingdom of Hungary. It examines how the expansion of universities and the impact of the Reformation reshaped student mobility across the continent.In the fifteenth century, the rise of regional universities led to a decline in international student migration, although Italian institutions like Padua, Bologna, and Ferrara remained popular for legal and medical studies. Hungarian students, lacking domestic universities, pursued education abroad, primarily in Vienna and Krakow, and also in Italy and France.The sixteenth century brought significant changes due to confessional divisions. Protestant students increasingly attended newly founded or reformed institutions such as Wittenberg, Marburg, and Heidelberg, while Catholic students gravitated toward Jesuit-led universities like Graz, Dillingen, and Ingolstadt. Confessional loyalty influenced university choice, with restrictions imposed by rulers to ensure ideological conformity.Hungarian academic peregrination mirrored broader European trends. While Wittenberg became the leading destination for Hungarian Protestants, Vienna and Padua remained important centers for Catholic students. The study draws on extensive archival sources, including rectoral registers and academic databases (RAG, RAH), to trace student movements and institutional preferences.Ultimately, the research highlights how geopolitical, religious, and cultural factors shaped the academic journeys of Hungarian students within the dynamic landscape of early modern European higher education.

Abstract Around the turn of the 17th century, the Swedish antiquary and mystic Johannes Bureus (1568–1652) claimed to have discovered the primordial theology and science of his Scandinavian ancestors encoded in their system of writing, the runic alphabet, inspired in large part by earlier Christian interpretations of the Kabbalah. In the leadup to the Swedish intervention in the Thirty Years’ War, he viewed the discovery as the ecumenical solution to the confessional divisions that were rending Europe asunder. This article explores how Bureus’s simultaneously typical and idiosyncratic engagement with the Kabbalah originated, what functions it served in his broader antiquarian program, and how it evolved to adapt to the shifting contours of Protestant scholarship in the first half of the 17th century.

In 1577 the market town of Bungay, on the Norfolk/Suffolk border, was riven by a grotesque and unusual event. During a storm, several members of the congregation were killed or injured, apparently by the appearance of the Devil in the guise of a demonic black hound. Anchored by this legendary appearance of “Black Shuck,” this study centres on a microhistorical investigation of the town of Bungay in the years leading up to the ominous events of 1577, through a previously neglected set of sources — two sets of unusually complete and comprehensive churchwardens' accounts for the two parishes in Bungay, which cover the entire period of the early Elizabethan Reformation. This allows us to appreciate these events in the context of a renewed interest in the 1560s and early 1570s as a time of fractiousness, insecurity, and religious uncertainty. The events of 1577 were perhaps only a dark capstone on a decade or more of severe disputes at the grassroots, engendered by growing confessional divisions and a crystallising sense of traditionalist versus Puritan cultural identities.

Religious Terminology in Romanian and Confessional Divisions – the Orthodox and Greek Catholic Versions of the Divine Liturgy The articles presents some differences regarding the terminology used by the Romanian Orthodox Church, on the one hand, and the Romanian Church United with Rome, Greek-Catholic, on the other. The analysis is based on the text of the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom. The differences concern not only strictly religious terms, but also neutral words. This seems to be the result of a deliberate linguistic policy of the Greek Catholic Church, which often uses different terms than the Romanian Orthodox Church. The Orthodox terms in question were borrowed from Slavonic or Greek, while the Greek Catholic terms are Romanian words inherited from Latin or recent loanwords from Latin and modern Romance languages.

The purpose of this article is a stylistic analysis of the musical and artistic tendencies of eighteenth-century German music, in which not only the antitheses of the respective typological achievements, but also their certain diffuse vagueness, their connection with the political background of the convergence of confessional divisions, with a complex interweaving of religious and national-social factors – constituted the fertile ground for creative discoveries correlated with the "disappearance of trends" in post-avant-garde music. The research methodology is the intonation approach, as it was mentioned in the works of B. Asaf'ev's followers in Ukraine (see publications of D. Androsova, O. Markova, O. Muravska), as well as based on the development of the instrumental performance of the Odessa school (works by Z Bukatskyi, K. Mülberg). The scientific novelty of the work is noted in the originality of the presentation of the meaning of the stylistic diffusions of instrumental art of this era and the basic understanding of the ecclesiastical expressive component in them, which provided and provides an independent stylistic flavour with appropriate typological combinations, correlated with the playful mosaicism of post-avant-garde and post-post-avant-garde of the present. Conclusions. The stylistic eclecticism of the Baroque and Early Classical period of German art is based, firstly, on the religious and applied inseparability of the principles of Italian and German instrumentalism of the eighteenth century against the background of the existence of the German cultural idea and the coexistence of national traditions with it and the inertia of the latter’s unity in cultural use. And, secondly, the lack of expression German presence in opera until the 1780s, in which the antithetical positions of the styles were concentrated, stimulated typological intersections in instrumentalism, evaluated in their artistic significance of playful concertos in the post-avant-garde existence. Key words: instrumental music, German style in music, style of the era, baroque, classicism, post-avant-garde.

Abstract This article presents two German Catholic prayer books written by the two sixteenth-century priests Johann Faber OP and Peter Michael Brillmacher SJ – known for their catechetical and apologetical work in areas of confessional division. Adding to the claims by early twentieth-century researchers that these books were used for “resisting and combating Protestantism,” I argue that they were tools for the re-Catholicising of Protestant populations. By referring to the Church fathers “and the old Christians” as proof for the ancient origin and the orthodoxy of beliefs and practices questioned by the Protestant reformers, and by countering “misconceptions” about the Catholic faith, the authors strived to lead their readers in the direction toward “true religion and divine worship.”

At the moment of his coronation or succession, the early modern ruler, whether Catholic or Protestant, took on the role of bishop in the territory he ruled over. In addition, many rulers were imbued with a very real personal faith which underpinned their pious practices and those of their families. The first half of this article examines the monarch’s divine mandate and the reality of piety at court. The second half moves from the notion of religion as the foundation of the monarchical state, irrespective of confessional difference, to the impact that post-Reformation confessional divisions had on the lives of royal women by determining their marriage partners. It also discusses the way in which religion provided them with comfort in times of sorrow and the way in which they used the convent as a refuge from the world of the court.

The paper analyzes the forms of representation of authority over Ireland in John Lynch’s “Cambrensis Eversus” (1662). In polemic with Gerald of Wales and the English/British tradition of representation of Ireland, Lynch constructed his own view on history of Ireland and authority over this land. The first level of representation is the authority of ancient Irish kings. In this sense Lynch emphasized the contract between Irish kings and people. Moreover, Lynch modernized the image of power of ancient Irish kings, using the terms and concepts of early modern intellectual discourse. The second level is the papal authority and in this case Lynch denied any claims of Rome. The third level are the issues of legitimacy and values of authority of Anglo-Norman and Old English. In Lynch’s view, English kings before Stuarts haven’t had enough loyalty from Irish people. And the last level is Stuart’s authority over Ireland. On this level Lynch synthesized the discourse practices of other levels to construct the legitimacy of restored dynasty and to prove loyalty of whole Irish people without ethnic and confessional divisions.

The article attempts to recreate the process of organizational development of the Luhansk eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Autocephalous Synodal Church of 1922-1936. It was found out that due to the conditions of aggravation of confessional division the representatives of the renewal movement managed to minimize their reformation provisions during 1926-1928. The Synodal Church managed to stabilize the institutional crisis. With the appointment of Bishop Veniamin to a vacant for a long time throne, with the active support of local authorities, the Luhansk diocese has reached its greatest development, covering in its structure about a quarter of the Orthodox communities of the district. It is determined that since the Ukrainian-centric ideological principles of the Synodal Church were not fully embodied in the practical activities of the renewal clergy, the emergence of the Conciliar Episcopal Church as a relatively canonical alternative Reformation denomination of Ukrainian Orthodoxy became relevant in Ukraine. In particular, in the Luhansk region, as a result of the unconstructive methods of Bishop’s Photius (Topiro) governing, it was the local diocese of the UCEC that became a refuge for the renewal communities, almost doubling the number of its own parishes during 1928-1929. It is proved that the development of the Synodal Church in the Luhansk region was marked by the lack of an effective system of government, the low discipline of the clergy, and especially given the change in state policy in the field of religion. The historical circumstances of the confessional division of Ukrainian Orthodoxy in the interwar period on the example of a separate region are highlighted. Further research on this topic requires clarification of a number of ethnocultural, political, linguistic, and canonical issues of local renewal communities, which will expand the understanding of the religious worldview of the local population and propose new conceptual approaches to overcoming church divisions.

Bosnia and Herzegovina represents a very suitable experimental space for the analysis of integrative policy in the conditions, war and long-lasting crisis, of a devastated society which, due to the challenges of history, is deeply divided. In such a space, applying the analytical model designed and used by Seymour Lipset and Stein Rokan, the paper deals with the detection of social divisions that underlie party preferences in the 1990 elections for the Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Analyzes of pre-election and post-election activities of political entities show the existence of an important link between ethno-confessional characteristics and attitudes on political issues and party preferences, which in accordance with the used theoretical model creates preconditions for talking about social divisions that have turned into party divisions. It can be determined that they are bh. political parties formed, with all their specifics, on the basic lines of Bosnia and Herzegovina social divisions. In the analysis of the relationship between social and political space and the influence of the structure of society on political relations and divisions, it is possible to determine that party divisions and divisions, their segmentation and polarization are conditioned, above all, by the depth and dynamics of fundamental Bosnia and Herzegovina social divisions. The divisions that emerged in the pre-election period of 1990 (we can conditionally define them as divisions communism vs anti-communism) were pushed into the background in the first post-election year and priority was given to the split that S. Lipset and S. Rokan defined as the center-periphery split. (or the territorial-cultural split as, after adaptation, Professor Nenad Zakošek called it). The second part of the paper presents an overview of the most important political parties in the 1990 elections and continues to examine the applicability of S. Lipset and S. Rokan's theory of turning social divisions into party divisions, this time in the first year of ethno-confessional parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Analyzing the basic lines of historical ethnic and confessional divisions in Bosnia and Herzegovina society and in the sphere of political (sub) system through indicators such as: predominant (ethnic, confessional, linguistic, cultural and regional) identifications, the relationship between ethno-confessional and civil, the relationship to the rights and freedoms guaranteed in Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to the Constitution, the attitude towards different solutions to the state question (remaining in the common state of Yugoslavia vs. the independent Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina) tested the hypothesis that historical lines of ethno-confessional splits represent the basic determinant of political goals. It can be seen that the territorial-cultural divide (primarily in the form of center-periphery conflict) is actually a kind of complete split, given that it is a split that involves conflict between stable social groups (residents of the center and periphery but also members of different ethnic and confessional communities). In the Bosnia and Herzegovina case, these are (ethnic and confessional) communities that have different views on the most important issues of the social organization of the common state, which results in open conflict on the political scene in the form of voting for different political options, which can be transformed by ethnopolitical elites. (very easily) into various forms of violence against others and different in the territory that is under their political (and police) control.

Based on the available literature, social division is defined as a measure that separates community members into groups. When it comes to Bosnia and Herzegovina and its population who spoke the same language and shared the same territory, the confessional (millet) division from the time of Turkish rule, as a fundamental social fact on the basis of which the Serbian and Croatian national identity of the Bosnian Catholic and the Orthodox population remained in Bosnia and Herzegovina even after the departure of the Austro-Hungarian administration in 1918. Historical confessional and ethnic divisions that developed in the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian periods became the key and only basis for political and party gatherings and are important for today's Bosnia and Herzegovina segmented society. The paper attempts to examine the applicability of the analytical framework (theory) of Lipset and Rokan (formulated in the 1960s) on social divisions in the case of the elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the Constituent Assembly of the Kingdom of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs in 1920? Elements for the answer can be offered by the analysis of the relationship between the ethno-confessional affiliation of citizens, on the one hand, party affiliation, on the other and their acceptance of certain political attitudes and values on the third side. If there is a significant interrelation, it could be concluded that at least indirectly the lines of social divisions condition the party-political division. The political system, of course, is not just a simple reflex of social divisions. One should first try to find the answer to the initial questions: what are the key lines of social divisions? How do they overlap and intersect? How and under what conditions does the transformation of social divisions into a party system take place? The previously stated social divisions passed through the filter of political entrepreneurs and returned as a political offer in which the specific interests and motives of (ethnic) political entrepreneurs were included and incorporated. After the end of the First World War, ethnic, confessional and cultural divisions were (and still are) very present in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The key lines of division in the ethnic, confessional and cultural spheres, their development and predominantly multipolar (four-polar) character through changes in the forms and breadth of interest and political organization have influenced political options (divisions) and further complicating and strengthening B&H political splits. The concept of cleavage is a mediating concept between the concept of social stratification and its impact on political grouping and political institutions and the political concept that emphasizes the reciprocal influence of political institutions and decisions on changes in social structure. Thanks to political mobilization in ethno-confessional, cultural and class divisions, then the "history of collective memory" and inherited ethno-confessional conflicts, mass political party movements were formed very quickly in Bosnia and Herzegovina as an integral part of the Kingdom of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs ( Yugoslav Muslim organization, Communist Party of Yugoslavia, Yugoslav Democratic Party, Croatian Farmers' Party, Croatian People's Party, Farmers' Union, People's Radical Party ...). The lines of social divisions overlap with ethnic divisions (Yugoslav Muslim Organization, Croatian Farmers' Party, Croatian People's Party, Farmers' Union, People's Radical Party ...) but also intersect them so that several ethnic groups can coexist within the same party-political framework (Communist Party of Yugoslavia). The significant, even crucial influence of party affiliation and identification on the adoption of certain attitudes speaks of the strong feedback of the parties and even of some kind of created party identity. The paper discusses the first elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina organized during the Kingdom of SCS and the formation of Bosnia and Herzegovina's political spectrum on the basic lines of social divisions.

Abstract Structural problems of communities affected by the “Slovak Reformation,” issues with accepting the situation or simply the relationships among various cultural phenomena, like literacy or language policies, are key aspects in studying the impact of the Reformation in Hungary, especially with respect to Slovaks. Information gathered from the Reformation had a direct and long-lasting impact on the formation of vernacular language, as well as on the search for and the construction of an ethnic identity. Searching for evidence left by the Slovak presence in the Reformation movement thus presents challenging though notable problems for Slovak historiography. The confessional division and its political as well as cultural implications have evoked long-lasting discussions among historians as well as politicians. This study focuses on the most relevant issues within these processes.

Abstract This article provides a new perspective on the themes of violence, memory and criminal justice at the end of the Wars of Religion by focusing on a particularly well-documented criminal case tried by the Parlement de Paris. Previous studies of the end of the troubles have often focused on the politics and personality of Henri IV or studied the memory culture of elites. This article instead examines how the witnesses who confronted the royalist military captain Mathurin de La Cange made use of a broad social memory of the civil wars and shows how their use of the courts formed part of a larger pattern of post-war conflict resolution. This was a time when people in France endured decades of warfare and confessional division, but nevertheless emerged determined to put an end to the violence by committing to resolve their disputes through the law.

The paper deals with the Hussite and the Catholic memories concerning the judgment against Jan Hus drawn up by the Council of Constance. The Catholics Dietrich (Theodericus) Vrie and Eberhard Windecke while composing their writings in the 1420s and 1430s misrepresented the proceeding of the year 1415, which they had probably witnessed. They considered Hus to be condemned for heresy because of his misinterpretation of Holy Communion. However, the documents deriving from the time of the Council do not prove this opinion, which could possibly emerged because of the theological and societal clashes between the Catholics and the Utraquists during the Hussite wars. The second chapter discovers two manners the Utraquists memorized Jan Hus: 1) they described the death of Hus similarly to the death of Christ as Vavřinec z Březové did; 2) the Bohemian estates summoned on the Diet in Časlav in the year 1421 (the Utraquists as well as the Catholics) considered the Hus’ death to be an instrument of political pressure against King Sigismund. However, the judgment of 1415 had not instantly created a Hussite identity for those who defended the Utraquism in the 1420s, because the term “Hussite” had been being used by the Catholics as swearword from the very beginning. Finally, there is a conclusion drawn that memory of Jan Hus as well as the term “Hussite” have been an impediment to the societal integration of Bohemian kingdom while emphasizing its confessional division contrary to the attempts of the Utraquists to unite the country in the face of King Sigismund.

This article analyses the initial encounter with epidemic cholera in the Italian cities of Florence, Ferrara and Modena. The large body of scholarship that explores themes related to medical theory, urban infrastructure, and political and social change across the nineteenth century demonstrates the importance of the historical evaluation of cholera epidemics. There is, however, minimal scholarship exploring the relationship between dominant social structures and minority groups. This article illuminates previously unexplored connections between Jews and Christians in relation to urban disease management efforts. Scapegoating Jewish population groups during times of crisis has a long tradition in Europe. A traditional ‘outsider’ subjected to highly institutionalized segregation, the Jews of Italy were readily identifiable. As such, societal anxiety surrounding the horrors of cholera could have easily found release in violence against the Jews. Yet this did not happen during the 1830s. This article seeks to determine why this was the case. Bureaucratic records contained in the municipal archives of these cities shed light on the dynamics of both urban disease management in the early nineteenth century and the interactions between Jews and Christians during this relatively understudied period of Italian history. Analysing the traditional understanding of both disease origin and transmission, in conjunction with the realities of the urban environment, this article concludes that both of these factors mitigated the potential for scapegoating Italian Jews. Jews had been resident ‘outsiders’ in these cities for centuries. However, the quotidian realities of urban life created strong administrative connections between the Jews and the Christian authorities that ultimately overruled the confessional divisions expressed in the walls and gates of the ghettos.

This third volume of Wilckens’s New Testament theology falls, as he admits, outside that genre represented (controversially) by the six books or ‘part-volumes’ of vols. 1 (2002–5) and 2 (2007–9). Volume 1 (in four books) presents a ‘history of early Christian theology’, and the more ‘dogmatic’ (his word) and thematic volume 2 explains the hermeneutical principles which allow him to present the results of historical exegesis as the foundation of normative church doctrine. It clarifies the ‘inner connections’ in the ‘elemental themes’ of the New Testament, 11 of which get a chapter each in 2, 2. Volume 3 is in effect an appendix, delivering what was promised (and its conclusions anticipated) in the Introduction to the whole work (2002) and sketched in a short book, Kritik der Bibelkritik, in 2012. It is a ‘critical history of (New Testament) historical criticism’ designed to make a case: the roots of modern biblical criticism can be found in the Enlightenment’s reaction against the confessional divisions of Christianity responsible for the wars of religion. Its rational criticism of dogma, and of some of the Bible’s science, history, and morality, did not often entail disbelief in God but led to a historical study of the Bible independent of religious belief. This removed normative talk of God from biblical scholarship. Wilckens considers that disastrous for the Christian church, and his multi-volume work seeks to overcome it by building the methods, debates, and conclusions of his historical scholarship into a frame which, unlike most New Testament theologies, is explicitly theological. This book-length epilegomena, like Bultmann’s shorter one, provides some history of scholarship but also makes more room for the alternative stream that he himself advocates, presenting his readers in conclusion with an Either-Or: either a scholarship which acknowledges the reality of God and the historical resurrection of Jesus, or one that does not.

Reviewed by: Un prélat français de la Renaissance: Le Cardinal de Lorraine entre Reims et l’Europe ed. by Jean Balsamo, Thomas Nicklas, Bruno Restif Brian Sandberg Un prélat français de la Renaissance: Le Cardinal de Lorraine entre Reims et l’Europe. Edited by Jean Balsamo, Thomas Nicklas, and Bruno Restif. [Travaux d’humanisme et Renaissance, No DXLVI.] (Geneva: Librairie Droz. 2015. Pp. 472. $66.00 paperback. ISBN 978-2-600-01889-0.) Charles de Lorraine, cardinal de Lorraine and archbishop of Reims, became one of the principal leaders of the Catholic reform in France during the mid-sixteenth century. A member of the Guise branch of the Lorraine dynasty, Charles de Lorraine (1524–1574) personified a Renaissance prince and a reforming prelate during a tumultuous period of religious change and confessional division. His religious and political engagement in the first two decades of the French Wars of Religion (1559–1629) made him a controversial and polarizing figure. Un prélat français de la Renaissance. Le Cardinal de Lorraine entre Reims et l’Europe offers a historical portrait of the cardinal de Lorraine from various perspectives. This collective volume publishes twenty-five essays by historians, art historians, literary scholars, and other specialists on the cardinal de Lorraine and his historical context. The volume produces a nuanced view of the cardinal as a religio-political leader and a literary and artistic patron (Jean Balsamo, Bruno Restif). Several essays treat the documentary record and historiographical literature on the cardinal de Lorraine (Vladimir Chichkine, Isabelle de Conihout, Antoine Pietrobelli, Claude Langlois, Jean-Marie Le Gall). Charles de Lorraine served as archbishop of Reims and also played numerous other clerical roles. He embodied a reforming bishop, transforming his diocese of Reims into a major center of Catholic reform (Bruno Restif). Isabelle Balsamo assesses the archbishop’s artistic patronage in the cathedral of Reims, while Patrick Demouy focuses on the devotional activities and penitential processions that he encouraged. The cardinal promoted Catholic reform throughout the kingdom by sponsoring Jesuit missions in France and supporting other religious orders (Madeleine Molin). Joseph Bergin analyzes the “ecclesiastical empire of the Guises,” focusing particularly on the cardinal de Lorraine’s role as abbot of the royal abbey of Saint-Denis, where royal family members were interred. As archbishop of Reims, Lorraine crowned three French kings and engaged in religious politics in order to promote Catholic reform in the kingdom. The cardinal and his brother—François de Lorraine, duc de Guise—advised the young François II during his short reign (1559–1560). Charles de Lorraine maintained a broad clientele in the province of Champagne and beyond through his benefices and urban associations (Mark Konnert and Mark Greengrass). Charles de Lorraine’s attitudes toward heresy gradually shifted between the 1540s and 1570s. Theologian Claude d’Espence provided the young cardinal with spiritual guidance, but the he later fell under suspicion of heresy (Peter Walter). The cardinal promoted a religious reform program based on religious harmony and Christian unity in the mid-sixteenth century (Alain Tallon). Lorraine later organized a major theological discussion between Catholic and Calvinist theologians at the Colloquy of Poissy (1561), but the meeting utterly failed to produce any theological [End Page 352] compromise between the increasingly divided confessions (Max Engam-mare). The cardinal de Lorraine seems to have gradually embraced strict anti-heresy policies, pressing for executions of Huguenots who had participated in the Conspiracy of Amboise and justifying massacres of Protestants. Calvinist writers such as François Hotman demonized the cardinal as a “tiger” and a “viper” for his “cruelty and avarice” toward Protestants. Hugues Daussy traces the crystallization of this negative image of the cardinal. Lorraine engaged in European politics through relationships in Germany, Italy, Scotland, and the Netherlands (Eric Durot, Matteo Provasi, Federica Veratelli, Jules Versele, and François Pernot). The cardinal de Lorraine conducted several diplomatic missions and acted as one of the main negotiators for the peace of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559 (Thomas Nicklas). He participated in the papal conclave for the election of Julius III, and his brother, the cardinal de Guise, took part in two additional conclaves (Alain Cullière). Yet, electoral...

How were the Reformation and a variety of different confessionalisations manifested in materialculture? The article discusses this issue by presenting a dozen examples of works of artrelating to the present territory of Latvia. In 1521, when urban citizens there responded tothe ideas of the Reformation for the first time, a large part of present-day Latvia belonged toa conglomerate of various holdings called the Livonian Confederation. The religious polarisationof society characteristic of the early period of the Reformation (the 1520s) is representedin works of art discussed in the first chapter. The second chapter discusses works from theperiod of political instability caused by the First Northern War (1558–1583). It is characterisedby Livonia’s political, cultural and confessional division, of which representations can also beseen in many examples of the visual arts. KEY WORDS: Livonia, Reformation, confessionalisation, visual art.

ABSTRACTFrench historians and French history have dominated the study of early modern violence. This essay addresses why this is so and what has characterized French historians' approaches to collective violence in particular, whether in the form of popular revolt, confessional division, or revolutionary violence. It posits that historians are essentially uncomfortable in defending and explaining popular violence in the past, that they ought to address this issue more directly and not to establish too much cultural distance from their subjects in doing so. It concludes with some reflections on approaches to violence in the past and the present, how historians and others talk about and engage with violence, and how its treatment today should inform how historians address the challenges of writing the history of violence in the future.